Daniel Bessner,

Office Location:  
Email Address: send me a message
Web Page:  http://sites.duke.edu/danielbessner/

Teaching (Summer1 2012):

Education:

MA (with distinction)Duke University2010
BA (cum laude)Columbia University2006
Research Interests: 20th c. U.S. and European international history, political, cultural, and intellectual history

I study the cultural, political, and international history of twentieth-century America and Europe from a transnational perspective. At the broadest level, my research asks how transnational ideas about expertise, democracy, and national security have shaped the culture, institutions, and processes that have characterized American foreign policymaking since the early Cold War.

Recent Publications

  1. D. Bessner, 'Rather More than One-Third Had No Jewish Blood:' American Progressivism and European Jewish Cosmopolitanism at the New School for Social Research, 1933-1939, Religions, vol. 3 no. 1 (March 2012), pp. 99-129
  2. D. Bessner and E. Lorber, Toward a Theory of Civil-Military Punishment, Armed Forces and Society (2012) (forthcoming.)
  3. D. Bessner, Hans Speier, Karl Mannheim, and the Weimar Origins of the Cold War American Political Game, in Intellectuals and Their Publics, edited by Timothy Lacy and Julian Nemeth (2012) (article has been accepted for the volume; Palgrave Macmillan is presently considering the volume for publication.)
  4. D. Bessner, Tender Hands: Terrorism, Women, and Emancipation in the Work of Karl Heinzen, in Terrorismus, Geschlecht, Erinnerung: Tradierung und Transformation von Geschlechtbildern in Terrorismusdebatten, edited by Christine Hikel and Sylvia Schraut (2011), pp. 63-79, Campus Verlag
  5. D. Bessner, Karl Heinzen and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Terror, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 22 no. 2 (Spring 2010), pp. 143-176 (translation portion of article done with M. Stauch.)