Prof. Dr. Jessica Gienow-Hecht

Chair of the Division of History, John F. Kennedy Institute, Free University Berlin

Biography

Academic Career
She completed her Abitur at Humboldt-Gymnasium, Dusseldorf in 1983. She then studied at École Internationale Videmanette, completing Certificat de l'Alliance Française II. In 1988 she graduated from RWTH Aachen with a BA in History, French and Spanish and then went on to study for a Master of Arts at the University of Virginia, graduating in 1990. In 1995 she completed her PhD in History at the University of Virginia with a doctoral thesis titled ‘Cultural Transmission and the U.S. Occupation in Germany. The Neue Zeitung, 1945-55’. Furthermore, in 2003, she completed another PhD at Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg with a thesis titled ‘Music and Emotions in German-American Relations since 1850’.

Career
Prof. Dr. Gienow-Hecht began her academic career as a postdoctoral fellow of history at Universität Bielefeld in July 1995. In 1996 she was made Deputy Director at the Center for European Studies at Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. She held this position for 3 years before being appointed as John F. Kennedy Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. She held a number of positions at Harvard until 2004 when she became the Heisenberg-Fellow at the German Research Council, Center for North American Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/Main. In 2008 she was Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Global Studies at Doshisha University, Kyoto. In April 2009 she was made Full Professor of International History at the University of Cologne, and since 2013, Chair of the Division of History at the John F. Kennedy Institute, Free University of Berlin.
She is also a member of a number of committees and advisory boards. These include the Advisory Board of the European Journal of American Studies and the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, Membership Committee of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Member of the Executive Committee of the Organization for Intra-Cultural Development, Kyoto, Japan, and Committee Member at the German Academic Exchange Service.

Publications
She has published a wide range of books and essays. These include “Nation Branding”. In Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations. 3rd ed, Cultural Diplomacy and Civil Society Since 1850 or the Anomaly of the Cold War.” InWashington and Beyond: Public Diplomacy and U.S. Foreign Relations.” Toward an International History, The Model of Cultural Diplomacy: Power, Distance, and the Promise of Civil Society.” With Mark Donfried.Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy.