Profile
Jonathan Bach is Professor of Global Studies and Affiliated Faculty in Anthropology at 麻豆传媒色情片. He has written widely on German politics and culture, the politics of memory, material culture, and post-socialist transitions to a market society, with a focus on Chinese urbanization. His current book project, After Theft: Loss, Loot, and Reckoning in Germany, examines how Germany is confronting its imperial past alongside the memory of fascist and socialist regimes.听
He is the author of two monographs:听What Remains: Everyday Encounters with the Socialist Past in Germany (Columbia University Press, 2017/Reclam Verlag 2019) examines the legacy of the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) after reunification in 1990. It asks what happens to the state when the state suddenly disappears, and its vast material remains 鈥 from everyday objects such as consumer items to the remnants of the Berlin Wall itself 鈥 become culturally obsolete yet politically charged inheritances in a market economy. It shows how the socialist everyday became a contentious site caught between redemption and damnation. His earlier book, Between Sovereignty and Integration: German Foreign Policy and National Identity after 1989 (St. Martin鈥檚 Press, 1999) explored how the German government struggled over what it meant for Germany to be 鈥渘ormal,鈥 鈥渕oral,鈥 and 鈥渞esponsible鈥 in its decision to send troops to former Yugoslavia during the genocide against Bosnian Muslims, fundamentally changing how Germany understood the role of its military abroad.
Bach鈥檚 research into post-socialist transitions resulted in two co-edited volumes: Re-Centering the City: Global Mutations of Socialist Modernity (UCL Press, 2020) and Learning from Shenzhen: China鈥檚 Post-Mao Experiment from Special Zone to Model City (University of Chicago Press, 2017), and of over 60 articles and book chapters with interdisciplinary publications in, among others, Cultural Anthropology, British Journal of Sociology, Public Culture, Theory, Culture and Society, German Politics and Society, and Cultural Politics.
At 麻豆传媒色情片, Bach has served as Interim Dean of the School of Undergraduate Studies, founding chair of the interdisciplinary Global Studies program, Associate Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs, and Chair of the University Promotion and Review Committee.
He currently serves on the editorial boards of the journals听German Politics & Society, and听Sociologica: International Journal for Sociological Debate, and the book series Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association (Berghahn), and Global Easts (CEU Press).
Bach holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is a faculty affiliate at Yale University鈥檚 European Studies Council and at Columbia University鈥檚 Center on Organizational Innovation. He has held post-doctoral fellowships at Columbia University (ISERP) and Harvard University (Center for European Studies) and visiting positions at Brown University鈥檚 Watson Institute, Columbia University's Harriman Institute and Sociology department, the Institute for European Ethnology at the Humboldt University to Berlin, the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies in Berlin, and the Institute for Peace Research and Security Studies at the University of Hamburg. He was an Associate Member of the Center for the Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage at the Humboldt University to Berlin. He serves on the Advisory Board for the Memory Studies Association, where he was part of the inaugural Executive Committee.
Personal webpage:
Degrees Held
PhD 1997, Syracuse University
Professional Affiliation
American Anthropological Association, German Studies Association, Memory Studies Association
Recent Publications
Books
,听(University College London Press, 2020), Co-edited听with Michal Murawski.
(Columbia University Press, 2017).
-
German translation: . (Reclam, 2019). Winner of 2019 DAMALS history book award for best "Thought Provoking" book of the year (3rd place).
(University of Chicago Press, 2017) Co-edited with Mary Ann O'Donnell and Winnie Wong.
Between Sovereignty and Integration: German Foreign Policy and National Identity after 1989. (St. Martin鈥檚 Press, 1999).
闯辞耻谤苍补濒听Special Issues
鈥淧roblems of Democracy鈥 Sociologica: International Journal for Sociological Debate, Vol. 18 (3),听2024.
"The Many Faces of Protest: Rethinking Collective Action in a World of Dissent.鈥 Co-editor with Elena Pavan, Sociologica: International Journal for Sociological Debate, Vol. 17 (1), 2023.
鈥淢yths of Innocence in German Public Memory.鈥 Co-edited with Benjamin Nienass, German Politics & Society Vol. 39 (1), 2021.
鈥淭ransformations of Shen Kong Borderlands.鈥 Forum co-editor with Mary Ann O鈥橠onnell and Denise Y. Ho, Made in China Journal Vol. 5 (3),听2020.
Articles (selected)
鈥淧rovenance-Centered Reckoning: A Memory Infrastructure for the Colonial Past?鈥 Berliner Bl盲tter: Ethnographiche und ethnologische Beitr盲ge (Berlin Journal for Ethnology), No. 89, pp. 43-59,听2024.
鈥淩eclaiming the New, Remaking the Local: Shenzhen at 40.鈥 With Mary Ann O鈥橠onnell, China Perspectives 2021 (2), 71-75. (In English and French),听2021.
鈥淏rand of Brothers? The Humboldt Forum and the Myths of Innocence.鈥 German Politics & Society, Vol. 39 (1), pp. 100-111, 2021.
鈥淭he Red and the Black: China鈥檚 Social Credit System as a Total Test Environment.鈥澨The British Journal of Sociology, Volume 72 (3), 2020.
鈥淐olonial Pasts in Germany鈥檚 Present.鈥澨German Politics and Society, Volume 37(4), 2019.
鈥淲hat Kind of Model? Thinking about the Special Economic Zone and the Socialist City.鈥 Made in China Journal, Volume 4(2), 2019.听
鈥淐hina鈥檚 Infrastructural Fix.鈥 Limn no. 7, special Issue on Public Infrastructures/Infrastractural Publics, Fall 2016.
鈥淭he Berlin Wall after the Berlin Wall: Turning Site into Sight.鈥 Memory Studies Vol. 9, no. 1, Spring 2016.
鈥淢emory Landscapes and the Labor of the Negative in Berlin.鈥 International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, vol. 26, no. 1, March 2013.
Book Chapters (selected)
"China鈥檚 Economic Zones: Remaking Rural and Urban in the era of Reform鈥 in Lisa Hoffman, Jennifer Hubbert, and Zhilin Liu, eds., SAGE Handbook of Urbanization in China, SAGE Publishers,听2026.
鈥淪talking the Zone: Late Capitalist Logics and State Socialist Models.鈥 In Tim Beasley-Murray, Wendy Bracewell and Micha艂 Murawski, Anti-Atlas: Towards a Critical Area Studies, London: UCL Press, 2025.
鈥淢emory Activism between Ownership and Appropriation.鈥 Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism, Yifat Gutman and Jenny W眉stenberg, eds., New York: Routledge,听2023.
鈥淢aterial Culture and the Socialist Uncanny in Mao鈥檚 China.鈥 In Material Contradictions in Mao鈥檚 China, Jennifer Altehenger and Denise Y. Ho, eds., University of Washington Press,听2022.
鈥淢aterial Culture and the Emergence of Ostalgie.鈥 In Monica R眉thers, editor,听Gute Erinnerungen an b枚se Zeiten 鈥 Nostalgie in 鈥榩osttotalit盲ren鈥 Erinnerungsdiskursen nach 1945 und 1989, Munich: Schriften des Historisches Kollegs, 2021.
鈥淢erit, Morality, and Market: The Chinese Social Credit Experiment鈥 in David Stark, ed.,听The Performance Complex: Competitions and Valuations in Social Life. Oxford University Press, 2020.
鈥淚ntroduction: Notes towards a political morphology of undead urban forms鈥 (with Michal Murawski). In Jonathan Bach and Michal Murawski, eds.,Re-Centring the City: Urban Mutations, Socialist Afterlives, and the Global East, University College London Press, 2020.
鈥淪paces of Informal Production in China鈥 (with Stefan Al). In Nina Rappaport and Robert Lane, eds.,听The Design of Urban Manufacturing. Routledge, 2020.
鈥淥bjects.鈥 In Andrew S. Bergerson and Leonard Schmiedling et al.,听Ruptures in the Everyday: Views of Modern Germany from the Ground. Berghahn Publishers, 2017. 听With Cristina Cuevas-Wolf and Dani Kranz.
鈥淐ollecting Communism: Private Museums of Everyday Life under Socialism in former East Germany.鈥澨German Politics and Society, vol 33, no. 1-2, Spring/Summer 2015.
鈥淐onsuming Communism: Material Cultures of Nostalgia in former East Germany.鈥 In Olivia Ange and David Berliner, eds.,听Anthropology and Nostalgia. New York: Berghahn Publishers, 2014.
Research Interests
Germany, China, post-socialism, memory, postcolonialism, material culture, everyday life, sovereignty, national identity, urban space, special economic zones, migration, globalization, markets and society, political culture, political economy, ethnography
Awards And Honors
The German edition of听What Remains, published as Die Spuren der DDR: Von Ostprodukten bis zu den Resten der Berliner Mauer听(Reclam 2019), won a book of the year award from听Damals听magazine in the 鈥渢hought provoking (Denkanst枚脽e) category.
Bach is the grateful recipient of the 麻豆传媒色情片鈥檚 Distinguished University Teaching Award.
Ethn. Edges of Capitalism
GANT 5230, Fall 2025