Dr. Jacqueline Nießer

Postdoctoral Researcher in Anthropology/Cultural Studies

Contact

Universität Regensburg
Landshuter Straße 4
93047 Regensburg
Germany

+49 (0)941 / 943-5336 jacqueline1.niesser@geschichte.uni-regensburg.de

Research Project

My project researches transnational entanglements in twentieth century body politics. The interconnectivity of ideas and practices concerning body politics (as for instance health, intimacy, sexuality) throughout Europe lies at the center of my interest. I approach body politics from a non-conformist angle, namely by investigating the development of FKK (“Freikörperkultur”), starting from the former Yugoslavias. The history of nudist culture in the twentieth century is rooted in alternative social reform movements (“Lebensreform Bewegungen”) that had already emerged by the nineteenth century German areas. They propagated changing society through body awareness and alternative body practices. Nudism as part of the social reform movements is framed by modernization, industrialization and liberation processes that transformed not only societies, but also its smallest distinct unit – the human body. Nudists introduced the term “naturism” for nudist culture to emphasize the strive for a balanced relationship between the human body and nature. After WWII, FKK developed as a subcultural branch of international tourism and as a form of dropping out from social norms in “the East” and “the West”.
I am exploring nudist culture as a transnational, non-conformist practice for which international nudist organizations had evolved before and after WWII. I investigate specifically the emergence of FKK as part of international tourism in socialist Yugoslavia, where the first official naturist camp opened on the initiative of German nudists from Munich in 1961 on the tiny island of Koversada in Istria. Islands as realms of those non-conformist practices will need consideration in the research too. Quickly, non-aligned Yugoslavia became one of the hotspots of naturist resorts in Europe. Yugoslav naturists joined the International Naturist Federation (INF-FNI) which held its international congress on Koversada in 1972. My particular interest concerns the transnational connections between the naturists from different parts of Europe and the world, through nude tourism as practice and through their membership as activism in the INF-FNI. By looking at a non-conformist phenomenon, I aim at reflecting the dominant norms. Can we perceive capitalist versus socialist body politics? Or does the history of body culture in twentieth century Europe require a different, less binary approach?

Curriculum Vitae

Before joining the Graduate school for East and Southeast European studies as a Postdoc, Dr. Jacqueline Nießer held fellowships at the Leibniz-Campus “Eastern Europe Global Area” at the University of Leipzig and at the “Center for Transdisciplinary Research of Violence, Trauma and Justice” (VITRI) at the Charles University in Prague. Jacqueline also has worked as associated lecturer in Public History and Cultural Education as well as in East and Southeast European History at the University of Regensburg. She completed her PhD on transnational memory activism in post Yugoslavia at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg. After that, Jacqueline had coordinated the Horizon 2020 international research project “COURAGE – Cultural opposition in socialism” at the Leibniz-Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg for three years.

Publications

Monographs

Die Wahrheit der Anderen. Transnationale Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung in Post-Jugoslawien am Beispiel der REKOM Initiative, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: Göttingen 2020.

Rezension der Publikation Jacqueline Nieβer: Die Wahrheit der Anderen: Transnationale Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung in Post-Jugoslawien am Beispiel der REKOM Initiative (degruyter.com)

Edited Volume
With Juliane Tomann (Hg.): Angewandte Geschichte. Neue Perspektiven auf Geschichte in der Öffentlichkeit, Schoeningh: Paderborn 2014.

Journal articles and Book Chapters

With Elisa Satjukow und Claudia Weber: Themenschwerpunkt „Südosteuropa ist tot? Lang lebe der Balkan! Positionierungen in einem interdisziplinären Forschungsfeld“. Südost-Forschungen. Internationale Zeitschrift für Geschichte, Kultur und Landeskunde Südosteuropas. Jg. 81, 2022
- darin: Nießer/ Satjukow/ Weber: Einleitung, 1-7
- Nießer/ Satjukow: Reflections on Positionality in German Southeast European Studies, 34-56.

Die verflochtene Geschichte der Freikörperkultur in Italien und Jugoslawien. In: Zibaldone – Zeitschrift für italienische Kultur der Gegenwart, Themenheft „Kontaktzone Adria“, Nr. 74, Herbst 2022, 21–32.

Der Krieg als gemeinsames Erbe – Transnationale Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung nach dem Zerfall Jugoslawiens. In: "Religion und Gesellschaft in Ost und West" 4-5/2022, 18–21. URL: https://www.g2w.eu/zeitschrift/aktuelle-ausgabe/1882-rgow-4-5-2022-erbschaften-30-jahre-nach-dem-zerfall-jugoslawiens

The Region after Yugoslavia. In: Connections. A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists, July 2021. URL: www.connections.clio-online.net/article/id/artikel-5244.

With Juliane Tomann: Geschichte in der Öffentlichkeit analysieren. Jubiläen als Gegenstand von Public History und Angewandter Geschichte. In: APuZ 33-34/2020, Bonn, 17–22.

Freedom of Culture in and after Yugoslavia. An Interview with Branka Prpa. In: Südosteuropa, vol. 67 no.1, 2019, 110–128.

With Juliane Tomann: Public and Applied History in Germany. Just Another Brick in the Wall of the Academic Ivory Tower? In: The Public Historian, vol. 40 no. 4, November 2018, 11–27. DOI: 10.1525/tph.2018.40.4.11.

With Juliane Tomann: On “Big Tents” and “Umbrellas”. In: The Public Historian, vol 40 no. 4, November 2018, 61–63. DOI: 10.1525/tph.2018.40.4.61.

With Thomas Skowronek / Friederike Kind-Kovács / Ulf Brunnbauer: Cultural Opposition as Transnational Practice. In: Balázs Apor / Péter Apor / Sándor Horváth (Hg.): The Handbook of COURAGE: Cultural Opposition and its Heritage in Eastern Europe, Budapest 2018, 551–571.

With Albert Bing / Josip Mihaljević: Yugoslavia. Different Shades of Red. In: Balázs Apor / Péter Apor / Sándor Horváth (Hg.): The Handbook of COURAGE: Cultural Opposition and its Heritage in Eastern Europe, Budapest 2018, 97–116.

Which Commemorative Models Help? A Case Study from Post-Yugoslavia. In: Mischa Gabowitsch (Hg.): Replicating Atonement. Foreign Models in the Commemoration of Atrocities, Basingstoke 2017, 131–161 (e-book).

With Juliane Tomann: Die Ironie der Praxis. Angewandte Geschichte an der Oder. In: Dies. (Hg.): Angewandte Geschichte. Neue Perspektiven auf Geschichte in der Öffentlichkeit, Paderborn 2014, 97–110.

With Juliane Tomann / Rafal Zytyniec: Angewandte Geschichte – Betrachtungen eines neuen Ansatzes aus deutscher und polnischer Perspektive. In: HISTORIE. Jahrbuch des Zentrums für Historische Forschung Berlin der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 4: Deutsch-Polnische Beziehungsgeschichte, Berlin 2011, 268–283.

With Felix Ackermann: Angewandte Geschichte als gesellschaftliches Medium beidseitig der Oder. In: Wolfgang Hardtwig/ Alexabder Schug: History Sells! Angewandte Geschichte als Wissenschaft und Markt. Franz Steiner: Stuttgart 2009, 317–323.

Further publications

Der Westen und der Balkan. Eine Entflechtung. 28.09.2023. https://seeffield.app.uni-regensburg.de/der-westen-und-der-balkan-eine-entflechtung/ 

Review: Julianne Funk, Nancy Good and Marie E. Berry (2020): Healing and Peacebuilding after War. Transforming Trauma in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Comparative Southeast European Studies. 09/2023 Julianne Funk, Nancy Good and Marie E. Berry: Healing and Peacebuilding after War. Transforming Trauma in Bosnia and Herzegovina (degruyter.com)

After Reconciliation. On the Closure of the ICTY in The Hague. In: Erinnerungskulturen. Erinnerung und Geschichtspolitik im östlichen und südöstlichen Europa, 18.12.2017. URL: erinnerung.hypotheses.org/1640.

Istorija kao slon u sobi: Srpska laboratoria sećanja. In: Peščanik, 02.02.2017.

History as Elephant in the Room: Observations from Serbia’s Memory Lab. In: Erinnerungskulturen: Erinnerung und Geschichtspolitik im östlichen und südöstlichen Europa, 16.12.2016. URL: erinnerung.hypotheses.org/1038.

Der Kampf der Erinnerungen war gestern, oder wie sich Erinnerungskultur gegen den Strich denken lässt: In: Erinnerungskulturen. Erinnerung und Geschichtspolitik im östlichen und südöstlichen Europa, 29.04.2015. URL: erinnerung.hypotheses.org/55.

"Nemoj mi samo o miru i ljubavi!" Versöhnung als Tabu auf dem Gebiet des ehemaligen Jugoslawien? In: Kakanien Revisited, 2013.

With J. Großmann and T. Schneider: Towards a European Society? Convergence and Divergence in 20th

Century Europe. Synthesis of the summer school 4–10 July 2010. In: discussions 6 (2011), URL: perspectivia.net/receive/ploneimport_mods_00000474

With Juliane Tomann / Anna Littke / Jakob Ackermann / Felix Ackermann: Diskussion: Angewandte Geschichte: Ein neuer Ansatz? Version: 1.0. In: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, 15.2.2011. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14765/zzf.dok.2.310.v1.

Interviews

DER SPIEGEL (11/06), Süddeutsche Zeitung (06/11), Deutschlandfunk (06/11), La Liberté (04/2019)