Make sure to also check out our project website that hosts video lectures introducing the chapters of the handbook and much more: https://teh21.sites.uu.nl

Computers used to be operated by text commands that required specialist knowledge. This changed with the introduction of the GUI in the 1980s and 90s, making computers accessible to common users. I will investigate the GUI as part of a long tradition of human-machine interfaces. With this project, I will be able to start a new research line on the history of digital culture.

I will still be busy with all things Weimar (three articles coming later this year) but I am excited to join the recent 90s revival and work on the beginnings of our digital world…

It tells the story of Weimar’s democratic collapse through a microhistory of “Tempo“, a novel kind of tabloid published in Berlin from 1928-1933 that advertised itself as „Germany’s most modern newspaper“. The paper was designed to reflect the metropolitan culture of Weimar Berlin, but soon had to adapt to the new reality of political crisis and economic chaos that set in around 1930. It also became a prime target for Nazi attacks against the „Jewish press“ and „Americanization“.

However, more than a mere biography of a single newspaper, I tried – in the tradition of microhistory – to use it as a window into the broader context of the cultural and political transformation that happened in Germany around 1930. The „big question“ I try to answer is why Weimar’s liberal press, despite its enormous reach and influence, was so powerless in stopping the rise of the Nazis during this time.