Norman Aselmeyer

Historian • University of Oxford

Publications

Edited volumes and special issues

Neighbourhoods and Urban Proximity in the Colonial City, 1870–1940. Special Issue of Urban History, vol. 53, no. 1 (2026) (with Avner Ofrath),
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/urban-history/collections/special-issues/neighbourhoods-and-urban-proximity-in-the-colonial-city-1870-1940

Colonial Transactions: Railways and Colonial Societies. Special Issue of German History, vol. 43, no. 4 (2025) (with Nina Kleinöder),
https://academic.oup.com/gh/issue/43/4.

“Stadt der Kolonien”: Wie Bremen den deutschen Kolonialismus prägte [“City of Colonies“: How Bremen Shaped German Colonialism]. Freiburg: Herder, 2024 (with Virginie Kamche); special edition for the Landeszentralen für politische Bildung, Freiburg 2025.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5771/9783451833915.

Geschichte des Nicht-Essens: Verzicht, Vermeidung und Verweigerung in der Moderne [The History of Not Eating: Abstinence, Avoidance, and Refusal in the Modern Era]. Supplement of Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 73 (2018) (with Veronika Settele).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110574135.

Journal articles

“Uneasy Neighbours: Proximity, Sociability and Difference in the Colonial City, c. 1870–1940,” Urban History, vol. 53, no. 1 (2026), pp. 32–40 (with Avner Ofrath).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926825000136.

“Colonial Transactions in the German Empire: Infrastructures and the Colonial Everyday,” German History, vol. 43, no. 4 (2025), pp. 477–491 (with Nina Kleinöder).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghaf047.

“Ruin of Empire: The Uganda Railway and Memory Work in Kenya,” Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, vol. 14, no. 1 (2022), pp. 14–32.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3167/jemms.2022.140102.

“Nicht-Essen: Gesundheit, Ernährung und Gesellschaft seit 1850 [Not Eating: Health, Food, and Society since 1850],” Historische Zeitschrift, Supplement 73 (2018), pp. 7–35 (with Veronika Settele).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110574135-001.

“The Lazy Reader: Labor, Books, and Disease in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” Literature and Medicine, vol. 34, no. 2 (2016), pp. 440–467.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/lm.2016.0021.

“Cholera und Tod : Epidemieerfahrungen und Todesanschauungen in autobiografischen Texten von Arbeiterinnen und Arbeitern [Cholera and Death: Experiences of Epidemics and Concepts of Death in Workers’ Autobiographical Texts],” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, vol. 55 (2015), pp. 77–106.
https://collections.fes.de/archiv-fuer-sozialgeschichte/periodical/titleinfo/1385474.

Encyclopedia entries (peer reviewed)

“Taveta, Occupation of,” in 1914–1918 online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/taveta-occupation-of.

Book chapters

“Vorwort [Preface],” in “Stadt der Kolonien”: Wie Bremen den deutschen Kolonialismus prägte, ed. by Norman Aselmeyer and Virginie Kamche. Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 2024, pp. 9–15 (with Virginie Kamche).

“Warum scheiterte die Umbenennung der Lüderitzstraße? [Why did the Renaming of Lüderitzstraße Fail?],” in “Stadt der Kolonien”: Wie Bremen den deutschen Kolonialismus prägte, ed. by Norman Aselmeyer and Virginie Kamche. Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 2024, pp. 24–28 (with Katharina Hoffmann).

“Nachwuchs für die Kolonien: Kolonialpropaganda an Bremer Schulen vom Kaiserreich bis zum Nationalsozialismus [Recruits for the Colonies: Colonial Propaganda in Bremen Schools from the German Empire to National Socialism],” in “Stadt der Kolonien”: Wie Bremen den deutschen Kolonialismus prägte, ed. by Norman Aselmeyer and Virginie Kamche. Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 2024, pp. 228–233 (with Sabine Horn).

“Wie kamen Objekte der Maasai ins Übersee-Museum? [How did Maasai Objects Come into the Übersee Museum?],” in “Stadt der Kolonien”: Wie Bremen den deutschen Kolonialismus prägte, ed. by Norman Aselmeyer and Virginie Kamche. Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 2024, pp. 271–275 (with Laibor Kalanga Moko and Silke Seybold).

“Cholera und Tod: Epidemieerfahrungen und Todesanschauungen in autobiografischen Texten von Arbeiterinnen und Arbeitern [Cholera and Death: Experiences of Epidemics and Concepts of Death in Workers’ Autobiographical Texts],” in Sterben, Töten, Gedanken: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Todes, ed. by Ute Planert, Dietmar Süß, and Meik Woyke. Bonn: Dietz, 2018, pp. 81–110 (reprint).

Essays and other works

“The Maasai at the First German Colonial Exhibition 1896,” in Dekoloniale (with Saitabau Lulunken), https://www.dekoloniale.de/en/map.

“‘Die DDR hat’s nie gegeben’: Leerstellen in der aktuellen Erinnerungsdebatte,” Merkur, vol. 879 (Sept. 2022), pp. 27–41 (with Stefan Jehne and Yves Müller). [read]

“Footsteps: Neera Kapila, 1947–2022,” Awaaz Magazine, vol. 19, no. 2 (2022), pp. 87f. (with Neera Kapur-Dromson). [read]

“Mwishowe: Neera Kapila,” Old Africa, vol. 103 (Oct.-Nov. 2022), p. 56 (with Neera Kapur-Dromson). [read]

“Wissen, Macht, Subjekt: Gesundheit und Ernährung in Geschichte und Gegenwart,” Curare, vol. 39, no. 2 (2016), pp. 194–96 (with Veronika Settele). [read]

Conference reports

“‘Das tu ich nicht!’ Praktiken der Negation in Gegenwart und Geschichte,” H-Soz-Kult, 19.1.2023 (with Paul Nolte and Veronika Settele), https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-133033.

“Capturing the Zeitgeist of Infrastructure,” TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 31.1.2019, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/17723.

“Umstrittene Objekte: Bedeutungswandel und Konflikte um Glauben und Wissen in der afrikanisch-europäischen Transfergeschichte,” H-Soz-Kult, 12.11.2016, https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-125414.

“Stellare Kriege,” Technikgeschichte, vol. 81, no. 4 (2014), pp. 371–377. [read]

Book reviews

in: Journal of African History, Historische Zeitschrift, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, Das Historisch-Politische Buch, H-Soz-Kult, British Journal for the History of Science, Global Urban History Blog.