James Casteel

Associate Professor (cross-appointed EURUS)

Degrees:Ph.D. (Rutgers University), M.A. (University of Chicago), B.A. (Tulane University)
Email:james.casteel@carleton.ca
Website:Browse

James Casteel is a historian of modern and contemporary Europe and is cross-appointed between the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies and the Bachelor of Global and International Studies in Kroeger College. He currently serves as Program Director for Migration and Diaspora Studies and as Co-Undergraduate Supervisor of EURUS (together with Professor Martin Geiger). He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies (Carleton University Research Centre).

Professor Casteel holds a B.A. in German and Philosophy from Tulane University (1994), an M.A. in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago (1997) and a Ph.D. in modern European history from Rutgers University (2005).  He spent significant time studying in Germany at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, the Universität Hamburg, and the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz.  He has held fellowships from Fulbright and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Research Interests Relates to European, Russian and Eurasian Studies:

Professor Casteel’s research interests include transnational relations between Germany and Russia from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, nations and empires in central and eastern Europe, diasporic cultures and belonging, European Jewish history including the Holocaust, and transnational and global approaches to the European past.

Current Research Projects:

Post-Soviet Migrants and Changing Memory Regimes in Germany, 1987-2018

Areas of Current Teaching

  • EURR 5201 / RELI 4850/5850: Religion, Migration, & Identity (Winter 2019)
  • EURR 5010: Research Design and Methodology in European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (team taught MA core course, Winter 2019)
  • EURR 5001: Interdisciplinary Seminar in European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (team taught MA core course, Fall 2018)
  • EURR 1001: Introduction to European and Russian Studies (Fall 2018)
  • EURR 4303/5303 / HIST 4606 Contemporary Europe: From Postwar to the E.U.
  • EURR 4202/5202: Nazism and Stalinism (co-taught course with Jeff Sahadeo)
  • GINS 1000: Global History
  • RELI  3140 / HIST 3714: Holocaust Encounters
  • RELI 3141 / HIST 3718: Germans and Jews

Selected Publication relating to European, Russian and Eurasian Studies:

Books:

Journal articles and book chapters:

Recent Papers Presented (selected):

  • “Migrants and Memory Politics: Russian-German and Russian-Jewish Commemorative Narratives and Responses to Refugees in Contemporary Germany,” German Studies Association, Pittsburgh, PA, September 27-30, 2018.
  • “Post-Soviet Migrants, Memory Politics, and Responses to Refugees in Germany,” 23rd Annual Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, Columbia University, New York, NY, May 3-5, 2018.
  • “Transcultural Memories and Diasporic Identities among Russian German and Jewish Migrants from the former Soviet Union to Germany,” for international conference “Russian Germans in a Comparative Context: New Research Perspectives,” Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans from Eastern Europe, Berlin, Germany, November 18-19, 2015.
  • “Remembering the Soviet Union: Jewish and German Post-Soviet Migrants to Germany,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, San Antonio, Texas, November 20-23, 2014.
  • “Post-Soviet Migration and Changing Memory Regimes in Germany: Narratives of Soviet Times among Jewish Quota Refugees and ethnic German Aussiedler,” for international conference Post-Soviet Diasporas: Identity Construction, Linkages and Transformation, Carleton University, March 20-21, 2014
  • ”Siberia: the Far Eastern Front of Germany’s Imperial Imaginary” for seminar “Not So Quiet on the Eastern Front: New Directions in World War I Studies,” German Studies Association, Denver, Colorado, October 3-6, 2013.
  • “Colonizing the Wilderness: Siberia in Interwar German Captivity Narratives” part of panel “Between Germany and Russia: History, Music, Literature, and the Construction of Cultural Myth in the Early Twentieth Century,” German Studies Association, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 4-7, 2012.