My name is Gavriel Rosenfeld) and I’m a Professor of History at Fairfield University. I specialize in the history and memory of Nazism and the Holocaust. I also write widely about counterfactual history and edit the blog, The Counterfactual History Review.

I have written six books about the history and memory of Nazism in postwar western culture. My most recent books, The World Hitler Never Made and Hi Hitler! examine how the Nazi past is being normalized in present day culture, especially through the medium of counterfactual history and internet culture.

I have commented widely on recent web programs, such as Amazon.Prime’s The Man in the High Castle, the rise of Nazi-related internet memes, and the changing image of Hitler in popular culture. I will soon be publishing a new book, *The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present,*that surveys western society’s postwar fear of a Nazi return to power in the form of a “Fourth Reich.” I am also writing a comprehensive history of counterfactual history, from Antiquity to the Present.

Today, from 2 to 4 EST, I'll be answering your questions about the evolving cultural memory of Nazism in contemporary life, the reasons for the surging interest in counterfactual history, and the appropriateness of employing analogies to Hitler and the Third Reich to make sense of current political trends.

It has been a long time since we've done a panel AMA and even longer since we have done one on Cultural History! So let this be the day where we correct those mistakes.

If history if the record of our successes and mistakes as a species, than cultural history is perhaps our way of expressing those successes and failures. While many other species have demonstrated creativity and variety of culture, none have done so as widespread or as massively as humans have. As a field, cultural history is usually dated to François Furet's 1978 essay Interpreting the French Revolution which attempted to locate the reasons for the French revolution away from Marxism and to a more general politico-cultural understanding. However, since then (and really, honestly, before) there has been an explosion in varieties of methods of cultural history.

In our last panel AMA, /u/depanneur wrote

So then, what is cultural history? Admittedly, it is a fairly nebulously defined subfield when compared to its sisters like economic or military history. Peter Burke answered the same question thusly: “it still awaits a definitive answer.” Cultural history can be done across time and space, and study nearly any aspect of a society: there exist cultural histories of animals, of clothing, of landscapes, finance, religious beliefs, warfare and so on. Burke posited that because cultural historians study such a multitude of subjects, it is their methods, not objects of study, which unites them:

“the common ground of cultural historians might be defined as a concern with the symbolic and its interpretation. Symbols, conscious or unconscious, can be found everywhere, from art to everyday life, but an approach to the past in terms of symbolism is just one approach among others.”

Which is as good of an introduction as any. We are cultural historians! Ask us anything.

Without further ado, our list of panelist-participants:

/u/flotiste Western concert music ("classical" music), from the Renaissance to the mid 20th century. Particular areas of expertise:

• propaganda music and banned music in the 3rd Reich
• development of woodwind instruments
• performance practices of opera
• classical and romantic era of opera

Background is University education in music, specializing in flute and opera performance. Am an active professional flautist and opera singer.

/u/depanneur I study the terminology of insanity in old irish and also specialized in the history of emotions in early irish history

/u/agentdcf: I am a historian of 19th and 20th century Britain, with particular thematic emphases in culture, environment, and food. My research is a cultural and environmental history of wheat, flour, and bread, and it stands at the intersection of several (usually separate) themes and methodologies: cultural history (which I would define as histories of "meaning," broadly defined), social history, environmental history, food, science and medicine, the body, and consumption. I'm best-equipped to answer questions about food and ideas of nature, though I can take a stab at questions of cultural history across the West in the modern period. I have a lot of teaching experience in Western Civilization, world history, environmental history, and some US history (especially California, my home state); this has given me a long and global view of things, but a fairly spotty expertise.

/u/chocolatepot is a fashion historian, specializing in women's clothing from the 18th through early 20th centuries, and the author of Regency Women's Dress: Techniques and Patterns, 1800-1829. More broadly, she can answer questions relating to women and society during the same time period.

u/Stormtemplar , better known as Joe IRL is a recent graduate in literature, focusing on the Medieval period. His research interests are Medieval Literary Theory and the overlap between Oral and Literary Culture in the Middle Ages. He's happy to take a swing at any questions involving medieval intellectual or literary culture or the medieval mind generally, and has written a fair bit about the ideology of the Crusades on this sub.

/u/itsallfolklore Ronald M. James, , is a historian of the American West and a trained folklorist who has worked with Western American as well as European beliefs and traditions. He can address general topics dealing with folklore - understanding that no one can answer specific questions about all the world's traditions. Specifically, he can discuss topics dealing with the folklore/culture of Northern Europe and the American West. James is about to release a book on Cornish folklore, dealing with topics including storytelling as well as Celtic studies and its relationship to Scandinavia.

u/drylaw is a phd candidate studying native authors of central colonial Mexico and their relation to the pre-Hispanic past. For this AMA he can also talk about history writing on the Aztec-Spanish war and more generally on early Spanish America. Connected interests include transcultural studies, colonial and intellectual history.

/u/amandycat I studied a Masters degree in early modern English literature, focusing on Christopher Marlowe's drama in my dissertation. I am now part-way through a PhD on early modern manuscript culture, in particular, the way in which epitaphs are presented in manuscripts (if this kind of thing tickles your fancy, you will probably enjoy the episode of the AH Podcast I took part in recently). Ask me anything about the early modern English theatre, early modern manuscripts, and death culture!

/u/Commiespaceinvader is a PhD student writing about everyday life in Serbia under German occupation. In the course of his research he is applying cultural history as a method, especially history from below, history of everyday life and microhistory.

u/bigfridge224 aka Stuart Mickie is a lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Manchester in the UK. His research is on magic and religion in the Roman north-west, but he's happy to cover anything relating to Roman cultural or social history if he can!

/u/AnnalsPornographie, aka Brian Watson is primarily a historian of the book, but focuses specifically on the history of pornography and obscenity, with a heavy focus on histories of sexuality, marriage, and privacy. He he is the author of Annals Of Pornographie: How Porn Became Bad. He is happy to answer questions about the overlap between cultural and intellectual historians, or how the book can be a cultural force.

Also around are /u/historiagrephour and /u/sunagainstgold, I'm just waiting on their bios :)

Please feel free to address your questions to the panel as a whole or to individuals by tagging them with the /u/ tag. Also of note: not everyone is here! This AMA will run from noon today until noon tomorrow.

Previous weeks!

Thursday Reading and Research is intended as an academic free-for-all, for the discussion of all issues historical, or tangentially so. Suggested topics include, but are by no means limited to:

• New developments or discoveries in the field

• Recent book releases, old book reviews, reading recommendations, or just talking about what you're reading now

• Historiographical discussions, debates, and disputes

• Your current research interests or projects

• The goings on within the academy

• ...And so on!

Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion only of matters historical discussion, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.