Sophie Lange, M.A.

since 2021
Associate research fellow in the project by the VolkswagenStiftung „Towards Illiberal Constitutionalism in East Central Europe: Historical Analysis in Comparative and Transnational Perspectives“

2016–2021
PhD at the Humboldt University of Berlin on „German-German Environmental Politics 1970–1990. A History of the intertwined international and societal context of the Cold War“, thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Gabriele Metzler

2019–2020
PhD Scholarship at the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany

2015–2020
Research Assistant at the Berlin Center for Cold War Studies

2018
Guide at the former Stasi prison Hohenschönhausen Memorial on a self-employed basis

2015
Freelance staff member at the Green Memory Archive of the Heinrich Böll Foundation

2011–2015
Student and research assistant in the critical edition „Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland“(AAPD) at the Leibnitz Institute for Contemorary History Munich – Berlin, Foreign Office Branch, Berlin

2011–2015
Master in History at the Humboldt University of Berlin

2008–2011
Bachelor in History and European Ethnology at the Humboldt University of Berlin and University of Leicester, UK

GDR History

History of the Federal Republic of Germany

Environmental History

Contemporary History

History of International Relations

1989ers. The Peaceful Revolution and the New Right

The focus of the post-doc project analyzes historical roots of present day anti-liberal and illiberal ideas in the (East) German society. Observing the drift by former GDR citizen rights activists to the populist right, it will collectively trace the intellectual and political evolution of prominent dissident figures from the East German civil rights movement during the the democratization of the GDR beginning in 1989/90. The project will examine competing visions of democracy from 1989/90, the national and anti-communist currents of the Peaceful Revolution as well as the spaces of cooperation or convergence between elements of the citizen rights activist movement and the populist right.

Subproject of the VolkswagenStiftung-project: Towards Illiberal Constitutionalism in East Central Europe: Historical Analysis in Comparative and Transnational Perspectives

“Umweltschutz ist keine Einbahnstraße. Deutsch-deutsche Umweltverhandlungen 1970–1990”, Colloquium, Instituts für Zeitgeschichte München – Berlin/Bundeskanzler-Willy-Brandt-Stiftung, 2021. Online
“Deal with Dirt. From a German-German Bargain to the Making of an Environmental Problem in the 1980s”, 10^th Biannual Conference of the European Society of Environmental History (ESEH), “Boundaries in/of Environmental History”, Tallinn (Estland), 2019

Participation in the 13^th Aldersbacher Schreibseminar, Institut für Zeitgeschichte München – Berlin, 2019

Short Presentation, Workshop “Environmental Histories - Environmental Futures: Perspectives from Germany and Italy”, Villa Vigoni (Italien), 2019

“Deal with Dirt. From a German-German Bargain to the Making of an Environmental Problem in the 1980s”, Workshop “Waste between the 19th and the 21st century: the price of modernity or the sign of a misdirected development?, Shanghai (China), 2018

“Deutsch-deutsche Umweltpolitik 1970–1990”, Posterpresentation, 52. Deutscher Historikertag, „Gespaltene Gesellschaften“, Münster, 2018

“Salty Drops – German-German River politics during the Cold War 1970–1990”, International Water History Conference, Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA), 2017

“Neither – Nor. The Discussion about a ‘Third Way’ for the GDR in the Samizdat ‘Die Umweltblätter’ (The Environmental Leaflets). 1986–1990”, 9^th Biannual Conference of the European Society of Environmental History (ESEH), “Natures inbetween”, Zagreb (Kroatien), 2017

Editorship

Banditt, Christopher/ Jenke, Nadine/ Lange, Sophie (Hg.), DDR im Plural. Ostdeutsche Vergangenheiten und ihre Gegenwart, Berlin 2023.

Papers and Blog articles

Deutsch-deutsche Umweltverhandlungen 1970–1990, in: Deutschland Archiv, 12.11.2021. Online
The Elbe: Or, How to Make Sense of a River?, in: „Storytelling and Environmental History: Experiences from Germany and Italy”, edited by Roberta Biasillo und Claudio de Majo, RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society 2 (2020), pp. 25-31. Online
A Deal over Dirt. From a German-German Bargain to the Creation of an Environ-mental Problem in the 1980s, in: Worldwide Waste. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 3 (2020), Special Collection: Development of Waste – Development as Waste, pp. 1-10. Online
Umweltschutz über Grenzen. Die deutsch-deutsche Umweltvereinbarung von 1987, Blog Berliner Kolleg Kalter Krieg, 26.09.2017. Online
Report: Nachlass Martin Schmidt, in: Grünes Gedächtnis 2016, Berlin 2017, pp. 72-75. Online
with: Albring, Laura/ Hettich, Vanessa/ Valjanow, Nikolas, Zwischen Futschi und Chicago. Die Kommunikation in einer Neuköllner Eckkneipe, in: Feldnotizen 4 (2009), pp. 52-64.

Podcast (in German)

GEU-V004: Deutsch-deutsche Umweltpolitik im Kalten Krieg (1970-1989), 15.11.2021. Online
Die deutsch-deutsche Umweltpolitik 1970–1990, in: AnnoPunktPunktPunkt, Nr. 35, 04.09.2019. Online

Book Reviews

Review: Möller, Christian, Umwelt und Herrschaft in der DDR. Politik, Protest und die Grenzen der Partizipation in der Diktatur, Göttingen 2020, in: sehepunkte 20 (2020), Nr. 9, 15.09.2020. Online
Review: Herzberg, Julia/ Kehrt, Christian/ Torma, Franziska (Ed.), Ice and Snow in the Cold War. Histories of Extreme Climatic Environments, New York 2019, in: H-Soz-Kult, 24.05.2019. Online
Review: Bösch, Frank (Ed.), Geteilte Geschichte. Ost- und Westdeutsch-land 1970–2000. Göttingen 2015 / Bösch, Frank (Hg.): A History Shared and Divided. East and West Germany since the 1970s, Oxford 2018, in: H-Soz-Kult, 08.03.2019. Online

Conference Reports

with: Surkov, Anastasia, Tschernobyl – Wendepunkt oder Katalysator? Umweltpolitische Praxen, Strukturen, Wahrnehmungen im Wandel (1970er – 1990er Jahre), 02.12.2016-03.12.2016 Berlin, in: H-Soz-Kult, 15.2.2017. Online
Willy Brandt and the Americas, 1974–1992, translated by Sally Hudson, in: German Historical Bulletin Nr. 57 (Fall 2016). Online
Willy Brandt and the Americas, 1974–1992, 10.–11.6.2016, Berlin, in: H-Soz-Kult, 26.07.2016. Online