Introduction. Children, Young People and Borders: A Multidisciplinary Outlook.

in Journal of Borderlands Studies (2021), 36(2), 149-158

Peripheries at the Centre. Borderland Schooling in Interwar Europe.

Book published by Berghahn (2021)

Following the Treaty of Versailles, European nation-states were faced with the challenge of instilling national loyalty in their new borderlands, in which fellow citizens often differed dramatically from ... [more ▼]

Following the Treaty of Versailles, European nation-states were faced with the challenge of instilling national loyalty in their new borderlands, in which fellow citizens often differed dramatically from one another along religious, linguistic, cultural, or ethnic lines. Peripheries at the Centre compares the experiences of schooling in Upper Silesia in Poland and Eupen, Sankt Vith, and Malmedy in Belgium — border regions detached from the German Empire after the First World War. It demonstrates how newly configured countries envisioned borderland schools and language learning as tools for realizing the imagined peaceful Europe that underscored the political geography of the interwar period. [less ▲]

Elite School Principals and Democratic Citizenship in the Belgian-German Borderlands (1919–1939)

Scientific Conference (2021, February 26)

Secondary school principals and liminality in Polish Upper Silesia (1919-1939)

in Journal of Modern European History (2021)

Establishing and implementing rules that would teach young people to become active citizens became a crucial technique for turning those spots on the map of Europe whose sovereignty had shifted after ... [more ▼]

Establishing and implementing rules that would teach young people to become active citizens became a crucial technique for turning those spots on the map of Europe whose sovereignty had shifted after World War I into lived social spaces. This article analyses how principals of borderland secondary schools negotiated transformation in Polish Upper Silesia with the help of Arnold Van Gennep’s notion that a shift in social statuses possessed a spatiality and temporality of its own. The article asks whether and how school principals were called on to offer elite training that would make Polish Upper Silesia more cohesive with the rest of Poland in terms of the social origins of pupils and the content of the history curriculum. In addition, it examines the extent to which borderland school principals accepted, refuted, or helped to shape that responsibility. The social origins of pupils are detected through a quantitative analysis of recruitment figures and the profiles of pupils’ parents. This analysis is combined with an exploration of how school principals provided a meaningful explanation of the recent past (World War I and the Silesian Uprisings). The article demonstrates that while school principals were historical actors with some room to make their own decisions when a liminal space was created, changed, and abolished, it was ultimately a priest operating in their shadows who possessed more possibilities to become a master of ceremonies leading elite education through its rites of passage. [less ▲]

Discussant of Working Group: Migration Crisis and Human Rights: A Challenge for the EU

Presentation (2021, January 18)

1918, 1945, 1989: Childhood in Times of Political Transformation: Part I

in Journal of Modern European History (2021), 19(2),

Co-Presenter: 'Talking Borders. From Local Expertise to Global Exchange'. Evidence from a Citizen Science Project.

Presentation (2020, December 05)

Special Issue: The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: Border Making and its Consequences.

in European Review of History (2020), 27(6),

Borderland Child Heterotopias. A Case Study on the Belgian-German Borderlands

in Journal of Borderlands Studies (2020), 36(2), 159-180

This article investigates the capacities of children to participate actively in their lives in the Belgian-German borderlands in the time period between World War I and World War II. The article ... [more ▼]

This article investigates the capacities of children to participate actively in their lives in the Belgian-German borderlands in the time period between World War I and World War II. The article interprets a body of historical sources that has hitherto been left unexplored – namely, borderland child ego documents – with the help of insights from child studies and border studies. These ego documents unfold as borderland child heterotopias. Borderland child heterotopias include material places and creative linguistic loci established by or for those considered in crisis in relation to the rest of society based on their age within or outside child spaces of modernity. The borderland child heterotopias offer a unique gateway to borderland children’s past imaginations for a better world. [less ▲]

Die räumliche Grammatik der Großregion. Ein historischer Zugang.

Presentation (2020, February 28)