Research Team

Merema Ahmed (Vassar College)

Merema Ahmed is currently a junior of Vassar College’s Class of 2012 where she studies as a History major focusing on African/African-American History with an additional correlate sequence in French and Francophone Studies.

She is working with Professor Höhn as her Ford Scholar (Summer 2010).

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Thea Brophy (Calvin College)

Thea Brophy studied World History, English, and Spanish at Calvin College where her undergraduate thesis examined the role of the student protest movement in the Tlatelolco uprising in Mexico City in 1968.

She did graduate work in Latin American history at Rutgers University, focusing on 20th century grassroots movements and social justice issues. She is currently an academic counselor at Calvin College, and also does freelance editing and manuscript consulting work for various historical projects.

She is the winner of this year's Outstanding Advisors Award of the Michigan Academic Advising Association (MIACADA).

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Alexander Holmig (Augsburg)

Alexander Holmig studied History, Political Sciences and Sociology at Humboldt University, Berlin. He received his M.A. in 2004.

Since 2006 he worked as a historian and freelance/graduate researcher for „Facts & Files“ Historisches Forschungsinstitut, Berlin, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Berlin and German Historical Institute (GHI), Washington, DC.

He is currently working on his Ph.D. thesis on „Security Politics Bottom Up“ - Blockades against intermediate range nuclear missiles in Mutlangen 1983-1987. For more, please visit www.nuclearcrisis.org.

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Molly Kumar (Vassar College)

Molly Kumar is a senior at Vassar College. She is a History major focusing on nineteenth-century French Republicanism. Her interest in France’s political heritage was sparked by her semester abroad in Paris.

She is currently researching for her thesis, a study on the treatment of ‘Others’ in France. She hopes to pursue a teaching career after college.

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Sylvia Landau (University of Mainz)

Sylvia Landau is a student at the Johannes Gutenberg University located in Mainz (Germany). She studies history, journalism and linguistics.

After spending a semester abroad at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and the University of Dijon (France), she is currently working as an intern for the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC.

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Sophie Lorenz (University of Heidelberg)

Sophie Lorenz Sophie Lorenz studied History, Political Science and Public Law at Heidelberg University from 2003 to 2009. In July 2009 she completed her M.A. with a thesis about Black Power, the student protest movement and Black-PantherSolidarity in West Germany during the 1960s and 1970s. Currently, Sophie teaches and works as research associate at the History Department at Heidelberg University. Since October 2009 she is a Ph.D. student in History at Heidelberg University and works  on her dissertation project “Transnational Solidarities: The GDR, Angela Davis and Black America.“

On October 13, 1970 Angela Davis was arrested and put on trial for being an accomplice to homicide. After that the German Democratic Republic (GDR) started a wide-ranging state-sponsored solidarity program for Angela Davis through which Davis became an East German heroine of the “Other America.“ This dissertation tracks the various expressions of support for Angela Davis in the GDR in particular and the crossings between the GDR and Black Americans in general both in terms of specific personal interactions and cultural perceptions. Thereby, despite the ostensible political isolation of the GDR by the Iron Curtain dividing East and West, a new dimension of Cold War relations between the U.S.A. and the GDR will become visible. At the same time, the study will add a new perspective to the international history of the black freedom struggle.

Sophie Lorenz: „Heldin des anderen Amerikas.“ Die DDR-Solidaritätsbewegung für Angela Davis, 1970–1973,
in: Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, Online-Ausgabe, 10 (2013), H. 1.

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Jane Manchon (Vassar College)

Jane Manchon is a senior International Studies major at Vassar College exploring the moral implications and challenges of filming other cultures. She has worked as a junior consultant in Vassar’s Media Cloisters and now works as a Multimedia Developer in the college’s Visual Resource Library with a focus in video editing and graphic design.

Her senior thesis will culminate in a short film set in Samoa, where she spent a semester abroad. She received two grants (The Geraldine Gewirtz Friedman '41 Career Development Fund and The June Ross Marks '49 Travel Fund) that facilitated her two-week return in January 2011 to capture the footage that she is currently editing.

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Laura Stapane (HCA Heidelberg)