I am Associate Professor of Cultural History at Utrecht University and a specialist in modern German history. As a trained reporter, my particular interest lies in the relationship between media, culture and society during the country’s turbulent twentieth century.
My research focuses on the transformational periods that mark the beginning and the end of that period: the Weimar Republic, the country’s first democracy that was established after its disastrous defeat in the First World War, and the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when newly reunified Germany struggled to find its place in a post-Cold War world. Both periods are characterized by political revolutions and extensive sociocultural transformations; they are also defined by profound changes in the media landscape. After 1918, radio appeared as the first electronic mass medium, alongside changes in established media, such as the introduction of sound film and illustrated magazines. In the 1990s, the internet developed from an expert technology into a mass medium used by millions. In my work, I am exploring these transformational periods in their broad transnational contexts.
My first book, Moderate Modernity. The Newspaper Tempo and the Transformation of Weimar Democracy (2023), chronicles the rise of the Nazis during the 1920s and 1930s through a microhistory of Germany’s self-proclaimed “most modern newspaper”. Tempo celebrated modern technology, spectator sports, and American consumer products, constructing an optimistic vision of the country’s future as a liberal consumer society anchored in Western values. When Germany was hit by political and economic crises at the beginning of the 1930s, the newspaper transformed its vision into a “moderate modernity” of authoritarian politics and technological progress, which was not too far removed from the political promises of the Nazis. Thus, while still nominally a liberal newspaper, Tempo helped prepare the ground for the Nazis’ election successes.
In subsequent publications, I investigated the memory and historiography of the Weimar Republic, including the narrative of its supposed “good” culture – a modernist heritage worth saving from the disaster of its “bad” politics which produced Germany’s darkest historical period.
My research project Breaking the Bind: Lessons from History for Reporting on Anti-Democratic Parties (2026-28), funded by the Dutch Research Council, zooms in further on the role of the democratic media in the rise of the Nazis. It investigates the journalistic strategies employed by major German newspapers when covering the political activities of the Nazis from 1920-1933. The project’s aim is to formulate lessons for today’s journalists to enable them to report responsibly about the current rise of anti-democratic parties.
In 2022, I secured funding from the Dutch Research Council to expand my expertise into the early history of the internet in reunified Germany. The resulting research project, Dual Revolution 2.0? Political and Technological Transformations in Germany, 1980-2000 (2022-23), explores how the popular adoption of this new medium was shaped by German journalists, users and politicians, and how this process interacted with the socio-political changes the country experienced at the same time. The popular adoption of this new technology represented a shared experience for a population that was still separated by huge economic and sociocultural differences.
As a cultural historian, I am also closely engaged in the development of the field in general. In 2026, I co-edited (with Willemijn Ruberg) the volume Cultural History for a Changing World, exploring the current state of the field to map out its new developments and future directions, covering major themes such as environment, (de)colonization, digitization, knowledge, heritage and embodied identity. This publication marked the start of the book series Cultural History and Historical Culture, published with Bloomsbury, which I co-edit with Grace Leksana, Gertjan Plets and Willemijn Ruberg.
As a passionate teacher, I have contributed to the development and innovation of history teaching. From 2019-2022, I led the Erasmus+ Strategic Network Teaching European History in the 21st Century, a consortium of eight partner institutions from Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Hungary, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands. With a team of ca. 100 historians, this transnational project collaboratively developed a digital learning environment for courses in early modern, modern and contemporary European history. Its main output, the open-access textbook The European Experience. A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500-2000, is available for free download.
I received my PhD in 2013 from the University of London’s School of Advanced Study. My work was awarded the joint German History Society Prize of the German History Society and the Royal Historical Society in 2012.
I am also a regular contributor to international publications, including The Guardian, the BBC, the Washington Post and Die Zeit.
JOCHEN HUNG
Department of History and Art History
Utrecht University
Drift 6
3512 BS Utrecht
The Netherlands
j.b.hung[at]uu.nl
Utrecht University staff page
Academia.edu page
Author profile on theguardian.com
Jochen Hung 