Andrew Stuart Bergerson

Andrew Stuart Bergerson
Professor of History
Humanities and Social Sciences

Contact Info
816-235-6118 x 1
223C Cockefair Hall
Modern Germany with particular interest in the history of everyday life (Alltagsgeschichte), ethnographic/oral history, interdisciplinary German studies, and digital and public humanities

About

Professor Drew Bergerson is an historian of modern Germany with interest in the history of everyday life (Alltagsgeschichte), ethnographic/oral history, interdisciplinary German studies, and the digital and public humanities. He teaches a range of courses on modern German, modern European, and modern global history. He is an affiliate faculty member with UMKC's Center for Digital and Public Humanities

Dr. Bergerson was born in New York. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1998 and has taught in France, Germany, and Taiwan. He was awarded the UMKC Trustees' Faculty Scholar Award for Research in 2005 and the Presidential Faculty Award for Cross-Cultural Engagement in 2021.

Bergerson has authored, co-authored, or edited several books: Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times (2004; auf Deutsch: Nationalsozialismus in alltäglichen Interaktionen [2019]), The Happy Burden of History (2011) and Ruptures in the Everyday (2017). From 2017 to 2021, he worked with colleagues and students from UMKC, UMSL, Uni-Hamburg, Uni-Wien, and Uni-Wrocław on virtual, interuniversity graduate research seminars researching and writing the history of German Migration to Missouri, resulting in two more edited collections: German Migration to Missouri (2019), and From Langenbrück to Kansas City (2021). Since 2011, he has served as co-PI for “citizen science” projects focusing on the letters of ordinary German couples before, during, and after the Second World War. Details can be found at Alltag im Krieg.

Courses

Undergraduate:

  • GECRT-AH 101 - Making Meaning in a Changing World: The Holocaust 
  • HISTORY 208 - World History Since 208
  • HISTORY 430R - World War I Throught Its Artifacts 
  • HISTORY 436WI - Comparative Histories of Modern Germany 
  • HISTORY 437WI - Holocaust and Comparative Genocides 

Graduate:

  • HISTORY 5536 - Comparative Histories of Modern Germany 
  • HISTORY 5581GR - Introduction to Graduate Studies 
  • HISTORY 5586GR - Colloquium in World History: Holocaust and Genocide Studies 
  • HISTORY 5587R - Research Seminar 

Academic Credentials

B.A., history, Cornell University (1988)
M.A./Ph.D., history, University of Chicago (1998)

Visiting Appointments

Department of History, National Taipei University, Sanxia, Taiwan (2015)
Institute für Europäische Ethnologie, Universität Wien, Austria (2015)
Institute des Sciences sociales du Politique, L’Université Paris X–Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France (2015)
Institute für Geschichte, Stiftung Universität Hildesheim, Germany (2006, 2009)
Department of History, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA (1998-99)

Student Resources

Instructional Videos (UMKC only): Decoding the Old German Scripts: Lower Case, Upper Case
Principles for Scholarly Discourse: Statement of Principles