Friedrich Schiller University of Jena

Students at the institutes’ Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Masters of Education programs are introduced to all eras within the field, from ancient and medieval history to the Early Modern period and the nineteenth century to the present. Research areas focus not only on historical eras, but also on regions, with chairs in East and West European History, or specializations, such as Gender History and History Didactics as well as Media and Public Relations and the Comparison of European Dictatorships.

Practical components are an integral part of the degree program in history. In the Jena Model of Teacher Education, a practical semester is required in the middle of the state exam preparatory program. The professorship in the didactics of history is deeply involved with the teacher education programs due to its focus on the conditions, aims, and processes of historical learning, but it is also relevant to Bachelor and Master’s programs in history because of its broad-based understanding of the ways in which history is represented. Research interests in Jena include local and regional approaches to history and the challenges of digital transformation for the discipline.

Together with Jewish Places, students at Jena developed city walks in the winter semester 2020 and researched biographies of Jewish people from Thuringia, subsequently compiling website entries from this information in a seminar. Within this project, digital concepts were developed and tested for the first time in cooperation with Jewish Places – a reaction to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. The results were presented on 21 October 2021 at the Fachtag Geschichte symposium and as part of the 2020–21 thematic year initiative Nine Centuries of Jewish Life in Thuringia.