Arend, Jan
Dr. Jan Arend
– Former Postdoc
Institut für Osteuropäische Geschichte und Landeskunde
Email: j.arend@uni-tuebingen.de
Website: Webprofile (Universität Tübingen)
Stress im Spät- und Postsozialismus. Zum gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit Belastungserfahrungen in Ostdeutschland und der Tschechoslowakei/Tschechien, 1970-2000
Stress between Late Socialism and Transformation. How East German and Czechoslovak/Czech societies dealt with tension and strain, 1970-2000
Postdoctoral Project at the Graduate School
Using the example of East Germany and Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic, this project examines for the first time how late socialist and post-socialist societies in Central Europe dealt with the phenomenon of stress. In the context of State Socialism, the term "stress" came into broader use since the 1970s, denoting instances of tension and strain that are characteristically experienced both on the physical (body) and psychological level. In the period under study, stress, firstly, attracted the attention of experts in the fields of medicine and psychology, and, secondly, became one of the key emotional experiences of social change and political disruption for large parts of the population. The project analyzes stress-related practices and discourses between 1970 and 2000, focusing on their social and political functions in late state socialism on the one hand, and post-socialism on the other. In the existing historical research, stress is depicted as associated with lifestyles and working conditions typical of capitalism and neoliberalism. Hence, previous studies have situated the issue of stress culturally in the West. The fact that, beginning in the 1970s, stress came to be perceived and debated as a problem also on the Eastern side of the "Iron Curtain" has been largely overlooked by previous research. Also, the rise of stress to become a dominant theme of societal debate in societies undergoing post-socialist transformation after 1989/90 remains understudied. This project addresses this gap in the existing research and thereby illuminates a central aspect of the transformation experience in Central Europe after 1989/90 along with its largely overlooked pre-history since the 1970s. By doing so, the project makes an important contribution to our understanding of how political and economical transformation went along with changes in how societies dealt with emotions and the body.
Wie die russische Bodenkunde 'klassisch' wurde. Wissenstransfer und Internationalität des Wissens in Agrarwissenschaften und agrarpolitischer Expertise 1880-1945 — abgeschlossen
How the Russian Soil Science became a 'classic'. Transfer and internationality of knowledge in agricultural science as well as agricultural politics 1180-1945 — completed
Doctoral Project at the Graduate School
This project studied how Russian Soil Science – developed in its foundations between 1870 and 1910 by scientists in Tsarist Russia – was transferred to the west. Russian Soil Science centered on soil as a natural phenomenon, but it also held important implications for an understanding of soil as a resource of agriculture. The transfer of knowledge from Russia to countries of the west shaped in a decisive way the modern international discipline of Soil Science, which in turn became an important part of today's agricultural science. The study traces the complex transfer of a science, which in many ways had been shaped by specific (cultural, political and natural) conditions of Tsarist Russia. This entails a story of international understanding and misunderstanding between scientists of different backgrounds, in which translations of knowledge – from one language to another, but also from one context to another – played a decisive role. The study has been published as volume 6 in the Graduate School's book series "Schnittstellen. Studien zum östlichen und südöstlichen Europa".
Jan Arend was born in Zürich, Switzerland. He studied History, Eastern European History, Slavonic Studies and Political Sciences in Basel and Munich. He graduated from Munich University in 2010. 2007-2011 participation in the research project "The shtetl in the Soviet Union" at the University of Basel (Prof. Heiko Haumann). 2009-2010 Scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the German Academic Exchange Service (Scholarship for Scientific Education and Training in Germany). 2011-2017 Research Associate at the Chair of History of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, LMU Munich; since 2013 associate doctoral candidate of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies. February 2016 successful defense of the doctoral thesis. November 2017 to October 2018 postdoctoral researcher of the Graduate School for Eastern and Southeastern European Studies.
Positions, Assignments and Memberships
Former Member of the Study Group "Social Sorting"
Former Member of the Study Group "Knowledge, Space, Environment"
Former Deputy Postdoc Representative
Member of the European Society for Environmental History
Russlands Bodenkunde in der Welt. Eine ost-westliche Transfergeschichte 1880–1945. (Schnittstellen. Studien zum östlichen und südöstlichen Europa; 6), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017.
Jüdische Lebensgeschichten aus der Sowjetunion. Erzählungen von Entfremdung und Rückbesinnung. Köln, Wien, Weimar: Böhlau, 2011 (= Lebenswelten Osteuropäischer Juden; 13).
Journal articles and Book Chapters
Russian Science in Translation. How pochvovedenie was brought to the West, c. 1875–1945. In: Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 18 (4) 2017, S. 683-708. URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/673304
Wie die Bodenkunde russisch wurde. Zur nationalen Imagebildung in den Wissenschaften. In: Christof Windgätter (Hrsg.): Verpackungen des Wissens. Materialität und Markenbildung in den Wissenschaften. (Maske und Kothurn 58 2 2012). Wien u.a. 2012, 97-108.
Weshalb die "jüdische Frage" in der Sowjetunion ungelöst blieb. In: Religion und Gesellschaft in Ost und West 5 (2012) 11-14.
Mit Jörg Moehring, Kateryna Katsun, Bojidar Beremski: "Jerusalem des Nordens". Das jüdische Vilnius in Geschichte und Gedächtnis. In: Vilnius. Geschichte und Gedächtnis einer Stadt zwischen den Kulturen. Frankfurt a.M. u.a. 2010, 49-102.
With Anastasija Volkova: Oldfield, J., Lajus, J., Shaw, D. J. B. Conceptualizing And Utilizing the Natural Environment: Critical Reflections From Imperial And Soviet Russia. Special Issue Of The Slavonic And East European Review. 2015. Vol. 93. No. 1. In: Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznanija i Techniki 3 (2016), 595-599.
Steppe und Wald im Zarenreich. In: H-Soz-u-Kult, 13.5.2014. URL: http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2014-2-105.
Stephen Brain: Song of the Forest. Russian Forestry and Stalinist Environmentalism, 1905-1953. In: Osteuropa (2013), 4, 122-123.
Michail D. Dolbilov: Russkij kraj, čužaja vera. Ėtnokonfessional'naja politika imperii v Litve i Belorussii pri Aleksandre II. [Russisches Land, fremder Glaube. Die ethnokonfessionelle Politik des Imperiums in Litauen und Weißrussland unter Aleksandr II.] Moskva 2010. In: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 60 (2012), 2, 275-277.
Wider das "halbierte Bewusstsein"? Neuere Beiträge zu einer blockübergreifenden Perspektive auf das Jahr 1968. In: Bohemia. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder 49 (2009), 2, 445-453.
"Knowledge in Flux": Wissenskulturen und Diskursivität des Wissens angesichts von Differenzierungs-, Dynamisierungs- und Transnationalisierungsprozessen. 12.09.2011-17.9.2011, Marburg, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 10.11.2011. Online: http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=3923.
Die wissenschaftliche Selbstbeschreibung der sozialistischen Gesellschaft: Soziologie und Ethnologie/Ethnographie in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa 1945-1989. In: Bohemia. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder 48 (2008). (also in: AHF-Information. Tagungsberichte 28, 2009).
The Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg Branch, 2018 (2018-07-05). Online: https://www.ese-archives.geschichte.uni-muenchen.de/?p=1696&preview=true.
Presentations (selected)
"East-to-West Knowledge Transfer Stories. The Example of Soil Science". (Jahrestagung der Graduiertenschule für Ost- und Südosteuropastudien "Studying East and Southeast Europe as Area Studies: Paradigms - Themes - Methods for the 21st Century", München, 25.-27.10.2018)