How do historical narratives and memories shape our understanding of national identity and collective memory?
Join us for an evening with Lucy Noakes (University of Essex) and Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck) as they reflect on how the Second World War has shaped Germany and Britain after 1945. The conversation will offer insights into the ways in which the two nations navigated the aftermath of the war and redefined their identities and roles in the contemporary world.
About the speakers:
Lucy Noakes, Professor of History at the University of Essex, specialises in the social and cultural history of early to mid-twentieth-century Britain, with a particular focus on people's experiences and memories of the world wars. Her recent publication, Dying for the Nation, focuses on the history of death, grief and bereavement in Second World War Britain. This research places the experience and memory of death at the forefront of understanding the British war experience, exploring how death was managed and remembered during this period. From November 2024 she will be President of the Royal Historical Society.
Frank Trentmann, Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, is a historian of modern Britain, Germany and the world. His research explores the interplay between material, political and moral change. His latest book, Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942–2022, follows the German people's journey from the horrors of the Nazi era to their moral and social reinvention, and its limits. Trentmann's work captures the dramatic changes during and after the Cold War, the division and reunification of Germany, and the nation's evolving and ambivalent role on the world stage.