Contact
Institute for Danube Swabian History and Regional Studies (IdGL)
Mohlstr. 18
72074 Tübingen
Cristian Cercel holds a BA in European Studies from the University of Bucharest, an MA in Nationalism Studies from the Central European University in Budapest, and a PhD in International Affairs (Politics) from Durham University (2012). He has been awarded several research grants and fellowships, including at the Institute for German Culture and History of Southeast Europe (Munich), New Europe College (Bucharest), Centre for Advanced Studies (Sofia), and Herder Institute (Marburg). After his doctoral studies, he was Research Associate at the Centre for Contemporary German Culture at the University of Swansea (2013-2014) and Research Associate at the Institute for Social Movements at Ruhr University Bochum (2016-2022). He joined the Institute of Danube Swabian History and Regional Studies in 2022.
Research focus
His research focuses on ethnicity and nationalism, minority history, politics of memory, migration history and transnationalism.
Monographs:
Romania and the Quest for European Identity: Philo-Germanism without Germans. Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.
(Romanian edition: Filogermanism fără germani. România în căutarea identității europene. Iași: Polirom, 2021)
Edited volumes:
Julian Preece (ed.), in collaboration with Cristian Cercel. Unkenrufe: Kommentar und Materialien. Göttingen: Steidl Verlag, 2022
In peer-reviewed journals:
"Germans Abroad? Danube Swabians and the Plurality of Diasporic Possibilities". In Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 25:1 (2025), pp. 87-112
"(How) Could One Be French in Banat (1770-1920)?". In Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung / Journal of East Central European Studies 74:1 (2025), pp. 31-62
“The Persistence and Malleability of Settlerness: Danube Swabians in Entre Rios (Paraná Brazil)”. Immigrants and Minorities 41:1-3 (2023), pp. 1-38.
(with Tibor Toró and Tamás Kiss) “Hungarians, Germans and Roma in Post-1989 Romania: Different Minority Paths”. Studia Politica. Romanian Political Science Review 21:2 (2021), pp. 409-438.
“Towards a Disentanglement of the Links between the Memory Boom and the Neoliberal Turn.” Intersections 6:1 (2020)
(with Nina Parish and Eleanor Rowley) “War in the Museum: The Historial of the Great War in Péronne and the Military History Museum in Dresden”. Journal of War and Culture Studies 12:2 (2019), pp. 194-214.
“The Military History Museum in Dresden: Between Forum and Temple”. History and Memory 30:1 (2018), pp. 3-39.
“Postwar (West) German-Romanian Relations: Expanding Brubaker’s Analytic Triad”. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 23:3 (2017), pp. 297-317.
“Philo-Germanism without Germans in Romania after 1989”. East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 29:4 (2015), pp. 811-830.
“Transylvanian Saxon Symbolic Geographies”. Civilisations 60:2 (2012), pp. 83-101.
“The Relationship between Religious and National Identity in the Case of Transylvanian Saxons, 1933-1945”. Nationalities Papers 39:2 (2011), pp. 161-180.
In edited volumes:
„Kulturelle Alterität versus soziale Alterität. Bilder von Deutschen und Roma in der rumänischen Gesellschaft nach 1989“. In Migration und kulturelles Erbe. Das Beispiel der deutschen Minderheiten in und aus Rumänien, Hgg. Mathias Beer, Sorin Radu. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2024, S. 247-270.
„‘Die Geschichte ändert sich nicht‘. Das donauschwäbische Heimatmuseum Entre Rios“. In Herkunft. Heimat. Heute. Zur Musealisierung von Heimatstuben und Heimatsammlungen der Flüchtlinge, Vertriebenen und Aussiedler*innen, eds. Natalie Reinsch, Frauke Geyken, Cornelia Eisler, Thomas Overdick. Oldenburg: Isensee Verlag, 2023, S. 171-181.
„Ethnopolitical Humanitarianism: The Postwar Resettlement of 2,446 Danube Swabians to Brazil.” In A Transnational History of Forced Migrants in Europe, eds. Bastiaan Willems, Michał Palacz. London: Bloomsbury, 2022, pp. 215-230.
(with David Clarke et al.) “Memory Cultures of War in European War Museums.” In Agonistic Memory and the Legacy of 20th Century Wars in Europe, eds. Stefan Berger, Wulf Kansteiner. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp. 69-114.
(with Daniela De Angeli, Wulf Kansteiner, and Eamonn O’Neill). „‘Krieg. Macht. Sinn.‘ An Agonistic Exhibition at the Ruhr Museum Essen.“ In Agonistic Memory and the Legacy of 20th Century Wars in Europe, eds. Stefan Berger, Wulf Kansteiner. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp. 115-148.
„Reprezentări ale germanilor și romilor în România post-1989: Celălalt cultural vs. Celălalt social.“ In Migrații, politici de stat și identități culturale în spațiul românesc și european. Vol. II: Germanii din România. Migrație și patrimoniu cultural după 1945, eds. Mathias Beer, Sorin Radu, Florian Kührer-Wielach. Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 2019, pp. 233-256.
“’Krieg. Macht. Sinn. Krieg und Gewalt in der europäischen Erinnerung’. Eine Ausstellung im Ruhr Museum in Essen.“ Historie. Jahrbuch des Zentrums für Historische Forschung Berlin der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 12 (2019), pp. 163-168.
“Nichts bleibt vom Früheren / Nothing Remains of the Past.“ In Krieg. Macht. Sinn. Krieg und Gewalt in der europäischen Erinnerung, eds. Stefan Berger, Heinrich Theodor Grütter, Wulf Kansteiner. Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2019, pp. 138-167.
“Între carnaval și politică. Memoria selectivă.” In Ce mai rămâne din mai 68, eds. Alex Cistelecan, Alex Ciorogar. Bucharest: Fractalia, 2018, pp. 233-237.
“Germanofilia autohtonă: o privire critică.” In Reinventând germanitatea. Etnicizare, mobilitate și împrumut cultural la marginea Europei, eds. Ovidiu Oltean, Remus Gabriel Anghel, Christian Schuster. Bucharest: Tritonic, 2018, pp. 257-281.
“Romanian Germans: Transnational History, Transnational Memory”. Jahrbuch des Bundesinstituts für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa 24 (2016), pp. 357-379.
“Die Deportation der Rumäniendeutschen in die Sowjetunion und ihre Rolle in den Gedächtnis- und Identitätsdiskursen der in der Bundesrepublik lebenden Siebenbürger Sachsen in den 1950er und den 1960er Jahren”. In Rumäniendeutsche Erinnerungskulturen: Formen und Funktionen des Vergangenheitsbezuges in der rumäniendeutschen Historiografie und Literatur, eds. Gerald Volkmer, Jürgen Lehmann. Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet Verlag, 2016, pp. 137-152.
“The Deportation of Romanian Germans to the Soviet Union and Its Place within Transylvanian Saxon Memory Discourses in Germany in the 1950s and the 1960s”. In New Europe College Ștefan Odobleja Program Yearbook 2012-2013, ed. Irina Vainovski-Mihai. Bucharest: New Europe College, 2014, pp. 49-82.
“Antiiluminismul în publicistica eminesciană.” In Studii eminesciene, ed. Dumitru Irimia. Iaşi: Ed. Universităţii din Iaşi, 2005, pp. 283-294.
“Ştiinţă şi creaţie. Mutaţiile discursului blagian despre ştiinţă.” Caietele Lucian Blaga, vol. 5. Sibiu: Ed. Universităţii din Sibiu, 2004, pp. 279-284.
Other publications:
“Prezentul fără viitor.” Vatra 5-6 (2020), pp. 88-92.
“Whither Politics, Whither Memory?”. In The Global Crisis in Memory: Populism, Decolonisation and How We Remember in the Twenty-First Century, eds. Eva Spišiaková, Charles Forsdick, James Mark, special collection Modern Languages Open, 5 August 2020.
(with Stefan Berger, Anna Cento Bull, Nina Parish, Małgorzata Quinkenstein, Eleanor Rowley, Zofia Wóycicka) “War Museums and Agonistic Memory: A Report.” Museum Worlds 6:1 (2018), pp. 112-119.
““Între carnaval și politică. Memoria selectivă.” (Between Carnival and Politics. The Selective Memory). Vatra 6-7 (2018), pp. 117-119.
“Romanian Germans and the Memory of the Deportation to the Soviet Union.” Euxeinos. Governance and Culture in the Black Sea Region 19-20 (2015), pp. 46-51 (26 January 2016)
“The 1991 Reburial of Frederick the Great and Its Potential Meanings.” Studien und Vorträge zur preußischen Geschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts der Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten (14 December 2015)
“Rumänien”. Online-Lexikon zur Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa (26 September 2013)
“Selbstbestimmungsrecht”. Online-Lexikon zur Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa (30 January 2012)
“L’ottantanove rumeno e il taglio con il passato”. Equilibri. Rivista per lo sviluppo sostenibile 14:1 (2010), pp. 205-208.
“Gli altri tedeschi”. Equilibri. Rivista per lo sviluppo sostenibile 13:3 (2009), pp. 423-428.
“Stereotipuri etnice în relaţiile interpersonale” (Ethnic Stereotypes in Interpersonal Relations). Caiete critice 6(212) (2005), pp. 62-67.
Book and exhibition reviews:
Marius Turda. “În căutarea românului perfect. Specific național, degenerare rasială și selecție socială în România modernă”. CEU Review of Books, March 2025
Péter Krekó, Atilla Juhász. “The Hungarian Far Right: Social Demand, Political Supply, and International Context.” H-Socialisms, 23 June 2019.
“À l’Est la guerre sans fin“. Temporary Exhibition at the Army Museum in Paris. H-Soz-Kult, 17 November 2018.
Șener Aktürk. „Regimes of Ethnicity and Nationhood in Germany, Russia, and Turkey“. Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51:1 (2017), pp. 159-161.
Mariana Hausleitner. „Die Donauschwaben 1868-1948. Ihre Rolle im rumänischen und serbischen Banat“. Hungarian Historical Review 4:4 (2015), pp. 1035-1037.
Joachim von Puttkamer, Ulrich A. Wien, Stefan Sienerth (eds.). „Die Securitate in Siebenbürgen”. H-Soz-Kult, 24 November 2014.
Angelika Herta, Martin Jung (eds.), „Vom Rand ins Zentrum. Die deutsche Minderheit in Bukarest”. Spiegelungen 8(62):1 (2013), pp. 86-88.
Ronald F. King & Paul E. Sum (eds.) „Romania under Basescu: Aspirations, Achievements, and Frustrations during His First Presidential Term”. Europe-Asia Studies 64:6 (2012), pp. 1138-1140.
Annemarie Weber. „Rumäniendeutsche? Diskurse zur Gruppenidentität einer Minderheit (1944-1971)”. German Politics 20:2 (2011), pp. 315-316.
text
text
text
text