Jon Berndt Olsen

Associate Professor of History, Associate Chair

Faculty
Jon Berndt Olsen
Contact
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Location
Herter Hall 710

OFFICE HOURS

BACKGROUND

Professor Jon Olsen's first book, Tailoring Truth: Politicizing the Past and Negotiating Memory in East Germany, 1945-1990  was published in January 2015 with Berghahn Books. His new research project analyzes the relationship of tourism and leisure to conceptions of liberty in East German society. Professor Olsen teaches courses on German and European history, but also offers courses on digital history, comparative memory, and other areas of public history. Before coming to UMass, he held a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at George Mason University and worked at the Center for History and New Media 

EDUCATION

  • Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2004.

SPECIALIZATIONS

  • Public history
  • Memory and historical consciousness
  • Tourism and leisure activities in Modern Germany, especially East Germany
  • History of Modern Germany

COURSES RECENTLY TAUGHT

  • Public History
  • Comparative Memory

Research Areas

European,
Public History