GHIL Joint Lecture

Stefanie Middendorf

Societies under Siege: Experiencing States of Emergency in the Long Twentieth Century

20 June 2024

(0:49 h)

GHIL Joint Lecture

Stefanie Middendorf

Societies under Siege: Experiencing States of Emergency in the Long Twentieth Century

Today, the state of emergency seems to be as permanent as it is omnipresent. The term became ubiquitous in the early twentieth century and continues to guide the self-description of contemporary societies. Yet, referring to ‘emergencies’ implies a large range of meanings, from actual states of war to moments of humanitarian crisis, from abstract realms of the law to concrete territories under siege. The lecture argues for a history of emergency experiences in the long twentieth century that reaches beyond ‘classical theories’ and focuses on the social dimensions of administrative agency instead. It treats the ‘state of emergency’ as an imaginary that informs technocratic practices and legal theory at the same time, and argues that historicizing it can help us to understand the critical role of the state apparatus in moments of transformation.

Stefanie Middendorf is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Her research centres on German and European history, especially the social history of statehood, experiences of crises and war, and cultural dimensions of capitalist economies. Her book Macht der Ausnahme: Reichsfinanzministerium und Staatlichkeit (1919–1945) was published in 2022, and a collective volume on practices of public debt was published in September 2023.

Don't miss the accompanying interview: In this GHIL podcast interview, Research Fellow for Modern History Clemens Villinger and PR Officer Kim König talk to Stefanie Middendorf about the research behind her lecture.