Thomas Pegelow Kaplan

In Fall 2024, Prof. Pegelow Kaplan is on a research/writing semester.

About Prof. Pegelow Kaplan:

Professor Pegelow Kaplan teaches courses at the undergraduate and graduate level on the Holocaust, modern Jewish history, Central European history, historical methodology and theory, and transnational history. These classes include "Global History of Holocaust and Genocide," "Jewish History Since 1492," "Antisemitism: Concepts, Discourses, Practices," "Nazi Germany and the Holocaust," and "The Global 1960s: Student, Youth, and Worker Protests and the Reshaping of the World" (course currently 'under construction') along with various undergraduate and graduate seminars. He holds the Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History and is also a part of the Jewish Studies Program.

Professor Pegelow Kaplan received his B.A. (equivalent) at Eberhard-Karls University Tübingen, Germany, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Modern European History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Language of Nazi Genocide: Linguistic Violence and the Struggle of Germans of Jewish Ancestry (Cambridge University Press, 2009; Russian edition: Boston: Academic Studies Press, forthcoming 2025), , which explores how words preceded, accompanied, and made mass murder possible.  His latest study entitled Taking the Transnational Turn: The German Jewish Press and Journalism Beyond Borders, 1933-1943 [in Hebrew] appeared with Yad Vashem Publications in late 2023. It calls for a reassessment of the work of German Jewish journalists, provides a methodological apparatus for this undertaking, and offers case studies of networks from Paris and Berlin to Manila. Prof. Pegelow Kaplan co-edited Resisting Persecution: Jews and their Petitions during the Holocaust (with Wolf Gruner) (Berghahn Books, 2020) that presents a profound reinterpretation of Jewish petitioning  practices. The volume demonstrates how entreaties by tens of thousands of Jews in German-controlled Europe were anything but futile. Instead, they helped their authors to reassert their agency and withstand Nazi onslaughts. In addition, he is the co-editor (with Jürgen Matthäus) of Beyond "Ordinary Men": Christopher R. Browning and Holocaust Historiography (2019) and (with Thomas Köhler, Jürgen Matthäus et al.) of Polizei und Holocaust (2023).  His next co-edited collections entitled Rethinking Modern Jewish History and Memory Through Photography (with Ofer Ashkenazi) and Holocaust Testimonies: Reassessing Survivors’ Voices and their Future in Challenging Times (with Wolf Gruner, Miriam Offer, and Boaz Cohen) will be published in 2025 by SUNY Press and Bloomsbury respectively. Professor Pegelow Kaplan's scholarly articles have appeared in  Baeck Institute Year Book, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, the Tel Aviv Yearbook for German History, Contemporary European History, The Journal of Holocaust Research, Zeithistorische Forschungen, Bishvil Hazikaron and many other venues. Pegelow Kaplan is currently working on a study of post-1945 protest movements and their appropriation of genocide language and a book on a global history of the Holocaust. He has received fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, among others. Professor Pegelow Kaplan also held positions as a visiting research fellow at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow in Leipzig and -- since 2016 -- the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin.

Professor Pegelow Kaplan is accepting both M.A. and Ph.D. students.

Areas of Research Related to Jewish Studies:

Professor Pegelow Kaplan specializes in Holocaust studies, modern German-Jewish history, histories of violence, language, and culture of Central Europe, and transnational history.

Courses Taught:

• Global History of Holocaust and Genocide (HIST/JWST/RLST 1830)

• Seminar in Modern European History (HIST 3012)

• Internship in Jewish Studies (JWST 3930)

• Topics in Jewish History: Antisemitism: Concepts, Discourses, Practices (HIST/JWST 4348)

Recent and Forthcoming Publications (Selected):

Rethinking Modern Jewish History and Memory Through Photography, co-ed. with Ofer Ashkenazi. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, forthcoming 2025.

Holocaust Testimonies: Reassessing Survivors’ Voices and their Future in Challenging Times, co-ed. with Wolf Gruner, Miriam Offer, and Boaz Cohen. London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2025.

"Global Transit, Imperial Performativity and Survival: European Jewish Refugees in the Philippines Under U.S. Tutelage and Japanese Occupation, 1937-1946," Leo Baeck Institute Year Book LXIX (2024).

Taking the Transnational Turn: The German-Jewish Press and Journalism Beyond Borders, 1933-1943 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Publications, 2024) [in Hebrew]

Resisting Persecution: Jews and Their Petitions during the Holocaust, eds. Thomas Pegelow Kaplan and Wolf Gruner (New York: Berghahn, 2023) [new paperback edition]

Polizei und Holocaust: Eine Generation nach Christopher Brownings Ordinary Men, eds. Thomas Koehler, Juergen Matthaeus, Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, and Peter Roemer (Paderborn: Brill Schoeningh, 2023)