Congratulations to Arndt Emmerich, whose CSSH essay “Jewish-Muslim Friendship Networks: A Study of Intergenerational Boundary Work in Postwar Germany” (67-1, 2025) has just been awarded the Rethinking German History Prize 2025 by the German History Society! The awarding panel had the following to say about the essay:
The judges were very impressed by Dr. Emmerich’s collection, contextualization and use of evidence. They commented on his convincing interpretation of interviews and other fieldwork to question the significance of assumed boundaries between Jewish and Muslim groups and communities in the Bahnhofsviertel of Frankfurt am Main.
Find the full award announcement here.
CSSH also celebrates a new book by Christina Schwenkel (“The Things They Carried (and Kept): Revisiting Ostalgie in the Global South” (64-2, 2022)). Sonic Socialism: Crisis and Care in Pandemic Hanoi, published by University of California Press, is summarized thusly:
In an era dominated by visual information, what can the sounds of a pandemic reveal about crisis and care? How might attuning to sonic atmospheres uncover new dimensions to states of emergency and their implications for collective life? In Sonic Socialism, Christina Schwenkel examines the use of sound in COVID-19 response efforts in urban Vietnam. Based on “soundwork” conducted in Hanoi in 2020 during the pandemic’s first year, she shows how acoustic technologies played a pivotal yet overlooked role in state efforts to achieve record-low infection rates worldwide. Across lived experiences of quarantine, lockdown, and spatial distancing, Schwenkel explores sound-based interventions to curb virus transmission, and the public’s response to these auditory measures. From instant messaging alerts to public health videos and neighborhood loudspeakers, sonic governance sought to transform urban sounds and listening practices to mobilize action, drawing people into networks of care and control. As anthropology stands at a crossroads, Sonic Socialism makes the compelling case for the value of sensory autoethnography in reimagining a more careful and caring ethnographic practice in a post-pandemic world.
