Rob Sackett, Ph.D.

Professor Rob Sackett, who came to UCCS in 1982, is the Modern Europeanist of the Department with particular interest in modern Germany, the Nazi period, the Holocaust, the Federal Republic.

He is especially interested in intersections between film and history, also between history and literature. Even (or especially) a subject like the Holocaust, in his view, calls for more than a conventional historical treatment. In his classes, film and literature are used to enlarge what we know and understand. The history of ideas, also of ideas about history, is of special interest. In his UCCS career, Prof. Sackett has been fortunate to work with tremendous colleagues in this History Department and, also, from other departments in the Humanities Program. Again and again, UCCS students have renewed his excitement about teaching, for which he has won awards, including the 2010 campus Outstanding Teacher Award. Prof. Sackett speaks German and Spanish, loves both of them and is always seeking to improve in both. He has published a book and many articles on German history and literature. Most recently, his article on Annedore Leber, a member of the German anti-Nazi resistance and an important politician in postwar West Berlin, has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Contemporary History. His stints as Department Chair have added up to eleven years, slightly more than one-quarter of all his years at UCCS, which is surely enough.

Fields: Modern Europe, Germany since the 18th Century, the Holocaust, Genocide and Oppression, History & Literature, History & Film

Research Interests: Public Discussion of Genocide and Racism in the Early Federal Republic of Germany; German Literature as Commentary on German History

B.A., Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, 1973
A.M., Ph.D., Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, 1976; 1980

• Popular Entertainment, Class, and Politics in Munich, 1900-23, Harvard University Press, 1982.  (Japanese translation:  Shobunsha Ltd., 1987).
• "Images of the Jew: Popular Joketelling in Munich on the Eve of World War I," Theory and Society 16 (1987): 527-563.   
• "The Local Politics of the Prussian State: Nationbuilding in Kempen of the Rhine Province, 1833-1848," Central European History 21, no. 1 (March 1988): 31-55.   
• "Die preussische Landwehr am linken Niederrhein um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts"  Annalen des historischen Vereins fuer den Niederrhein 194 (1991): 167-188.   
• "Antimodernism in the Popular Entertainment of Modern Munich:  Attitude, Institution, Language," New German Critique 57 (Fall 1992): 123-155.   
• "Satires of War:  Two Plays by Munich's Karl Valentin 1916-1917," The Germanic Review LXIX, no. 4 (Fall 1994):  167-176.              
• "Brentano in Berlin:  The Attack on the Philistines," Oxford German Studies 24 (1995):  60-79.  
• "Germans and Guilt:  The 'Second Threshold' of Heinrich Boell: A Study of Three Non-Fictional Works,"  Modern Language Review 97, no. 2, April 2002, 336-352.  
• "Doeblin's Destiny:  The Author of Schicksalsreise as Christian, Jew and German," Neophilologus 86 (2002): 587-608.
• "Memory By Way of Anne Frank: Enlightenment and Denial Among West Germans, Circa 1960, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 16, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 243-265.   
• "Picturing Atrocity: Holocaust Photos in West Germany in the Early 1960s", German History, 24:4 (Winter 2006): 526-561.  

Curriculum Vitae