Elana Passman, Ph.D.
Professor of History
Phone:765.983.1288
Email:[email protected]
Pronouns:She/her/hers
Department: History
Program: Jewish Studies
Museum Studies
Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Location: Landrum Bolling Center, Room 320
801 National Road
Richmond, Indiana 47374
About me
I’m a historian of Europe. I teach a wide variety of courses including “Conflict and Cooperation: Europe after 1945,” “From Anarchism to Xenophobia: Europe’s 19th Century,” and “The Medieval City.”
Why do you teach at Earlham?
It is one of my greatest joys to be able to work with such inquisitive, creative, and passionate students. Earlham students continually ask marvelous, thought-provoking questions. Their original research projects inspire me as a scholar and a teacher. Student theses I’ve supervised have covered everything from gender nonconformity in the Swedish Enlightenment to rap music as a form of protest against French secularism.
Education
- Ph.D., University of North Carolina
- M.A., University of North Carolina
- B.A., Yale University
Research projects
My book The French-German Dynamic in an Age of Conflict: Enemies, Collaborators, Friends, 1925-1963 investigates the radical reshaping of the relationship between Germany and France, two neighboring countries whose border—geographical, political, cultural, and moral—constituted one of the deepest fault lines of European history. My book investigates how it became possible for the French and the Germans to overcome what they called their “primordial hatred” and become key partners at the heart of Europe. The story of cooperation, I argue, was propelled by activists who opened up the possibility of imagining friendship with the enemy, even through the darkest times.
I’m currently working on a book project that is deeply personal. With my family papers as a launching point, it follows the trajectory of a German-Jewish family from the 19th century through the experience of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and onto (for the few who survived) a new life in the United States. While centered in Germany and the United States, this transnational story traverses the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, and Israel as well as Poland and the Soviet Union.
Published works