Jesse Siegel is a PhD Candidate in Modern European History, with a minor field in Global Comparative Studies. His dissertation, tentatively titled "Gambling Against the Dark: German-Czechoslovak Businessmen in Europe, 1918-1948," is a group biography of German businessmen from Czechoslovakia after World War I, exploring how the German minority economic elite instrumentalized nationality in the international market to navigate economic and political ruptures of the interwar period. This research takes a transnational approach to the lived experience of German-Czechoslovak businessmen and managers by studying them as a professional class embracing a variety of political and cultural identities. The project therefore broadly addresses how nationality, citizenship, the nation-state, and capitalist economic practice changed in mid-20th century Central Europe. Jesse's dissertation research is supported by a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Development and Research Award Fellowship (2021-2022) and a German Academic Exchange Fund (DAAD) Short-Term Research grant (2023). A previous research project on Sudeten German nationalism was supported by a Fulbright Student-Research grant to Germany (Munich, 2016-2017). Jesse received his BA in History and German Studies at Gettysburg College in 2016.
Graduate Student Bios
- Email: jesse.e.siegel@rutgers.edu
- Current Research: Modern European History, Global and Comparative