Newcastle University

Introduction

My interest spans the contemporary history of the German-speaking countries, with a particular focus on sepulchral cultures, regional and national memorialisation, as well as the link between landscape and identity.

Qualifications

PhD, University of York (2006)
MA by Research (Dissertation), University of York (2001)
BA (hons.) in History, University of Kent at Canterbury (1996-1999)

Previous Positions

In the past I have taught at Lancaster University, the University of York, and Sunderland University.

Administrative Roles within the School

2011/12

Semester 1: Erasmus and International Exchange Coordinator  

Semester 2: Director of Undergraduate Studies  

Research Interests

My first monograph explores East German sepulchral culture (i.e. cemeteries and their design, organisation of disposal, private and public burial ceremonies, propagation of cremation, communal areas for the internment of urns, gravestone design, etc.) in the second half of the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on the effects of modernisation, secularisation, and the policies of a socialist state, whose regulatory approaches oscillated between administrative disinterest and grand schemes that in turn were regularly resisted and contested by individuals and institutions.

However, my interest is not limited to the GDR or Germany as the field of death, dying, and disposal allows for, indeed necessitates a deeply comparative approach.

Current Work

I am continuing my research into death after 1945. I am currently working on Socialist thanatology, tragic deaths and accidents in the GDR, as well as the changes to cemeteries in Germany after 1990. In addition, I have for the last four years pursued a second research strand that focuses on the Alps. This work reflects my interest in the relationship between spaces and identities in Central Europe, and the intricate and fascinating relationship between the German-speaking peoples.

Undergraduate Teaching

HIS1029 Varieties of History

HIS2126 The difficult Fatherland: Remembering Germany's Pasts

HIS3095 Weimar Republic

HIS3008 Reading History: The Fire - The bombing of Germany, 1940-45

HIS3010 Writing History

Postgraduate Teaching

I teach on the MA in European History.

This year two case studies on on "Streetfighting in inter-war Central Europe" and another on "Death, Rape and Suicide in Germany in 1945".

• Schulz FR. Death in East Germany, 1945-1990. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2012.
• Schulz FR. Envisaging Death in Socialism: Graves, Gravestones, and their absences in the GDR. In: Aaron, M, ed. Envisaging Death: Visual Culture and Dying. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013. Submitted.
• Penitston-Bird CM, Rohkraemer T, Schulz FR. Glorified, Contested and Mobilized: The Alps in the Deutscher und Österreichischer Alpenverein from the 1860s to 1933. Austrian Studies, Special Issue: Austria and the Alps 2011, 18(1), 141-159.
• Schulz FR, Rohkraemer T. Space, Place and Identities. History Compass 2009, 7(5), 1338-1349.
• Schulz FR. Disposing of the Dead in East Germany, 1945-1990. In: Betts, P; Confino, A; Schumann, D, ed. Between Mass Death and Individual Loss: The Place of the Dead in 20th-Century Germany. New York; Oxford: Berghahn, 2008, pp. 113-128.