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Project: Fröschweiler Chronik

Frank Becker described Karl Klein's "Fröschweiler Chronik" as the "undisputed" bestseller of war memoirs of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 in his habilitation thesis on the history of the wars of unification in Germany's bourgeois public sphere between 1864 and 1913. The Alsatian's text also receives classifications as a critical and tendentially pacifist account (Arand 2008) or as the most important German "anti-war book" from a Christian spirit in the imperial era (Führ 1995). In a joint project by Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand (Ludwigsburg) and Prof. Dr. Christian Bunnenberg, a new edition with commentary, biographical and historical introduction as well as supplementary sources is being realised together with Osburg Verlag (Hamburg) (publisher). The preview of the Osburg Verlag for spring 2021 can be found here. The matching excerpt of the Fröschweiler Chronicle can be found here.

Project partner: Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand (PH Ludwigsburg)

Duration: 2020-2021

Publications:

  • Karl Klein: Fröschweiler Chronicle. Images of War and Peace from 1870. Edited, explained and commented by Tobias Arand and Christian Bunnenberg, Hamburg 2021.

Press releases and lectures:

  • A short review of the Fröschweiler Chronicle, recently edited by Christian Bunnenberg and Tobias Arand, appeared in the Welt am Sonntag on 23 June 2021.
  • On 8 June 2021, Christian Bunnenberg gave a lecture in the lecture series "The Franco-German War in Interdisciplinary Perspective", the title of the lecture is: "Major #vonKretschmann is still angry." - 4,000 tweets on the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71. A project report. Click here for the programme.
Mining in the Recklinghausen district – Model project for the cooperation between schools and municipal archives

The project explores how the archival-pedagogical learning opportunities  of the smaller, municipal archives in NRW can be extended for school-based learning groups. Therefore a working group with members from the “Bildungspartner NRW - Archiv und Schule”, the “LWL-Archivamt”, the “ZfSL Recklinghausen”, municipal archives of the Recklinghausen district, teachers and the Assistant Professor for History Education  has been formed. The basic assumption behind the project is that the mentioned archives do not have enough temporal and material resources and that there are uncertainties regarding the pedagogical-didactical prerequisites and needs of the learning groups. It was considered useful to network several municipal archives in order to develop supporting measures. The result of the model project will be a learning aid for pupils at schools in the district of Recklinghausen (available in print and/or online), which presents the industrial development of the region in the years 1870-1912 on the basis of exemplary archival material as well as the cooperation of school learning groups with municipal archives. As part of the project, the Junior Professorship develops didactic suggestions for the use of the learning material in class.

The teaching material "Aufbruch im nördlichen Ruhrgebiet 1870 bis 1914" can be downloaded from https://url.nrw/BiPa_Archivheft. Requests for the printed version can be sent to info@bildungspartner.nrw.

Project partner: Bildungspartner NRW (Archiv und Schule), LWL-Archivamt für Westfalen

Duration: 2019-2021

Publications:

  • Kommunale Archive und Geschichtsunterricht - geschichtsdidaktische Perspektiven auf lokal- und regionalgeschichtliches historisches Lernen "vor Ort", in: Bildungspartner NRW (Hrsg.): Aufbruch im nördlichen Ruhrgebiet 1870 bis 1914 - exemplarische Quellen aus kommunalen Archiven des Kreises Recklinghausen. Düsseldorf 2022, S. 10-19.
Phase: in Public History angeleitet soziale Wirklichkeit erforschen [Researching social reality with public history]

The core of the project is to adapt an existing self-study course (Moodle), designed to introduce methods of qualitative social research, to the requirements of the new Master's programme in "Public History". The course was developed, used and evaluated by the educational sciences at RUB as part of the project "ABC – Abseits des Curriculums" (funded by the university programme "Forschendes Lernen"). The project thus involves a transfer from educational science to history and from the Bachelor's to the Master's level. The course is an interactive and action-oriented introduction to methods of empirical-qualitative social research. The examination of the course content enables students to choose their own research question and to work on it empirically on a small scale (e.g. by developing an interview guide and conducting, transcribing and reflecting on an interview). Students of the Master's programme in "Public History" are potentially employed in professional fields (e.g. museums) where basic knowledge in qualitative social research is increasingly required (e.g. visitor and recipient research). Therefore, an interdisciplinary approach will be used to transfer knowledge from the field of educational science to historical science and its special requirements.

Project partner: Prof. Dr. Sandra Aßmann, Institute for Educational Science, Ruhr Universität Bochum

Funded by: University Programme "Forschendes Lernen" at RUB

Duration: 2018-2019

Publications:

  • PHase - In Public History angeleitet soziale Wirklichkeit untersuchen, in: Straub, Jürgen/Plontke, Sandra/Ruppel, Paul Sebastian/Frey, Birgit/Mehrabi, Flora/Ricken, Judith (Hrsg.): Forschendes Lernen an Universitäten. Prinzipien, Methoden, Best-Practices an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Wiesbaden 2020, S. 137-145. (zus. mit Sandra Aßmann, Andrea Blome, Jörg Maack)
Geschichte auf YouTube. Neue Herausforderungen für Geschichtsvermittlung und historische Bildung [History on YouTube. New challenges for history mediation and historical education]

Since 2005, the video portal YouTube has been part of a constantly changing media landscape. In contrast to other online offers such as media libraries, streaming services and video-on-demand providers, YouTube offers its users to be both consumers and producers of the uploaded videos. This also created new approaches and formats for dealing with the past and history. In addition to uploaded TV documentaries and historical film documents, especially the so-called explanatory and learning videos enjoy great popularity among viewers. YouTube channels such as "The Great War" or "Einfach Geschichte" as well as the YouTuber "MrWissen2go" have their own formats for presenting history. Classic media gate keepers and agenda setters such as journalists and historians are thus faced with successful competitors - reason enough to deal with the phenomenon "History on YouTube" from a scientific, history-didactic and pragmatic perspective. "Geschichte auf YouTube. Neue Herausforderungen für Geschichtsvermittlung und historische Bildung" will be published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg in March 2019 and contains contributions from the perspectives of historical science, history education and YouTube practice. 

The volume marks the beginning of the news book series "Medien der Geschichte", edited by Hamburg professors Thorsten Logge (Public History), Andreas Körber (History Didactics) and Thomas Weber (Media Studies). 
Link to the publication

Project partner: Nils Steffen, anders & wissen - das projektlabor

Duration: 2017-2018

Publications

  • Geschichte auf YouTube. Neue Herausforderungen für Geschichtsvermittlung und historische Bildung (= Medien in der Geschichte, Band 2). Berlin 2019. (Herausgeberschaft zus. mit Nils Steffen)
  • Broadcast yourself: history stories! Geschichte auf Youtube – eine Bestandsaufnahme, in: Bunnenberg, Christian/Steffen, Nils (Hrsg.): Geschichte auf YouTube. Neue Herausforderungen für Geschichtsvermittlung und historische Bildung (= Medien der Geschichte, Band 2). Berlin 2019, S. 3-23. (zus. mit Nils Steffen)
Digital Storytelling in historischen Museen? – Empirische Begleitung des Projekts "Stuttgart neu erzählt. Pulsierende Stadtgeschichten" [Digital storytelling in historical museums? – Empirical monitoring of the project "Stuttgart neu erzählt. Pulsierende Stadtgeschichten"]

At the end of 2017 the Stadtmuseum Stuttgart, which is currently under construction, will be opened. In addition to tried and tested forms of exhibition design, the museum also uses the method of digital storytelling in the conception of the permanent exhibition. The project accompanies this process in an advisory and empirical manner. It focuses on an analysis of the historical narratives created by the digital storytelling of Stuttgart citizens. The project examines the production process (including producers), the products and the reception.

Project partner:

  • Medien- und Filmgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg GmbH
  • Planungsstab Stadtmuseum Stuttgart
  • Hochschule der Medien, Stuttgart
  • Didactics of History, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Duration: 2016 - 2018

Publications

  • Digital Storytelling im Museum – Besucher(innen) erzählen Stadtgeschicht(e), in: Bunnenberg, Christian/Steffen, Nils (Hrsg.): Geschichte auf YouTube. Neue Herausforderungen für Geschichtsvermittlung und historische Bildung (= Medien der Geschichte, Band 2), Berlin 2019, S. 133-144. (zus. mit Nils Steffen)