Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena

Professor James Mark

Fellow James Mark

July - December 2012
Mail: J.A.Mark(at)exeter.ac(dot)uk

James Mark is a Professor of History at the University of Exeter in the UK. He received his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in 2002, and has been employed at the University of Exeter since 2004. He has been awarded a number of significant grants, including a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship and as a co-investigator on AHRC (UK)-funded collaborative project, 'Around 1968'. His monograph, 'The Unfinished Revolution' was shortlisted for the Longman-History Today Book Prize and was named as one the 'best books of 2011' by US journal Foreign Affairs.

Research project at the Kolleg

James Mark is working together on a joint book with fellow researcher at the Imre Kertesz Kolleg Jena, Dr. Péter Apor. Taking Hungary as a case study, the two fellows work together on a book that will explore, as a central theme, the extent to which late socialist official and unofficial activism in Eastern Europe was transnational in form from the mid-1960s onwards, examining its relationship both to broader international trends, and exploring the idea that the particular forms of late socialist transnationalism shaped later engagements with the processes of Europeanization and globalisation after 1989. The book is based on an extensive oral history (80 life history interviews) and archival research previously conducted within the framework of the collaborative research project "Around 1968" coordinated at Oxford University 2006-present.

Main areas of research

  •     Social and cultural history of state socialism in central-eastern Europe
  •     Politics of memory during both socialism and post-socialism
  •     Oral history
  •     Transnational history
  •     History of activism

The full list of publications can be found on the website of the University of Exeter