Bernhard Fulda's research interests include the history of late nineteenth and twentieth century European political culture, mass media, public opinion, and modern art. His book Press and Politics in Weimar Germany (Oxford, 2009) explores press influence on voters and the interaction between press and political decision-makers through a study of the Berlin press in the Weimar Republic. His second book, Max Pechstein. The Rise and Fall of German Expressionism (Berlin/New York, 2012) is a joint project with his wife Aya Soika, and the first scholarly biography of one of the most significant pioneers of German Expresssionism. By tracing how Pechstein became one of the most prominent artists of his generation, the book asks for the conditions of artistic success, and how and why these changed over time. This was followed by a major research project, funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Gerda Henkel Foundation, on Emil Nolde's relationship to National Socialism. The project resulted in a major exhibition in Berlin's New National Gallery in 2019, which Bernhard co-curated, and a two-volume prize-winning exhibition catalogue. He is currently in the finishing stages of completing a monograph on Emil Nolde's career throughout the twentieth century.
In another, ongoiong research project Bernhard engages with the emergence, diffusion and impact of opinion polling, as a transnational phenomenon.
He is also starting a new research project, a history of European anti-communism in the twentieth century. This project combines his interest in mass media and propaganda, especially visual communications, with his interest in transnational cultural politics, and his teaching of Europe's 'Age of Extremes'. He is interested in the changing shape of a right-wing international that created a particular European discourse around the notion of a defence community; the popularisation of Judeo-Bolshevism as a kind of European co-production; and - most importantly - anticommunism's historical function as an integration ideology that allowed contemporaries from a wide range of political backgrounds to find common ground.
Finally, he is very interested in the issue of current media representations of history, and in the use of historical references in contemporary political debates. He is the founder and one of the convenors of the ‘Public and Popular History Seminar’ at Cambridge, which brings together film makers, journalists, museum curators, and other non-academic practitioners of history to explore the practices and characteristics of public history in the contemporary world.
Bernhard did his undergraduate degree at Jesus College, Oxford, where he took his BA in Modern History in 1998, winning the University’s Gibbs Prize for best performance in Final Honours. He then went to Cambridge to do an M.Phil. in Historical Studies, and completed his PhD in 2002. Until 2007, he held a Research Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Since October 2007, he has been Fellow and Director of Studies in History, in History & Politics, and History & Modern Languages at Sidney Sussex College.
Publications, Links and Resources
Monographs:
Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009)
Max Pechstein. The Rise and Fall of German Expressionism (New York, De Gruyter, 2012) (with Aya Soika)
Emil Nolde - eine deutsche Legende. Der Künstler im Nationalsozialismus. Essay- und Bildband (Munich, Prestel, 2019) (English edn: Emil Nolde. The Artist During the Nazi Regime (Munich, Prestel, 2019)
Emil Nolde – eine deutsche Legende. Der Künstler im Nationalsozialismus. Chronik und Dokumente (Munich, Prestel, 2019) (with Aya Soika)
Articles and chapters in edited volumes:
- 'Lloyd George and the Weimar Republic', in:Manfred Goertemaker (ed.), Britain and Germany in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, Berg Publishers, 2005), 31-52.
- 'Industries of sensationalism: German tabloids in the interwar period', in: Corey Ross / Karl-Christian Fuehrer (eds.), Mass Media, Culture and Society in Twentieth-Century Germany (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2006), 183-203.
- 'Die Politik der "Unpolitischen": Die Boulevard- und Massenpresse in den zwanziger und dreissiger Jahren', in: Frank Boesch / Norbert Frei (eds.), Medialisierung und Demokratie im 20. Jahrhundert (Goettingen, Wallstein, 2006), 32-5.
- 'Die vielen Gesichter des Hans Schweitzer. Politische Karikaturen als historische Quelle', in: Gerhard Paul (ed.), Visual History. Die Historiker und die Bilder. Ein Studienbuch (Goettingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 206-224.
- ‘ “Nationalversammlung”. Plakatwerbung für die Republik’, in: Gerhard Paul (ed.), Bilderatlas des 20. und beginnenden 21. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), 226-35.
- ‘Medialisierung der Politik: Adolf Hitler als Medienphänomen’, in: Christoph Classen / Klaus Arnold / Hans-Ulrich Wagner / Susanne Kinnebrock / Edgar Lersch (eds.) Von der Politisierung der Medien zur Medialisierung des Politischen? Zum Verhältnis von Medien und Politik im 20. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2010), 141-59.
- ‘Max Pechstein 1881-1955. Lebensdaten’ , in: Peter Thurmann, Aya Soika, Andrea Madesta (eds), Max Pechstein. Ein Expressionist aus Leidenschaft - Retrospektive (Munich, Hirmer, 2010), 276-333.
- ‘The Market Place of Political Opinions: Public Opinion Polling and its its Publics in Transnational Perspective, 1930-1950’, in: Comparativ. Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung 21 (2011) 4, 13-28.
- ‘Max Pechsteins Erinnerungen’ , in: Marlene Lauter et al. (eds), Max Pechstein auf Reisen. Utopie und Wirklichkeit (Munich, Hirmer, 2012), 22-27.
- ‘„Deutscher bis ins tiefste Geheimnis seines Geblüts“. Emil Nolde und die nationalsozialistische Diktatur’, with Aya Soika in: Felix Kraemer (ed.), Emil Nolde. Eine Retrospektive (Cologne, Wienand, 2014), 45-55.
- ‘Emil Nolde and the National Socialist Dictatorship’, with Aya Soika in: Olaf Peters (ed.), Degenerate Art (New York, Neue Galerie, 2014), 186-195.
- ‘"Hinter jedem Busch lauert Verkennung und Neid." Emil Noldes Reaktion auf den Sieg der Traditionalisten’, in: Wolfgang Ruppert (ed.), Künstler im Nationalsozialismus (Cologne/Weimar, Böhlau, 2015), 260-285.
- ‘Myth-making in Hitler’s shadow: the transfiguration of Emil Nolde after 1945’, in: Jan Rüger/Nikolaus Wachsmann (eds), Rewriting German History. Festschrift for Richard J. Evans (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2015), 177-194.
- ‘Emil Noldes Berufsverbot: Eine Spurensuche’, in: Anja Tiedemann (eds), Die Kammer schreibt schon wieder! Das Reglement für den Handel mit moderner Kunst im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, De Gruyter 2016), 127-145.
- ‘Emil Nolde – eine deutsche Legende. Der Künstler im Nationalsozialismus’, in: Visual History. Online reference resource for historical visual research, 09.04.2019, https://www.visual-history.de/2019/04/09/emil-nolde-deutsche-legende
- ‘documenta 1: Neuanfang durch Kanonisierung?’ (also in English: ‘documenta 1: A new start through canonisation?’), in: Historische Urteilskraft 02. Magazin des Deutschen Historischen Museums (2020), 22-27.
- ‘Emil Nolde – eine deutsche Legende. Der Künstler im Nationalsozialismus: Absenzen und Präsenzen im Ausstellungraum’ / ‘Emil Nolde – a German legend. The artist during the Nazi regime. Absences and presences in the exibition space’, in: Meike Hoffmann, Dieter Scholz (eds), Unbewältigt? Ästhetische Moderne und Nationalsozialismus. Kunst, Kunsthandel, Ausstellungspraxis (Cologne, Walter König, 2020), 312-321.
- ‘The ‘Entartete Kunst’ Exhibitions and their Audiences’, in: Ulrike Weckel (ed.), Audiences of Nazism (Oxford, Berghahn, 2023 forthcoming).
Specialisms
Media history & history of political communications (medialization, history of media reception, communication networks, political uses of media/propaganda, public opinion polling, etc)
Visual history, history of avantgarde art (production & reception, especially Expressionism, ‘Degenerate Art’, exhibitions & art markets, art publications & auratization prose, visual communications)
History of European Anti-communism, 1917-1991 (networks, production & dissemination of histories, polemics & images, exhibitions; repressive practices; totalitarian theory; political Catholicism & European integration; Cold War culture)
Public and Popular History (representations of history & uses of historical references in the public sphere, memory politics, consumer & media culture)