“Bürgertum als Kultur: Überlegungen zu einem
deutsch-amerikanischen Vergleich,” invited talk given on October
28, 2007 at the conference "Bürgertum und Bürgerlichkeit im 20.
Jahrhundert in internationaler Perspektive," conference held at the
cloister Loccum (near Hannover, Germany) and organized by
professors of the Universities of Hannover and Oldenburg as part of
a new research program “Bourgeoisie.”
“Red Prometheus: Dictatorship and Industrial Technology in
East Germany,” talk given on October 20, 2007 at the annual meeting
of SHOT (Society for the History of Technology), Washington, D.C.
as part of panel, “Revisiting Debates on Dictatorship and
Technology,” organized by myself.
“Red Prometheus: Technological Utopias and Realities in
the GDR in the Context of East-West Rivalries,” talk given on
October 5, 2007 at the annual meeting of the GSA (German Studies
Association), San Diego, California, as part of panel, “Competing
Cultures: Consumption, Pop Culture, Technology and Social Policy in
East and West Germany,” organized by myself.
“Confronting Nuclear Holocaust, Confronting Nuclear Power:
East and West German Reactions in Transnational Space,” talk
presented at the joint meeting of EUROCORES (launching their
“Inventing Europe” program) and the European Science Foundation’s
Tensions of Europe Network (ToE) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands,
June 2007.
“Paul Görlich and the Pact between Communist Dictatorship and
Industrial Science, part of panel entitled “Aufstieg und Höhenflug
– ungebrochene Karrieren in wechselnden Diktaturen” German Studies
Association meeting, 2006.
“Boldly going where no socialist has gone before:
Engineers and industrial scientists in East German popular culture
and propaganda” at the Sixth European Social Science History
Conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2006.
“Wunderwaffen of a Different Kind: Nazi Scientists in East
German Industrial Research,” German Studies Association meeting,
October 2005.
“Red Prometheus: The Symbolic Function of Feats of
Technology in 1960’s East Germany,” Hagley Fellows Conference, “The
Spectacle of Technology, Hagley Museum & Library, Wilmington,
Delaware, March 2005.
Talk (in German) on Werner Hartmann at the Zentrum für
Zeithistorische Forschung (Center for Contemporary Historical
Research) in Potsdam, Germany (March 2004).
“The ‘Great Eastward Trek’: Soviet Captivity and the
Formation of an East German Technical Elite,” German Studies
Assocation meeting, September 2003.
“The Impact of Two Reunification-Era Debates on the East German
Sense of Identity,” Stanford University, February 2003.
“Patrizier, Parvenüs, Professionelle: Die Rekrutierung und
Reproduktion der Wirtschaftselite im Zweiten Deutschen
Kaiserreich,” September 2002, Prince Albert Society
(Prinz-Albert-Gesellschaft), Coburg, Germany.
“The Exchange of Elites in the East and German Reunification,”
annual meeting of the American Historical Association, January
2002.
“The Impact of 1968 in East Berlin,” invited talk given before
students at Vassar College, November 2000.
“Red Prometheus: The Symbolic Function of Feats of
Technology in the 1960’s,” annual meeting of the German Studies
Association, October 2000.
“The Socialist ‘Silicon Ceiling’: East German Women in
Computer Science,” IEEE 1999 International Symposium on Technology
and Society,” Summer 1999.
“The Failed Technocracy: Engineering in the G.D.R.,
1971-1989,” annual meeting of the German Studies Association,
September 1997.
“Frustrated Technocrats: Engineering in the GDR, invited
talk at Center for European Studies of Harvard University, fall
1997.
“Genosse, Technokrat oder Nörgler: Zum Berufsethos des
DDR-Ingenieurs in der Ara Honecker,” invited talk at Zentrum für
Zeithistorische Forschung (Center for Contemporary History
Research), Potsdam, Germany, summer 1997.
“Berufliches Selbstbild, Arbeitshabitus und
Mentalitätsstrukturen von Software-Experten der DDR,” invited talk
at Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (Center for Contemporary
History Research), Potsdam, Germany, summer 1997.
“Frustrated Technocrats: GDR Engineers and the Culture of
Technology in the Ulbricht Era,” invited talk presented to the Cold
War science group, Carnegie Mellon University, 1996.
“Professions and Civil society in the GDR,” annual meeting of
the German Studies Association, September 1996.
"Frustrated Technocrats: GDR Engineers in the Ulbricht
Era" at the annual meeting of the German Studies Association,
1995.
Commentator of session, "East Germans on Tour and the Meaning of
Foreign Travel" (session sponsored by the German Historical
Institute, Washington, D.C.) at the annual conference of the German
Studies Association, Dallas, Texas, 1994.
"Frustrierte Technokraten. Zur Sozialgeschichte des
Ingenieurberufs in der DDR" at a conference on the social history
of the GDR, organized by Richard Bessel and Ralf Jessen at the
Freie Universität, Berlin, 1994.
"New Perspectives on German Democratic Republic History" at the
annual conference of the German Studies Association, 1993.
"Frustrated Technocrats: East German Engineers, 1949-1989"
at a workshop in Berlin of the research group "Science under
Socialism in East Germany in Comparative Perspective” (funded by
the National Science Foundation), 1993.
"Privatization in East Germany" at the New College, USF
Conference on Eastern Europe, 1993.
"Privatization in Germany" at the annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 1992.
"East German Engineers and the Middle Management in the Honecker
Era: A Middle Class?,” as part of panel, "Rethinking Class
and Gender in East Germany, 1949-1989," organized by myself, at
annual conference of the German Studies Association.
"The Banking Families in Berlin and Vienna, 1880-1914" at the
symposium "Cities of Finance," sponsored by the Royal Academy of
the Sciences of the Netherlands and held in Amsterdam, 1991.
"The Business Elites of Hamburg and Berlin" annual convention of
the American Historical Association, 1990.
Chair and commentator of a session on the relationship between
the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie in 19th-century Italy at the
Social Science History Association Conference, 1990.
"Bankers in German Society, 1890-1930," at conference held at
University of Geneva, Switzerland, 1989.
“Die soziale Stellung der jüdischen Wirtschaftselite im
wilhelminischen Berlin,” talk given at conference “Jüdische
Unternehmer in Deutschland im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert,” held at the
Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Königswinter, West Germany, April
1989.
"Wealthy Businessmen in Wilhelmine Germany" at the "German
Social History Conference," organized by Richard Evans at the
University of East Anglia, 1986.