Prof. Dr. Monika Wienfort

CV

Born 1961; 1987 M.A. in History at University of Bielefeld; 1988-2002 Research Fellow, University of Bielefeld; 1990 Dr. phil. in History at University of Bielefeld; 1999 PD, Habilitation in History at University of Bielefeld; 2000 Habilitationspreis University of Bielefeld; 2002-2011 Acting Chair, Technical University Berlin, Modern European History; 2009-present Board Member, Hugo-Preuß-Gesellschaft; 2010-2011 Visiting Professor University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

PUBLICATIONS (selection)

I. Books

• Monarchie in der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Deutschland und England von 1640 bis 1848, Göttingen 1993 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Bürgertum Bd. 4).
• Patrimonialgerichte in Preußen. Ländliche Gesellschaft und bürgerliches Recht 1770 -1848/49, Göttingen 2001 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft, Bd. 148).
• Der Adel in der Moderne (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Grundkurs Neue Geschichte, Bd. 1), Göttingen 2006.
• Geschichte Preußens (C.H. Beck Wissen), München 2008. with Eckart Conze (Eds.): Adel und Moderne. Deutschland im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert im internationalen Vergleich, Böhlau Verlag, Köln/Wien 2004

II. Articles

• Administration of Private Law or Private Jurisdiction? The Prussian Patrimonial Courts 1820 - 1848, in: W. Steinmetz Ed., Private Law and Social Inequality in the Industrial Age, Oxford University Press 2000, 69-88.
• Ledige Mütter und unversorgte Kinder. Zur Entstehung bürgerlichen Rechtsbewußtseins im 19. Jahrhundert, in: A.Griesebner/H. Weigl/M. Scheutz Eds., Justiz und Gerechtigkeit, Wien 2002,  407-29.
• Adlige Handlungsspielräume und neue Adelstypen in der „Klassischen Moderne“ (1880-1930), in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 33.2007, 416-38.
• Monarchie und Öffentlichkeit in der Bundesrepublik der 1950er Jahre: Die Wahrnehmung der Thronwechsel in Belgien und Großbritannien in der deutschen Presse, in: T. Biskup/M. Kohlrausch Ed., Das Erbe der Monarchie. Nachwirkungen einer deutschen Institution seit 1918, Frankfurt/M 2008, 138-157.
• Marriage, Family, and Nationality. Letters from Queen Victoria and Crown Princess Victoria, 1858-1885, in: K. Urbach Ed., Royal Kinship. Anglo-German Family Networks 1815 -1918, München 2008, 117-130.
• Gerichtsherrschaft, Fideikommiss und Verein - Adel und Recht im „modernen“ Deutschland,  in: Jörn Leonhard/Christian Wieland Eds., What Makes the Nobility Noble? Comparative Perspectives from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, Göttingen 2011, 90-113.
• Politische Repräsentationen in Großbritannien. Volk, Parlament und Monarchie im Viktorianismus, in: Detlef Lehnert Ed., Demokratiekultur in Europa, Köln 2011, 177-92.

FRIAS RESEARCH PROJECT

"History of Marriage (1770s to the 1950s)

The project wants to present a general history of marriage as a social institution in the German speaking countries. The marriage history of five couples (Caroline and Wilhelm v. Humboldt, Clara und Robert Schumann, the German Emperor Frederick III. and Victoria, Katia and Thomas Mann, Freya and Helmuth James Graf v. Moltke) will be interwoven with legal, economic and cultural conditions of marriage. Marriage as social practice might be seen as individual choice and fate, but also as a representation of changing possibilities for men and women within a given framework. The project will bring together patterns of behavior and a chronological order of a marriage, starting with preconditions and acquaintance, moving forward to discussing weddings, marital life, children, divorce and death. It will deal with issues like the difference between a love match and a marriage of convenience, married women’s property rights, reforms of marriage laws, prohibitions of marriages of the poor, parenthood, out of wedlock births, and provisions for widows. The aim is not to create a “master narrative”, but to explore the ways in which married women and men led their lives in property-based market societies.