Prof. Dr. Axel Schäfer

Research Interests
My research focuses on the political, cultural and intellectual history of the USA in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular emphasis on religion and politics, transnational history of ideas, social politics, and migration and consumer capitalism.

Research in the SFB
Within the SFB, I am investigating the historical links between debates on migration, consumer society and social policy in the USA. The aim of the project is to show the close connection between immigration policy and consumerist or welfare state human differentiation. Seen from this perspective, the current anti-immigrant sentiment, for example, has less to do with the number or origin of migrants than with a crisis of consumer society in an age of limited resources.

Other projects
I also work on projects that examine the historical relationship between democracy, the environment and political economy. For example, I am interested in how democratic societies, whose functioning and legitimacy are tied to policies of economic growth, material abundance and global resource exploitation, can manage the transition to a post-consumerist age. In addition, my research focuses on the relationship between state and religion in the US in the twentieth century.

Academic career
I have been a professor of North American history at the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies at JGU since 2015. Previously, I taught and conducted research at Keele University in the UK, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Freie Universität Berlin, and universities in the US and Eastern Europe. I habilitated at Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg in 2011. I received my PhD from the University of Washington (Seattle) in 1994. I received my Master of Arts from the University of Oregon in 1989.

Foto: Stephanie Füssenich