GG Kolloquium: All About Love? The History of Child Adoption in Germany Post-1945
- Datum: 13.02.2024
- Uhrzeit: 17:00 c.t. - 19:00
- Vortragende(r): Bettina Hitzer, Otto von Guericke Universität Magdeburg
- Ort: Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin
- Raum: Großer Sitzungssaal
- Gastgeber: Forschungsbereich Geschichte der Gefühle
- Kontakt: sekfrevert@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
Stories about adoption are widespread and they come in many different guises: as stories of rescue or abuse, as stories of family secrets and disclosures, as stories of a long search for identity and origins – but rarely as the story of an indistinguishably "normal" family. What kinds of stories are (un-)told and what is the history of child adoption about?
My current research project sets about to shed light into the post-1945 history of child adoption in Germany West and East. The presentation will focus on how the book I am writing is to be constructed and which role the history of love plays within the "storyline".
Oral history interviews are key to the book and I will discuss the challenges this approach to the history of child adoption and love encounters.
Bettina Hitzer is professor of history and ethics of medicine at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. She is the author of The History of Cancer & Emotions in Twentieth-Century Germany (Oxford UP, 2022) and co-editor, with Rob Boddice, of Feeling Dis-ease in Modern History (Bloomsbury, 2022) and, with Benedikt Stuchtey, In unsere Mitte genommen. Adoption im 20. Jahrhundert (Wallstein, 2022). She is currently working on a project researching the history of child adoption in Germany (1945/9–2000).