Prof. Cohen's research has focused on social development, ethnic group relations, and education in modern Austria and the Czech lands. His publications include two books, The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (Princeton University Press, 1981; second edition, revised, Purdue University Press, 2006) and Education and Middle-Class Society in Imperial Austria, 1848-1918 (Purdue University Press, 1996); articles in The Journal of Modern History, Central European History, The Austrian History Yearbook, The East European Quarterly, Jewish History, and The Social Science Quarterly; and numerous book chapters. In 2000, Karolinum–The Charles University Press published a Czech translation of his study on the German minority of Prague under the title, Němci v Praze, 1861-1914; in early 2006, Purdue University Press published in paperback a revised second edition in English.
Prof. Cohen's scholarship has earned national and international recognition. Grants from the American Philosophical Society, the American Council of Learned Societies, the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), the United States Department of Education, and the National Endowment for the Humanities have supported his research. He served on the national selection committee for East European exchange fellowships of the International Research and Exchanges Board in 1984-86, and during the late 1980s was the only participant from the United States in the European Science Foundation's project on "Governments and Non-Dominant Ethnic Groups in Europe, 1850-1940." Prof. Cohen served as the executive secretary of the Society for Austrian and Habsburg History in 2000 and 2001 and served as president of the Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association in 2010. He currently serves as a member of the advisory board for the modern history units of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The Collegium Carolinum in Munich elected him a full member in 2003, and the Republic of Austria awarded him its Ehrenkreuz (cross of honor) for Science and Arts, first class, in November 2009. On April 15, 2011, members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences elected Prof. Cohen a Corresponding Member of the Academy's humanities and social science section.
EDUCATION:
B. A.,
University of Southern California (history) summa cum laude,
1970
M. A., Princeton University (history), 1972
Ph.D., Princeton University (history), 1975
ACADEMIC SPECIALIZATION:
Modern
European Social History
Eastern Europe, 1740-1939
Social and Political History of Austria and Germany, 1790-1939
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS:
Assistant
in
Instruction, Princeton University, Spring 1974
Instructor, Princeton University, 1974-1976
Assistant Professor of History, University of Oklahoma,
1976-1982
Associate Professor of History, University of Oklahoma,
1982-1995
Professor of History, University of Oklahoma, 1995-2001
(Secondary appointments:
Director of Russian Studies,
1984-1996; Professor of Women's Studies)
Director, International Academic Programs, University of
Oklahoma, 1996-2001
Professor Emeritus of History, University of Oklahoma,
2001-present
Professor of History, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities,
2001-present
Director, Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota,
Twin Cities, 2001-1010
Executive Editor, Austrian History Yearbook,
2001-present
Chair, Department of History, University of Minnesota, Twin
Cities, 2010-present
PUBLICATIONS:
Books:
The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (Princeton University Press, 1981); published in Czech translation as Němci v Praze, 1861-1914 (Karolinum--The Charles University Press, Prague, 2000); revised, second edition (W. Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2006)
Education and Middle-Class Society in Imperial Austria, 1848-1918 (Purdue University Press, 1996)
Edited books:Zbigniew Bochniarz and Gary B. Cohen, eds., The Environment and Sustainable Development in the New Central Europe (Berghahn Books, 2006)
Articles and Chapters:
"Jews in German Society: Prague, 1860-1914," Central European History 10(1977): 28-54; [reprinted in David Bronsen, ed., Jews and Germans from 1860 to 1933: The Problematic Symbiosis (Heidelberg, 1979), pp. 306-337].
"Ethnicity and Urban Population Growth: The Decline of the Prague Germans," Studies in East European Social History, Keith Hitchins, ed., 2 (1981): 3-26.
"Liberal Associations and Central European Urban Society, 1840-1890," The Maryland Historian 12, no. 1 (198l): 1-11.
"Ethnic Persistence and Change: Concepts and Models for Historical Research," Social Science Quarterly 65, no. 4 (December 1984): 1029-1042.
"Jews in German Liberal Politics: Prague, 1860-1914," Jewish History 1, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 55-74.
"Society and Culture in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest in the Late Nineteenth Century," The East European Quarterly 20, no. 4, (January 1987): 467-484 [Revised version: "The Social Structure of Prague, Vienna, and Budapest in the Late Nineteenth Century," in György Ránki, ed., Hungary and European Civilization (Budapest, 1989), pp. 181-99].
"Die Studenten der Wiener Universität, 1860 bis 1900: Ein soziales und geographisches Profil," in Richard Georg Plaschka and Karlheinz Mack, eds., Wegenetz europäischen Geistes, II: Universitäten und Studenten (Vienna, 1987), pp. 290-316.
"Education and Czech Social Structure in the Late Nineteenth Century," in Hans Lemberg, K. Litsch, R. G. Plaschka, and G. Ránki, eds., Bildungsgeschichte, Bevölkerungsgeschichte, Gesellschaftsgeschichte in den böhmischen Ländern und in Europa: Festschrift für Jan Havránek (Vienna and Munich, l988), pp. 32-45.
"Jews among Vienna's Educated Middle-Class Elements at the Turn of the Century," in Yehuda Don and Victor Karady, eds., A Social and Economic History of Central European Jewry (New Brunswick, N.J., 1990), pp. 179-89.
"Education, Social Mobility, and the Austrian Jews 1860-1910," in Victor Karady and Wolfgang Mitter, eds., Bildungswesen und Sozialstruktur in Mitteleuropa im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert [Studien und Dokumentation zur vergleichenden Bildungsforschung, v. 42] (Cologne and Vienna, 1990), pp. 141-61.
"European Urban Ethnic Minorities and Economic Development (1850-1940): Some Comparative Observations," in Proceedings of the Tenth International Economic History Congress, Leuven, August 1990, Session B-5: Ethnic Minority Groups in Town and Countryside and their Effects on Economic Development (1850-1940) (Leuven, 1990), pp. 125-36.
"The German Minority of Prague, 1850-1918," in Max Engman, ed., Ethnic Identity in Urban Europe (Aldershot and New York, 1992), pp. 267-93.
"Organisational Patterns of the Urban Ethnic Groups," in M. Engman, ed., Ethnic Identity in Urban Europe (1992), pp. 407-18.
"Ideals and Reality in the Austrian Universities, 1850-1914," in Michael S. Roth, ed., Rediscovering History: Politics, Culture and the Psyche (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1994), pp. 83-101, 454-58.
"The Politics of Access to Advanced Education in Late Imperial Austria," in Russian in Avstro-Vengriia: Opyt mnogonatsional'nogo gosudarstva, ed. T. M. Islamov and A. I. Miller (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences, l995), pp. 155-199 (also available in English as Working Paper in Austrian Studies, no. 93-6, Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota, Sept. 1993, 42 pp.).
"Deutsche, Juden und Tschechen in Prag: das Sozialleben des Alltags, 1890-1924," Allemands, Juifs et Tcheques ŕ Prague--Deutsche, Juden und Tschechen in Prag, 1890-1924, edited by Maurice Godé, J. Le Rider, F. Mayer (Montpellier: Université Paul-Valéry, 1996, pp. 55-69 [Published in Czech as "Němci, židé a češi v Praze: Společenský život všedního dne 1890-1914," Dějiny a současnost, 20, no. 4 (1998): 29-35].
"Neither Absolutism nor Anarchy: New Narratives on Society and Government in Late Imperial Austria," Austrian History Yearbook, 29, pt. 1 (1998): 37-61.
"Společnost, politický život a vláda v pozdně imperiálním Rakousku: zamyslení nad novou syntézou" [“Society, Politics, and Government in Late Imperial Austria: Thoughts on a New Synthesis”], Český časopis historický 102 (2004), no. 4: 745-65.
“Jan Havránek: učitel mimořádných qvalit” [“Jan Havránek: Mentor extraordinaire”], in Magister noster. Studies dedicated to Prof. PhDr. Jan Havránek, Csc., in memoriam, edited by Michal Svatoš, Luboš Velek, and Alice Velková (Prague: Karolinum – The Charles University Press, 2005), pp. 31-36.
"Nationalist Politics and the Dynamics of State and Civil Sociey in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914," Central European History 40 (2007): 241-78.
“His Majesty’s Czech Schools, 1848-1918,” Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis 47, no. 1-2 (2007): 225-37.
"Civic Duty and Social Status in Central Europe’s Developing Middle-Class Civil Society, 1840-1914” and “Afterword,” in Collective and Individual Patronage and the Culture of Public Donation in Civil Society in the 19th and 20th Centuries in Central Europe, ed. Milan Hlavačka, Magdaléna Pokorná, Tomáš Pavlíček et al. (Prague: Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences, 2010), pp. 16-26, 594-96.
"Citizenship and Nationality in Late Imperial Austria," in Nation, Nationalitäten und Nationalismus im östlichen Europa. Festschrift für Arnold Suppan zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Marija Wakounig, Wolfgang Mueller, and Michael Portmann (Berlin, Münster, Vienna: Lit Verlag, 2010), pp. 201-24.
"Austrian
Studies in the United States," in Global Austria:
Austria's Place in Europe and the
World [Contemporary Austrian Studies, vol. 20], edited by Günter Bischof, F. Plasser,
A. Pelinka, and A. Smith (New Orleans, 2011), pp. 266-73.
"Our Laws, Our Taxes, Our Administration:
Citizenship in Imperial Austria," in Shatterzone of
Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg,
Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands, edited by Omer Bartov and
Eric D. Weitz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013),
pp. 103-121.
Review Articles
"Recent Research
on Czech Nation-Building," The Journal of Modern History
51(December 1979): 760-772.
"Reinventing Austrian and Central European History," German
Studies Association Newsletter 33, no. 2 (Winter 2008-09):
28-38.
PAPERS READ:
"Jews in German Society: The Case of Prague," symposium at Washington University, St. Louis, April 1976
"Czech Nation-Building, 1861-1914: Fragmentation as the Price of Success," American Historical Association, 1977 Annual Meeting, Dallas
"Group Solidarity and Social Cleavage: German Associations in Prague, 1860-1890," American Historical Association, 1980 Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.
"Ethnic Persistence: Some Comparative and Historical Reflections," Southwest Social Science Association Annual Meeting, Houston, March 1983
"The Students of the Vienna University, 1860-1900: A Social and Geographical Profile," International Conference on "Universities and Students," Austrian Institute for Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Vienna, September 1983
"The Jewish Role in Prague's German Politics, 1861-1914," American Historical Association, 1984 Annual Meeting, Chicago, December 1984
"Prague, Vienna, and Budapest in the Late Nineteenth Century: A Caveat on Comparisons," International Conference on "Hungary and European Civilization," Indiana University, Bloomington, April 1985
"Jews in German Liberal Politics: Prague," and a comment, International Conference on "Issues of Contemporary Central European Jewry," Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, France, August 1985
"Secondary and Higher Education for Czechs in the Late Nineteenth Century," Central Slavic Studies Conference, Oklahoma State University, October 1985
"The German Minority of Prague in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries," Meeting of the Urban Sub-group of the European Science Foundation Project, "Comparative Studies on Governments and Non-Dominant Ethnic Groups," Trieste, Italy, April 1986
"Education and Czech Social Structure in the Late Nineteenth Century," International Workshop on "Socio-historical Aspects of Modern Central European Schooling," Institute for the Humanities, Vienna, Austria, October 1987
"Education, Social Mobility, and the Austrian Jews, 1860-1910, Association for Jewish Studies, Annual Meeting, Boston," December 1987
"The Social Structure of University Students in Austria and Germany, 1860-1910," German Studies Association Annual Conference, Milwaukee, October 1989
"Nationality and Education: Czechs, Germans, and Jews in the Bohemian Lands, 1860-1910," meeting of the Czech-German Joint Historical Commission, Bad Homburg, Germany, March 1990
"European Urban Ethnic Minorities and Economic Development, 1850-1940: Some Comparative Observations," International Economic History Congress, Leuven, Belgium, August 1990
"The Social Origins of the Czech Educated Elements, 1860-1910," American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, National Convention, Washington, D. C., October 1990
"Human Rights and National Interests: The Moral Dilemmas of Modern Czech Nationalism," conference on "Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Wake of Humanism," Scripps College and The Claremont Graduate Humanities Center, Claremont, California, April 1993
"The Politics of Access to Advanced Education in Late Imperial Austria," International conference on "Austria-Hungary: Problems of a Multinational State," Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, June 1993.
"Deutsche, Juden und Tschechen in Prag: Das Sozialleben des Alltags, 1890-1914," International Colloquium, "Allemands, Juifs et Tchčques ŕ Prague," Université Paul Valery, Montpellier, France, December 1994
"Ambiguous Identities: German Minorities in East-central Europe, 1848-1945," Eighteenth International Congress of Historical Sciences, Montreal, Canada, August 1995
"The Advance of Modern Political Life in Imperial Austria, 1890-1914," American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, Boston, November 1996
"Educational Development and the Erosion of German Privilege in the Austrian Half of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848-1918," Annual Symposium on Habsburg History, Woodrow Wilson Center/George Washington University, Washington, D.C., April 1997
“Czech Historiography since 1989,” American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November 2001
“Society, Politics, and Government in Late Imperial Austria: Thoughts on a New Synthesis,” Historical Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, June 20, 2003
"The Habsburg Monarchy and its Nationalities: A Reassessment of Popular Loyalties and Political Conflict, 1867‑1914,” for the International Research Workshop: “Borderlands: Ethnicity, Identity, and Violence in the Shatter zone of Empires since 1848,” University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Sept. 30 – Oct. 3, 2004
"Our laws, our
taxes, our schools, and our administration –– Everyday notions
of citizenship in Imperial Austria," conference on
“Internationalizing the History of Eastern Europe,” Weatherhead
Center, Harvard University, May 2007; and final conference,
Borderlands Project, at the Herder Institute, Marburg, Germany,
May 2007
"Civic Duty and Social Status in Central Europe's Developing
Middle-class Civil Society, 1840-1914," at the international
conference on "Collective and Individual Patronage and the
Culture of Public Giving in Civil Society," Historical Institute
of the Czech Academy of Sciences, in Prague, May 2008
FELLOWSHIPS AND RESEARCH GRANTS:
Danforth
Graduate
Fellowship, 1970-1975
IREX Exchange Fellow to Czechoslovakia, 1972-1973
Shelby Cullom Davis Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in History,
Princeton University, Fall 1978
ACLS Grant-in-Aid, Summer 1981
Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Grant (U. S. Department
of Education), January-July
1982
IREX Exchange Fellow to Czechoslovakia, January-May 1982
American Philosophical Society Research Travel Grant, Fall 1983
National Endowment for the Humanities Travel to Collections
Grant, May-July 1985
University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences Faculty
Summer Fellowship, 1985
University of Oklahoma Senior Faculty Research Fellowship,
Summer 1990
American Philosophical Society Research Grant, Summer 1996
IREX Exchange Fellow to the Czech Republic, May-July 1997
McKnight Summer Research Fellowship and Faculty Summer Research
Fellowship, University
of Minnesota, June-August 2002
COURSES TAUGHT:
Assisted
at
Princeton:
History 211: Europe, 1450-1750
212:
Europe
since 1750
357:
The
Modernization of Russia
365:
Twentieth-Century
Europe
369:
Modern
Britain
Lectured
or
directed at Oklahoma:
History 1233: Europe since 1815
3120:
European
Jews from Ghetto to Modernity
3173:
The
Emergence of Modern European Society, 1815-1870
3183:
Europe
in the Age of Imperialism, 1870-1914
3763:
Eastern
Europe since 1938
3833:
Nation-Building
in East-Central Europe, 1790-1939
3943:
European
Fascism
4973:
Work,
Women, and the Family in Modern Europe (Senior Seminar)
4973:
Contemporary
Poland (Senior Seminar)
6200:
Graduate
Reading Seminar: Europe since 1815
6200:
Seminar:
Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (overseas advanced
program)
Honors 3993: Colloquium: The Fall of East
European Communism
program)
Non-credit short course: "European Jews from
Ghetto to Auschwitz"
Lectured
or
Directed at Minnesota:
History 1909W: Freshman seminar: The
Revolutions of 1989
3244: History of Eastern Europe
3747: Habsburg Central Europe, 1740-1918
3775:
History of European Jews
5777:
Proseminar:
Habsburg Central Europe, 1740-1918
5900:
Proseminar:
Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th Century
5900/8900: Proseminar
on Nationalism and National Identification in Modern
Europe
UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE:
Member,
University of Oklahoma Committee for Social Science Teacher
Certification,
1979-1984
Treasurer, American Association of University Professors,
Oklahoma State Conference,
1980-1981
Member, Test Development Committee for Advanced Placement in
European History, College
Entrance
Examination Board/E.T.S., 1983-1985
Member, National Selection Committee for East European Research
Exchanges, International
Research and
Exchanges Board (IREX), 1984-1986
Member, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus Tenure Committee,
1984-1987
Member, OU College of Arts and Sciences Executive Committee,
1984-1987
Member, Jury for the Conference Group for Central European
History Book Prize, 1986
Executive Committee, OU Norman Campus Faculty Senate, 1986-1988
Chair-elect, OU Norman Campus Faculty Senate, 1987-1988
Chair, OU Norman Campus Faculty Senate, 1988-1989
At-large council member, Czechoslovak History Conference,
1988-1989
Book review editor, Austrian History Yearbook, 1989-92
Treasurer, Alpha Chapter of Oklahoma, Phi Beta Kappa, 1990-93
Member, OU Council on Campus Life, 1991-94 (Chair, 1993-94)
Chapter President, Phi Kappa Phi, University of Oklahoma,
1994-95
Member, Advisory Board, Austrian History Yearbook,
1996-2001
Member, Executive Committee, Society for Austrian and Habsburg
History, 1998-2010
Executive Secretary, Society for Austrian and Habsburg History,
2000-2001
Director, Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota,
2001-2010
Executive Editor, Austrian History Yearbook,
2001-present
Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Austrian Studies,
September 2001-present
Member, Editorial Board, HABSBURG electronic discussion network
(H-Net), 2001-present
Member, International Scholarly Advisory Board, Austrian Eastern
and Southeastern
Europe Institute, Vienna,
2003-2006
Full Member, Collegium Carolinum, Research Center for the
Bohemian Lands, Munich, 2003-
present
Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Bohemia: Jahrbuch
des Collegium Carolinum, 2003-
present
Member, Scholarly Advisory Board, Center for Modern Historical
Research, Austrian Academy
of
Sciences,
2006-present
Member, International Editorial Board, Časopis Matice
moravské [Journal of the Moravian
Publication Society], 2007-present
Vice-president, Conference Group for Central European History of
the American Historical
Association, 2009
President, Conference Group for Central European History of the
American Historical
Association, 2010
Corresponding Member, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Humanities
and Social Sciences Section, 2011-present