Dr. Dirk Rupnow

Professional Background

Dirk Rupnow is Assistant Professor at the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna, Austria. He received habilitation in contemporary history from the University of Vienna, a Ph.D. in history with distinction from the University of Klagenfurt in Austria, and an M.A. with distinction in history and German literature from the University of Vienna. For his Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellowship, Dr. Rupnow conducted research for his project “Transforming the Holocaust: Transnational European and Global Politics of Memory (1989-Today).”

Dr. Rupnow is the author of Aporien des Gedenkens. Reflexionen über “Holocaust” und Erinnerung [Aporias of Remembrance: Reflections on Holocaust and Memory] (2006), Vernichten und Erinnern. Spuren nationalsozialistischer Gedächtnispolitik [Annihilate and Remember: Traces of National-Socialist Politics of Memory] (2005); with Gabriele Anderl, Die “Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung” als Beraubungsinstitution [The “Central Office for Jewish Emigration” as an Institution of Deprivation] (2004); and Täter-Gedächtnis-Opfer. Das “Jüdische Zentralmuseum” in Prag [Perpetrators-Memory-Victims: The “Jewish Central Museum” in Prague, 1942-45] (2000), as well as several scholarly articles. His latest book, “Judenforschung” im “Dritten Reich”. Wissenschaft zwischen Politik, Propaganda und Ideologie [Anti-Jewish Jewish Studies in the “Third Reich”: Scholarship between Politics, Propaganda, and Ideology], will be published this fall. He is also working on the first German-language introduction to the field of Holocaust studies, to be published with UTB/Böhlau next year. Dr. Rupnow is the recipient of many awards and grants, including a 2004-2005 Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellowship for Archival Research from the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, for his work on anti-Jewish scholarship in the Third Reich. In 2008 he was elected a member of the “Junge Kurie” of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. For his habilitation the Wiener Library, London, awarded him the 2009 Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History. Dr. Rupnow has taught at the Universities of Innsbruck, Vienna, Bielefeld, Leipzig, and at Dartmouth College. He has given numerous presentations on his research in Europe, Israel, and the United States.

Fellowship Research

During his tenure at the Museum, Dr. Rupnow studied new developments in Holocaust memory and education since 1989. He analyzed new transnational actors, including the European Union and the United Nations, as well as the national cultures and politics of memory in their transnational interweavement. Dr. Rupnow used secondary sources available in the Museum’s library and at other area institutions, and, among other materials, analyzed recent publications, political documents, and exhibition and museum catalogs from various countries.

Dr. Rupnow was in residence at the Mandel Center from May 3 to September 30, 2010.