Diversity has become an increasingly contentious issue across the globe in recent years, both as a subject of contemporary history as well as of political and social developments. In this first episode of the English-language ZZF podcast, Lee Holt speaks with Bodie Ashton about their research on diversity, the important role that contemporary historians play in shaping our understanding of the past, and why diversity is important for healthy democratic societies.

Bodie Ashton is an Associated Researcher at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF Potsdam). Their current project is entitled, “Transnational Transgender. Recovering and Rebuilding Gender Identities in Germany and Western Europe, 1945-1989”. They are a joint British and Australian citizen, having been raised and educated in Adelaide, South Australia. They received their Ph.D. in History in 2014 at the University of Adelaide and were honored with the “Diversity & Inclusion Prize 2022” by the German History Society. From January 2021 to March 2024 they worked as Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer in the VolkswagenStiftung-funded research group “The Other Global Germany” at the University of Erfurt.

Lee Holt is a Research Associate (Copy Editor and International Research Coordinator) at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary Historical Research in Potsdam, in Department V, “Globalizations in a Divided World,” where has worked since September 2023. He received his Ph.D. in Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin in 2008 and has worked as translator and editor since 2007.

Learn more about Bodie Ashton’s research project at the ZZF: https://zzf-potsdam.de/en/research/projects/transnational-transgender

Literature:

• Andrea Rottmann, Queer Lives Across the Wall. Desire and Danger in Divided Berlin, 1945–1970. University of Toronto Press, 2022.

• Samuel Huneke, States of Liberation. Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. University of Toronto Press, 2022.

• Laurie Marhoefer, Racism and the Making of Gay Rights. A Sexologist, His Student, and the Empire of Queer Love. University of Toronto Press, 2022.