Frank Schumacher

Associate Professor
Dr. phil., University of Cologne, 1997

Research

My research agenda is designed to contextualize the writing of national histories through an international perspective. Broadly speaking I explore the international history of the United States within modern international relations, the history of modern war, the history of imperialism and colonialism, and the evolution of increasing global interaction since the late 18th century.

In my book Kalter Krieg und Propaganda (2000) I have examined propaganda and public diplomacy as instruments of U.S. foreign relations in the cold war. The study demonstrates how the struggle for world opinion and the psychological shoring-up of a North Atlantic community of civilization through the use of 'soft power' became a central strategic concern for the architects of post-war American hegemony in Western Europe. The book analyzes how the United States identified and approached the management of West German public opinion as a crucial component of its dual containment strategy and contributes to the cultural and intellectual history of the cold war as 'symbolic confrontation'.

Additional research projects have explored the role of culture in international affairs (Culture and International History, 2003), the comparative history of colonial wars (Kolonialkriege, 2006), the history of American colonial state-building in the Philippines, the imperial and hegemonic configurations of U.S. foreign relations, and the interaction between the spheres of domestic cultural milieus and foreign policy formation. In this context I have comparatively explored the role of education and assimilation programs in the internal colonization of Native Americans and First Nations, the cultural impact of national expansion on American society, and the role of media (such as National Geographic) as well as ethnographic expositions and world's fairs in the formation of 'imperial outlooks'.

My current book project The American Way of Empire: the United States and the Search for Imperial Identity, 1845-1945 combines research questions and methodological insights from the above research areas and provides a re-interpretation of U.S. colonialism. Based on a theoretical framework developed by studies of intercultural transfer and drawing on insights developed by a number of fields such as environmental history, urban history, gender studies, medical history, and legal history, my research develops a framework to internationalize the history of the American experience of empire. It analyzes how the national experience of expansion and simultaneous transfers of European, and in particular British imperial 'know-how' informed the administrative, legal, military, scientific, economic, and cultural dimensions of the U.S. colonial project. It also traces the intensive intra-imperial dialogues between various U.S. possessions and their respective impact on domestic developments in the 'imperial center'.

A second book project, 'Kill and Burn': A Cultural History of the Philippine-American War, 1899-1913, analyzes one of the most devastating wars in American and Filipino history and provides a cultural history of the U.S. military conquest of the Philippine Islands from 1899 to 1913. The study incorporates a multitude of insights from the field of cultural studies. It analyzes the 'face of battle' through the experiences of soldiers, the role of indigenous troops, the environmental impact of the fighting, the role of gender, and the interplay between technological superiority and asymmetrical warfare. In addition, the book examines how theses wars were discursively located within national and trans-national exchanges, it analyses the semantics of war, the rhetorical constructions of legitimizing and opposing ideologies, the role of gender, in particular discursive constructions of masculinity, and the study of inter-imperial dialogues and learning-processes. Finally, the book explores the multiple constructions of war memories among the colonizers and the colonized through festive culture, monuments, and museums.

Finally, together with my German colleague, Professor Claudia Bruns, I am currently editing a special edition of Comparativ, the European journal of global history on Historiography and the Colonial 'Other'. International Perspectives in the Early 20th Century. This project examines how traditional colonial powers and newcomers to the intensive colonial expansion during the late 19th and early 20th century interpreted their own national histories through contact with the colonized 'other'. In international comparative perspective, the project examines how collective national identities and missionary ideologies of civilizational uplift informed and complicated the historiographical self-definition and perceived hegemonic worldview and self-perception of the colonizers.

Selected Publications

Books

Kolonialkriege. Militärische Gewalt im Zeichen des Imperialismus, ed. with Thoralf Klein (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2006).

Culture and International History, ed. with Jessica Gienow-Hecht (Oxford/New York: Berghahn Press, 2003)

Kulturtransfer und Kalter Krieg. Westeuropa als Bühne und Akteur im Amerikanisierungsprozeß, ed. with Ursula Lehmkuhl and Stefanie Schneider (Erfurt: Erfurter Beiträge zur Nordamerikanischen Geschichte, 2001)

Kalter Krieg und Propaganda: die USA, der Kampf um die Weltmeinung und ideelle Westbindung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1945-1955 (Trier: WVT-Verlag, 2000)

Articles and Book Chapters

"The United States: Empire as a Way of Life?", in: Robert Aldrich (ed.), The Age of Empires (London: Thames and Hudson, 2007), 278-303.

"'Marked Severities': The Debate over Torture during America's Conquest of the Philippines, 1899- 1902", in: Amerikastudien/American Studies 51:4 (2006), 475-498.

"Colonization through Education: A Comparative Exploration of Ideologies, Practices, and Cultural Memories of 'Aboriginal Schools' in the United States and Canada", in: Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien 26:2 (2006), 97-117.

„‚Niederbrennen, plündern und töten sollt ihr... 'Der Kolonialkrieg der USA auf den Philippinen,1899-1913", in: Thoralf Klein, Frank Schumacher (eds.), Kolonialkriege. Militärische Gewalt im Zeichen des Imperialismus. (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2006), 109-144.

"Lessons of Empire: the United States, the Quest for Colonial Expertise, and the British Example, 1898-1917", in: Ursula Lehmkuhl, Gustav Schmidt (eds.), From Enmity to Friendship. Anglo-American Relations in the 19th and 20th Century (Augsburg: Wißner-Verlag, 2005), 71-98.

"Britain and the United States: Main Essay", in: William Kaufman, Heidi Slettedahl MacPherson (eds.), Britain and the Americas: Culture Politics and History: A Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia Vol. I (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2005), 45-56.

„On the Frontier of Civilization. Deliberations of Exceptionalism and Environmental Determinism in the Creation of America’s Tropical Empire, 1890-1910", in: Sylvia Hilton, Cornelis A. van Minnen (eds.), Frontiers and Boundaries in U.S. History (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2004), 127-141.

„From Occupation to Alliance: German-American Relations, 1949-1955", in: Detlef Junker (ed.), The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War. A Handbook, Vol. I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 90-96.

„Creating Imperial Urban Spaces: Baguio and the American Empire in the Philippines, 1898- 1920", in: Anke Ortlepp, Christopher Ribbat (ed.), Taking Up Space: New Approaches to American History (Trier: WVT, 2004), 59-75.

The American Way of Empire: National Tradition and Transatlantic Adaptation in America's Search for Imperial Identity, 1898-1910", in: Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 31 (Fall 2002), 35-50.

„Propaganda, Ideology, and Alliance Management: the United States and West Germany, 1949-1955", in: Frank Ninkovich, Liping Bu (eds.), The Cultural Turn: Essays in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations (Chicago: Imprint Publications, 2002), 29-51.

Complete List of Publications

Curriculum Vitae

Teaching

During the last ten years I have taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate seminars in North American international, cultural, military, environmental, and Atlantic history. In my previous position at the University of Erfurt in Germany I have also regularly contributed to the interdisciplinary team-taught core curriculum and cooperated with other disciplines such as communication studies, political science, literature, and cultural studies. I have also supervised a substantial number of undergraduate and graduate theses on topics ranging from Turkey’s drive for NATO-membership to Walt Disney and U.S. foreign relations in the cold war to the 1960s Berkeley student movement and the politics of memory.

I integrate diverse instructional methods aimed at introducing students not only to traditional texts and monographs, but also to film, art, literature, current events, and technological resources. I place great emphasis on student participation and encourage lively discussion.

Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Also from this web page:

Current Courses

  • Courses Taught

    • HIS 2301E - The United States, Colonial Period to the Present
    • HIS 3319E - History of U.S. Foreign Relations, 1775 to the Present
    • HIS 3320 - Global America: The United States in World Affairs, 1700 to the Present
    • HIS 4797G - Selected Topics: Colonialism in the 19th and 20th Centuries
    • HIS 9303Y - The United States and Empire
    • HIS 9818 - The American Way of War: The United States and the Experience of Military Conflict, 1600 to the Present
    • HIS 9830A - Colonialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
    • HIS 9831B - Killing Fields: A Global History of Mass Violence
    • HIS 588 - The United States and Empire