KIRA THURMAN Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures 3136 MLB 812 East Washington Street University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI, 48109 thurmank@umich.edu Fall 2015 Present Fall 2013 Spring 2015 PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Assistant Professor of German Studies and History (joint appointment), University of Michigan Assistant Professor of Modern Central European History, University of Akron EDUCATION Ph.D., History, University of Rochester, October 2013 Dissertation: A History of Black Musicians in Germany and Austria, 1870 1961: Race, Performance, and Reception Adviser: Celia Applegate B.M., Cum Laude, Music History and Literature, Baldwin-Wallace College, 2006 Central European History Musicology Black Studies RESEARCH INTERESTS PUBLICATIONS Books Singing like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms (manuscript in preparation) Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters Searching for the Soul of Black Music in Interwar Germany and Austria in New Perspectives on Black German Studies, edited by Tiffany Florvil and Vanessa Plumly, (New York: Peter Lang USA) (accepted for publication, Winter 2017). Singing the Civilizing Mission in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms: The Fisk Jubilee Singers in Nineteenth-Century Germany Journal of World History (Special Issue: Preaching the Civilizing Mission ), Volume 27, No. 3 (Fall 2016)
The German Lied and the Songs of Black Volk. Invited contribution to Colloquy: Studying the Lied: Hermeneutic Traditions and the Challenges of Performance in Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 67, No. 2 (August 2014). Black Venus, White Bayreuth: Race, Sexuality, and the De-Politicization of Wagner in Postwar West Germany in German Studies Review, Vol. 35, No. 3 (October 2012).
Review Essay Wagnerian Dreams, Grandiose Visions: Lawrence Freeman s Opera, Voodoo, at the Miller Theater at Columbia University, Opera Quarterly, Volume 32, No. 2 (Fall 2016). Book and Museum Reviews Museum Exhibit Review: SchwarzÖsterreich: Die Kinder der Besatzungssoldaten at the Volkskundemuseum in Vienna, Austria, H-Black-Europe, August 2016. Black Germany: The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884-1960, by Robbie Aitken and Eve Rosenhaft, H-German (Spring 2016) Germany and the Black Diaspora: Points of Contact, 1250 1914, edited by Mischa Honeck, Martin Klimke, and Anne Kuhlmann, Canadian Journal of History, Volume 50, No. 2 (August 2015) The Promise of Tradition: Music, Modernity, and Mass Society in Weimar Germany, by Brendan Fay, Dissertation Reviews (January 2015) Shadowing the White Man s Burden: U.S. Imperialism and the Problem of the Color Line, by Gretchen Murphy reviewed in the Journal of African American History, Volume 97, No. 1-2 (Winter-Spring 2012). Encyclopedia Entries African-American Artists in Europe, African-American Classical Musicians in Europe, Blacks in German and Central European Literature, in The Encyclopedia of Blacks in European History and Culture, Greenwood Press, December 2008. HONORS, AWARDS, GRANTS, AND FELLOWSHIPS Fellowships and Grants 2016 2017 Faculty Fellow, Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, University of Michigan Spring 2016 UMS Faculty Fellowship, UMS Mellon Institute on Art Academic Integration, University of Michigan Summer 2015 Faculty Research Grant ($10,000), University of Akron Spring 2015 Junior Faculty Research Grant, Ohio Academy of History Summer 2014 Summer Institute Grant, Holocaust Educational Foundation Spring 2014 Summers 2013 & 2014 Book Purchasing Grant, Friends of the University of Akron SIAS Summer Institute Grant: Cultural Encounters: Global Perspectives and Local Exchanges, 1750-1940, The National Humanities Center and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
Summer 2013 Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar Grant, The German Historical Institute, Washington, DC 2011 2012 Erskine A. Peters Dissertation Fellowship, The University of Notre Dame Spring 2011 Research Grant to Austria, The Dietrich W. Botstiber Institute for Austrian American Studies 2009 2010 Fulbright Dissertation Fellowship to Germany Summer 2009 Archival Summer Seminar Grant, The German Historical Institute, DC Summer 2007 Language Grant, Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) 2006 2013 Provost Doctoral Fellowship, The University of Rochester Honors and Awards Fall 2014 Fall 2011 The German Studies Association: DAAD Article Prize for Best Article on German History ( Black Venus, White Bayreuth: Race, Sexuality, and the De- Politicization of Wagner in Postwar West Germany ) The German Studies Association: Award For Best Paper By A Graduate Student ( Black Venus, White Bayreuth: Race, Sexuality, and the De- Politicization of Wagner in Postwar West Germany ) PRESENTATIONS Invited Guest Speaker Are they African or American? German Reception of African American Spirituals, 1870-1930, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, February 2016. Performing Blackness and Classical Music in Communist East Germany, University of Pennsylvania, Musicology Colloquium, Fall 2015 The Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1870s Germany, Max Kade Lecture Series, Vanderbilt University, Spring 2015. African American Musicians in Weimar Germany Oberlin College, Spring 2015. Singing the Right Message: Black Musicians in Communist East Germany, Symposium: Medium, Message and Method in Cultures of the Cold War, University of Massachusetts- Amherst, Fall 2014. A German History of African American Music, 47th Wisconsin Workshop of the Department of German at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fall 2014.
Conference Presentations Singing Like Germans: African Americans, German Music, and Transcending Race, Gender, and the Nation, Berlin Program Summer Workshop, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, June 2016 Dancing in a Banana Skirt in the City of Music: Josephine Baker in 1920s Vienna, The American Historical Association, Atlanta, Georgia, January 2015 A Sex Bomb At Stephansplatz: Josephine Baker in 1920s Vienna, Association for Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) Annual Conference, Philadelphia, November 2015. Preaching to the Choir: African American Celebrations of German Culture in the Nineteenth Century, German Studies Association Annual Conference, Washington DC, September 2015 The German Lied and the Songs of Black Volk, The American Historical Association Annual Conference, New York City, January 2015. Who s Afraid of High Culture? The German Studies Association Annual Conference, September 2014. African American Music in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, African American Music in World Cultures Conference, Boston University, March 2014. Global Music and German History, The Mid-West German History Workshop, Indiana University, October 2013. Composing African American Music in Kaiser Wilhelm s Court, The German Studies Association Annual Conference, Denver, Colorado, October 2013. The Fisk Jubilee Singers in Germany, 1877 1878, German Historical Society Annual Conference, London, United Kingdom, September 2013. Listening to the Black Voice: African American Music in Late 19th Century Germany, The Art of Listening: Trends und Perspektive einer Geschichte des Musikhörens, University of Potsdam, Berlin, Germany, July 2012. Like the Tyrolers and the Swedes, they, too bring the songs of their people : Race, Musical Appropriation, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers in Germany, 1877 1878, 17th Biennial International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, Edinburgh, Scotland, June 2012.
A Negro Who Sings German Lieder Jeopardizes German Culture : Race and the Culture Wars in Interwar Germany and Austria, The American Canadian Conference in German and Modern European History, April 2012. Singing Like Germans: Race, National Identity, and Authentic Performance Practice in Weimar Germany and Austria, The University of Notre Dame, March 2012. She is neither Cleopatra nor the Queen of Sheba : The Black Female Other in Postwar German Opera Productions The American Musicological Society Annual Conference in San Francisco, November 2011. Ol Man River in the Promised Land: Paul Robeson in East Germany, Music in Divided Germany Conference, University of California, Berkeley, September 2011. An (African) American Opera? Porgy and Bess and the Cold War Mission in 1950s Berlin, Cold War Cultures Conference at the University of Texas-Austin, September 2010. TEACHING EXPERIENCE Assistant Professor, University of Michigan (2015 Present) GER 396/HIS 396/AAS 395 Germany and the Black Diaspora GER 449 Music and National Identity GER 731- Performing Race, Gender, Nation (Graduate Seminar) HIS 230 People on the Move: A Global History of Migration and Cultural Encounters HIS 407 Global Cultural Encounters Since 1800 Assistant Professor, University of Akron (2013 2015) Hist 221 Humanities in the World Since 1300 Hist 323 19th Century Europe Hist 324 20th Century Europe Hist 438/539 Nazi Germany Hist 495/595 Race After Hitler: Nationalism and Ethnic Violence in Europe Since 1945 Hist 694 Germany and Austria in the Long Nineteenth Century Instructor, University of Rochester (Summer 2011) HIST 121 Modern European History, 1789 2010 Instructor, State University of New York, Geneseo Campus (2008 2009) HIST 203 Europe Since 1945 HIST 205 Beethoven in German History
SERVICE Service at the University of Michigan Fall 2016 Present Undergraduate Curriculum Committee Member, History Department Fall 2015 Present Faculty Adviser, Music and Sound Studies Group Fall 2015 Present Faculty Adviser, Alamanya: Transnational German Studies Workshop Fall 2015 Spring 2016 Undergraduate Curriculum Committee Member, German Department, University of Michigan Professional Service Summer 2015 Present Founding Member and Editor, H-Black Europe (H-Net) Fall 2015 Present Co-Director, Music and Sound Studies Network, German Studies Association Spring 2015 Present Advisory Board Member, H-German Fall 2014 Present Founding Member and Web Editor, blackcentraleurope.com (sponsored by the German Historical Institute, Washington DC) 2014 2015 Managing Editor, H-German Discussion Network 2012 2014 Editor, H-German Discussion Network Fall 2014 Book reviewer: Routledge Press Fall 2014 Fellowship reviewer: DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst) Fall 2012 Present Article reviewer: German History journal (Cambridge University Press); Atlantic Studies journal (Taylor & Francis) Fall 2016 Present Fall 2016 Present Spring 2016 Present Spring 2014 Present Spring 2012 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Advisory Board Member, Special Exhibit: Blacks in Germany (Summer 2018) at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, Michigan Consultant, Scents of Berlin Black Music Documentary, directed by Thabo Tindi Consultant, PBS Documentary, Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, directed by Stanley Nelson Blogger, Schenkerian Gang Signs Research Consultant, Scott Joplin s Treemonisha, The Atlanta Opera Company