Dr. Jens-Uwe Guettel Awarded NEH Fellowship for Book Project “Radical Democracy in Germany, 1871-1923”
Dr. Jens-Uwe Guettel has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship for his book project on Radical Democracy in Germany, 1871-1923.
Radical Democracy in Germany focuses on resistance to a patently undemocratic system. It examines an unlikely coalition of socialists, anarchists and feminists that profoundly altered the semi-autocratic German Empire (1871-1918) even as it was targeted by the country’s authorities. Yet these groups nevertheless increasingly dominated public political discourse; brought about the dismissal of high-ranking state representatives; embarrassed the government in lawsuits and parliamentary proceedings; and eventually marshalled hundreds of thousands of marchers demanding democratic change and close to a million protesters against war and militarism. The project thus highlights the potential for democratic change even under undemocratic conditions, and the chances taken or squandered by those championing democratic reform in Germany before 1918.
