Dr. Christopher Fischer

Dr. Christopher Fischer
Assc Dean, Strat Init&Car Read
Dean's Office (CAS); History, Department of
Arts and Sciences, College of
SH 200 -- Dean's Office Suite
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812-237-9653

Education

  • Ph.D. - Modern European History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - 2003
  • M.A. - Modern European History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - 1998
  • B.A. - History/German, University of Notre Dame - 1995

Awards and Honors

  • Fritz Stern Prize - 2004

Licensures and Certifications

Teaching Interests

  • Dr. Fischer has a range of teaching interests including courses on World War I and II, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, modern urban history, the histories of modern Germany and France, world history, as well as graduate research seminars.

Intellectual Contributions

  • Alsace to the Alsatians? Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870-1940 - Berghahn Books, New York/Oxford - 2010
  • The Future of Alsace: The French case to the Americans - Routledge, New York - 2020
  • “Of Occupied Territories and Lost Provinces: German and Entente Propaganda in the West during World War I” - Brill, Leiden - 2014
  • The Trophy of Titans: Alsace, 1870-1950 - European Science Foundation/Palgrave Press, London - 2011
  • Local Loss, National Sacrifice: Commemoration of the First World War in Alsace, 1918-1939 - France and its Spaces of War: Experience, Memories, and Images, New York - 2009

Presentations

  • The “New” History: Revising General Education Strategically. Creating a 21st–Century General Education: Responding to Seismic Shifts, 2019.
  • “Strange Liberation: French Policy in Liberated (Occupied?) Alsace, 1914-1918”. Annual meeting of the Society for WSFH, 2018.
  • “The Future of Alsace: The French Case to the Americans”. 100 Years after World War I: Local to Global Impact of an International War, 2017.
  • “Kristallnacht as Turning Point: Jewish Lives and Nazi Policy” . “NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS: REMEMBERING THE HOLOCAUST”, 2015.
  • Cla iming Alsace at Home and Abroad: France, Germany, and the Future of Alsace during World War I” . Annual meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies, 2015.

Research Interests

  • Dr. Fischer's research interests include the history of European regionalism (his first book, "Alsace to the Alsatians?", explored the changing conceptions of Alsatian regional identity. He also has interests in the First World War, and more broadly, in Modern German and French political and cultural history.

University Service

  • Role: Other - Fulbright Program Adviser 2021
  • Role: Chair - University College Council 2014 - 2018
  • Role: Member - Faculty Senate 2011 - 2015

Professional Service

  • Role: Editor, Associate Editor - H-German 2003 - 2015

Public/Community Service

  • Role: Board Member - CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center 2014 - 2023
  • Role: Committee Member - CANDLES Program Committee 2014

Dr. Fischer has taught European history at Indiana State University since 2005, and served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences since January 2018. His research has largely been grounded in the study of borders starting with an interest in South Tyrol (in part due to having a roommate from South Tyrol while studying at the University of Innsbruck as both an undergraduate and later on a Fulbright). The interest in borders later shifted geographical focus to Alsace, a shift which led to his doctoral work at the University of North Carolina and first book, ​Alsace to the Alsatians?: Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1871-1939.  ​He has written a wide number of articles on Alsace. His current research remains split between Alsace during the First World War and wider issues related to that conflict. Dr. Fischer has taught a wide range of courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level on European history with a focus on Germany, France, and the World Wars. He has also started teaching courses on urban history at both the graduate and undergraduate level. He has benefitted from Dr. Fischer has also served as an editor of H-German and is currently on the board at CANDLES Holocaust Museum.

History 102: World Civilization since 1500
History 113: World War II
History 313: The Modern City
History 419: Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
History 460: 20th Century Europe
History 467: Modern France
History 468: Modern Germany
History 496: Topics in European History: World War I
History 496: Topics in European History: The Experience of the Second World War
History 621: Graduate Research Seminar
History 660: History 660: Readings in European History: Europe and the Modern European City

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- Ph.D. in Modern European History (May 2003). University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- M.A. in Modern European History (May 1998). University of Notre Dame -- B.A. in History and German (May 1995).

Books

Alsace to the Alsatians? Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870-1939 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010).

Articles

“Of Occupied Territories and Lost Provinces: German and Entente Propaganda in the West during World War I,” World War I and Propaganda (Leiden: Brill, 2014). "The Trophy of Titans: Alsace-Lorraine, 1870-1950." Disputed Territories and Shared Pasts: Overlapping National Histories in Modern Europe, edited by Frank Hadler and Tibor Frank, European Science Foundation Series "Writing the Nation" Volume 5 (London: Palgrave, 2011).

"Local Loss, National Sacrifice: Commemoration of the First World War in Alsace, 1918-1939," France and its Spaces of War: Experience, Memory, Images, edited by Patricia Lorcin and Daniel Brewer (New York: Palgrave, 2009), 133-148.

"Alsace to the Alsatians?", Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 36 (Spring 2005): 55-62. "War Weariness or National Reunion? Alsace, 1914-1918," Proceedings of the Western Society for French History, v. 29 (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2003): 223-31.

Books Reviews

Tait Keller, Apostles of the Alps: Mountaineering and Nation Building in Germany and Austria, 1860–1939 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2016). Reviewed in The American Historical Review 121, 5 (2015): 1759-1760.

Léon Strauss, Réfugiés, expulsés, évadés d’Alsace et de Moselle 1940–1945 (Colmar: Jérôme Do Bentzinger Éditeur, 2010). Reviewed for Francia ­Recensio (2014), n. 3. http://www.perspectivia.net/content/publikationen/francia/francia-recensio/2014-3/ZG/strauss_fischer/at_download/pdfdocument.

Lothar Wettstein, Josef Bürckel: Gauleiter – Reichsstatthalter – Krisenmanager Adolf Hitlers. 2. überarb. Aufl. (Norderstedt: Books on Demand GmbH, 2010). Reviewed for  Francia-Recensio (2014), n. 2. http://www.perspectivia.net/content/publikationen/francia/francia-recensio/2014-2/ZG/wettstein_fischer

Antony Beevor. The Second World War (New York: Little, Brown, 2012). Reviewed for The Michigan War Studies Review (6 February 2014). http://www.miwsr.com/2014-011.aspx.

Anthony Steinhoff,  The Gods of the City: Protestantism and Religious Culture in Strasbourg, 1870–1914. Studies in Central European History. Edited by Thomas A. Brady and Roger Chickering (Leiden: Brill. 2008). Reviewed in Central European History Volume 46,  Issue 3 (September 2013): 657-659.

Leslie Page Moch, Pariahs of Yesterday: Breton Migrants in Paris (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012). Reviewed in History: Reviews of New Books Volume 41, Issue 4 (2013): 136-137.

Tammy M. Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918 (New York: New York University Press, 2010). Reviewed in Journal of World History Volume 23, Number 2 (June 2012): 459-461.

Miranda Carter, George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins on the Road to World War I (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010). Review for The Historian Vol. 74, Issue 1 (Spring 2012): 146-148.

Annette Jantzen, Priester im Krieg. Elsässische und französisch-lothringische Geistliche im Ersten Weltkrieg (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2010). Reviewed for Francia-Recensio (2011), n. 4.

http://www.perspectivia.net/content/publikationen/francia/francia-recensio/2011-4/ZG/jantzen_fischer

Whitney Walton, Internationalism, Nationalism, and Study Abroad: France and the United States, 1890-1970 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2010). Review for Canadian Journal of History/Annalles canadiennes d’histoire, Vol. XLVI  (Autumn/Automne  2011): 476-77.

Birte Wassenberg (dir.), Vivre et penser la coopération transfrontalière. Vol. I: Les régions

frontalières françaises. Contributions du cycle de recherche sur la coopération transfrontalière
française
(Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2010). Reviewed for Francia-Recensio (2011), n. 3.
http://www.perspectivia.net/content/publikationen/francia/francia-recensio/2011-3/ZG/wassenberg_fischer

Elizabeth Vlossak, Marianne or Germania: Nationalizing Women in Alsace, 1870-1946 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Reviewed for H-France Review Vol. 11 (October 2011), No. 226

http://www.h-france.net/vol11reviews/vol11no226Fischer.pdf.

Jason Crouthamel, The Great War and Modern Memory: Society, Politics, and Psychological Trauma, 1914-45 (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2009). Reviewed in The Journal for Modern History Vol. 83, n. 3 (Sept. 2011): 702-704.

Peter Thaler, Of Mind and Matter: The Duality of National Identity in the German-Danish Borderlands. Central European Studies, eds. Charles W. Ingrao and Gary B. Cohen. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2009. Reviewed in German Studies Review 34/3 (October 2011): 665.

Samuel Mitcham, Jr. Defenders of Fortress Europe: The Untold Story of German officers during the Allied Invasion. Washington, D.C.: Potomac, 2009. Reviewed in German Studies Review Vol. 33, n. 3 (October 2010): 692-693.

Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008. Reviewed in Canadian Journal of History/ Annales Canadiennes d'Histoire vol. 44 (Winter 2009): 541-3.

Henrice Altink and Sharif Gemie, eds., At the Border: Margins and Peripheries in Modern France. French and Francophone Studies, Series editors Hanna Diamond and Claire Gorrara. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2008. H-France Review Vol. 9 (November 2009), No. 121. http://www.h-france.net/vol9reviews/vol9no121fischer.pdf.

Timothy C. Dowling, The Brusilov Offensive. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008. Reviewed in German Studies Review Vol. 32, n. 3 (October 2009): 662-663.

Pieter M. Judson and Marsha L. Rosenblit, eds, Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe. Reviewed for H-Nationalism, H-Net Reviews (September 2007).

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=1358

Anna-Monika Lauter, Sicherheit und Reparationen: Die französische Offentlichkeit, der Rhein und die Ruhr (1919-1923). Essen: Klartext, 2006. Review in H-France Review Vol. 8, n. 29 (February 2008). http://www.h-france.net/vol8reviews/vol8no29fischer.pdf

Michael E. Nolan, The Inverted Mirror: Mythologizing the Enemy in France and Germany, 1898-1914. New York: Berghahn Books, 2005. Reviewed in H-France Review Vol. 6 (February 2006), n. 14. http://www.h-france.net/vol6reviews/Vol6no14fischer.pdf

Marc Jacobs and Peter Scholliers, eds., Eating Out in Europe: Picnics, Gourmet Dining and Snacks since the LateEighteenth Century. New York: Berg, 2003. Reviewed in Canadian Journal of History/Annales Canadiennesd'Histoire vol. 40, n. 1 (April 2005).