Dr. Jan Musekamp

Biographical Summary

Jan Musekamp is the designated deputy director of the German Historical Institute in Warsaw. He graduated with a Ph.D. and a habilitation (“2nd book”) from European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). From 2018 to 2024, he was a visiting associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Previously, he taught at Viadrina University and was a visiting assistant professor at UT Austin.
Dr. Musekamp holds a diploma (M.A. equivalent) in cultural studies and history from Viadrina University. He studied abroad in Toruń/Poland and Brno/Czech Republic. From 2003 to 2006, dr. Musekamp was a doctoral student at Viadrina in the ZEIT Foundation`s “Germany and its Eastern Neighbors“ graduate program. Subsequently, the German Foreign Office employed him as a desk officer for one and a half years. 2007, Dr. Musekamp returned to academia to work on his second book; he finished his habilitation thesis at Viadrina in 2017. He was also a postdoctoral fellow in the International and Area Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis during this time. Alongside his academic career, Jan Musekamp was also a guide for bike tours in Poland and Germany, and he contributed to exhibitions at the Documentation Center of GDR Everyday Culture in Eisenhüttenstadt/Germany, at Viadrina University in Frankfurt (Oder), and the National Museum in Szczecin/Poland.

Current GHI Research Project

Dr. Musekamp focuses on East Central European cultural and migration history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His main areas of interest are questions of mobility, (forced) migrations, cultural appropriation in borderlands, and transnational history.

Jan’s first book, “Zwischen Stettin und Szczecin: Metamorphosen einer Stadt von 1945 bis 2005” (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2010; Polish translation 2013), focuses on forced migrations and cultural appropriation in the Polish border city of Szczecin between 1945 and 2005. His second book, “Shifting Lines, Entangled Borderlands. Mobilities and Migration along the Prussian Eastern Railroad” (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2024), analyzes the impact of the railroad on the development of international networks, mobility, and migration in the long nineteenth century. His current research project deals with the migration history of Ukraine’s German speakers along “global color lines” (W.E.B. Du Bois) in the Baltic states, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Poland, and Siberia.

Publications

Books

Shifting Lines, Entangled Borderlands: Mobilities and Migration along the Prussian Eastern Railroad. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2024.

Zwischen Stettin und Szczecin. Metamorphosen einer Stadt von 1945 bis 2005. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2010.

Polnische Ausgabe/po polsku/in Polish: Między Stettinem a Szczecinem. Metamorfozy miasta od 1945 do 2005. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Nauka i Innowacje, 2013.

 

Edited Books

Flack, Anna, Jan Musekamp, Jannis Panagiotidis, and Hans-Christian Petersen, eds. Russian Germans on Four Continents. Histories of a Global Diaspora. Lanham/MD, Boulder/CO, New York, London: Lexington Books, 2024.

Walke, Anika, Jan Musekamp, and Nicole Svobodny, eds. Migration and Mobility in the Modern Age. Refugees, Travelers, and Traffickers in Europe and Eurasia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2017.

 

Zeitschriftenartikel

„Archäologie lokaler Identitäten. Schichten der Erinnerung in Stettin seit 1989.“ Osteuropa 63, no. 8 (2013): 19-33.

Bernhardt, Katja, and Jan Musekamp. „1945-ein Bruch? Stadtplaner in Stettin und Szczecin.” Nordost-Archiv. Zeitschrift für Regionalgeschichte, N.F. 15 (2006): 38-59.

„Brno/Brünn 1938-1948. Eine Stadt in einem Jahrzehnt erzwungener Wanderungen.” Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 53 (2004): 1-45.

 

Book Chapters (selection)

„Navigating Global Color Lines: Volhynia’s German-speakers on the Move.” In Russian

Germans on Four Continents. Histories of a Global Diaspora, edited by Anna Flack, Jan

Musekamp, Jannis Panagiotidis, and Hans-Christian Petersen. 49-85. Lanham/MD,

Boulder/CO, New York, London: Lexington Books, 2024.

Bernhardt, Katja, and Jan Musekamp. „Przełom roku 1945? Urbaniści w Stettinie i w Szczecinie.“ In Odbudowa miast Pomorza Zachodniego po II wojnie światowej. Wybrane problemy, edited by Paweł Migdalski, 179-194. Wodzisław Śląski and Stargard: Wydawnictwo Templum, 2020.

„Big History and Local Experiences: Migration and Identity in a European Borderland.” In Mapping Migration, Identity, and Space, edited by Tabea Linhard and Timothy Parsons, 55- 83. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

„Saisonale Migration als Bedrohung für den Staat? ›Sachsengänger‹ und die Eisenbahn im östlichen Preußen vor 1914.“ In Migrationsregime vor Ort und lokales Aushandeln von Migration, edited by Jochen Oltmer, 69-103. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2018.

„Paris – St. Petersburg: Shrinking Spaces in the Nineteenth Century.“ In Migration and Mobility in the Modern Age: Refugees, Travelers, and Traffickers in Europe and Eurasia, edited by Anika Walke, Jan Musekamp, and Nicole Svobodny, 35-54. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017.

„Die Ostbahn im Spannungsfeld zwischen geostrategischen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen und der Verfassungsfrage.” In Preußenland und Preußen. Polyzentrik im Zentralstaat 1525- 1945, edited by Bernhart Jähnig, Jürgen Klosterhuis, and Wulf D. Wagner, 153-182. Osnabrück: fibre, 2016.

„Friedrich List, die Eisenbahn, das Militär und Europa.“ Themenportal Europäische Geschichte (2015). URL http://www.europa.clio-online.de/2015/Article=735  

„The Royal Prussian Eastern Railway (Ostbahn) and its Importance for East-West Transportation.” In Eastern European Railways in Transition. 19th to 21st Centuries, edited by Ralf Roth and Henry Jacolin, 117-127. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2013.

„DX-Nr. 7150 und der Waffenstillstand im Äther." In Stille Revolutionen: Die Neuformierung der Welt seit 1989, edited by Katharina Kucher, Gregor Thum, and Sören Urbansky, 187- 196. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus-Verlag, 2013.

„Szczecin`s Identity after 1989: A Local Turn.” In Cities after the Fall of Communism. Reshaping Cultural Landscapes and European Identity, edited by John J. Czaplicka, Nida Gelazis, and Blair A. Ruble, 305-334. Baltimore and Washington: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.