Celia Applegate

William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of History
Professor of History

Celia Applegate studies the culture, society, and politics of modern Germany, with particular interest in the history of music, nationalism and national identity. She is the author of A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley, 1990), the co-editor (with musicologist Pamela Potter) of Music and German National Identity (Chicago, 2000), the author of Bach in Berlin: Nation and Culture in Mendelssohn’s Revival of the St. Matthew Passion (Cornell, 2005), winner of the DAAD/GSA Book Prize, and of The Necessity of Music: Variations on a German Theme (Toronto, 2017). She is currently working on comprehensive interpretation of musical life in Germany from the 17th century to the present, titled "Music and the Germans: A History." She is Past President of the German Studies Association, Past President of the Central European History Society, and incoming chair of the AHA’s Modern European section.

She teaches courses on modern European politics, society, and culture, the history of the Holocaust, and of European nationalism and ethnic conflicts.