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Jana Vinga Martins

Research associate


Short Biography

Jana Vinga Martins studied History and Political Science for a bachelor’s degree at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and the University of Regensburg from 2014 to 2018. In her bachelor studies she focused on 19th century social history. In her master’s programme European Societies in Transformation at the University of Regensburg, her main research interests were contemporary history in a comparative perspective and public history. She combined her thesis on differences in culture of remembrance in Japan and Germany with a semester abroad at Kwansei Gakuin University (Nishinomiya, Japan) in 2021. From 2018 to 2022, she worked as a student research assistant at the Chair of Economic and Social History of Prof. Mark Spoerer as part of the editorial team of the Journal of Social and Economic History and completed several internships. Since June 2022, Jana Vinga Martins holds the position of research assistant at the Junior Professorship of Public History at the University of Regensburg.


Research

  • Methods to analyse historical exhibitions in museums
  • National and European historical perceptions and narratives
  • Politics of memory and Culture of Remembrance (Europe, Asia)
  • History in the digital world

PhD project

Working title: Europe in the Museum. Ideas of Europe in national conception of history

Abstracts:

The term "Europe" is often used synonymously with EU. In recent years, there has been an increased emphasis within the EU on a common European foundation of values and thus Europe has been formed as a normative cultural space. In addition, however, there are geographically, culturally, and politically divergent definitions of Europe. In the context of this study, Europe is not only to be understood as a political organisation (EU), but further approaches to the idea of Europe and concepts of European identity will be used. The latter postulates the existence of a European identity or identities, which is nevertheless overshadowed by national identity. European identity research, however, has so far hardly been dedicated to the analysis of exhibitions. The project will focus on the question of how perceptions of Europe are integrated into the national historical narratives of various European countries.

The project will take a closer look at the permanent exhibitions of national history museums in different European countries. The central questions are which concepts of Europe are conveyed by the different permanent exhibitions, how and in which manner these are integrated into national historical narratives. In a second step, the results of the analysis will be put into context in relation to the culture of remembrance and the historical culture of the respective country. In a final step, the individual results of the case studies will be linked to each other to reveal broader trends. Methodologically, an interdisciplinary approach of historical hermeneutics and communication studies discourse analysis will be used and adapted for the exhibition analysis. Up to now, research has been primarily concerned with the processes of Europeanisation of individual themes of memory culture but has not focused on Europe as an exhibition theme. The study is intended to contribute to closing this research gap.


Publications

Vinga Martins, Jana / Michael Zimmermann (2023): Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv Außenstelle Erfurt, in: Roman Smoloz / Martina Köglmeier (ed.): Archivkurs des Jahres 2023. Archivalische Zeugnisse für den Volksaufstand in der DDR 1953, pp. 9–13.

Vinga Martins, Jana / Michael Zimmermann (2023): Die rechtlichen Grundlagen zur Nutzung von Stasi-Unterlagen, in: Roman Smoloz / Martina Köglmeier (ed.): Archivkurs des Jahres 2023. Archivalische Zeugnisse für den Volksaufstand in der DDR 1953, pp. 31–34.

Vinga Martins, Jana / Martina Köglmeier (2022): „Point Alpha“ – Eine Gedenkstätte zum Anfassen zwischen Rasdorf und Geisa, in: Roman Smoloz / Martina Köglmeier (ed.): Archivkurs des Jahres 2022. Archivalische Zeugnisse für die innerdeutsche Grenze 1952 und 1962, pp. 26–30.

Vinga Martins, Jana / Maria Seigner (2018): Das West-Institut in Posen, in: Roman Smoloz (ed.): Archivkurs des Jahres 2018. Deutsch-polnische Wissenschaftsbegegnungen in Posen, pp. 17–19.

Vinga Martins, Jana / Maria Seigner (2018): Das Posener Residenzschloss, in: Roman Smoloz (ed.): Archivkurs des Jahres 2018. Deutsch-polnische Wissenschaftsbegegnungen in Posen, pp. 35–37.



  1. Fakultät für Philosophie, Kunst-, Geschichts- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften
  2. Institut für Geschichte

Professorship for Public History

Jana Vinga Martins


Universität Regensburg
Sedanstraße 1, SE01
93055 Regensburg
Telefon 0941 943 7681

Jana.Vinga-Martins@ur.de