About

Welcome to the website of Gerben Zaagsma. I am an Assistant Professor in Contemporary and Digital History at the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) of the University of Luxemburg. With a background in modern Jewish/Yiddish history, my current research and teaching is mostly in the fields of digital and public history, Holocaust and genocide studies, as well as music history.

Before joining C²DH in August 2017, I worked in a number of different places and settings, see my CV for more information. My current research focuses on the history of digital history, as well as the politics of digitisation and digitised cultural heritage, seen from a global perspective. You can also check my talks and list of publications. Several recent papers and lectures can be found on Zenodo.

Latest updates:

• My long new article, Facing the History Machine: Towards Histories of Digital History has been accepted for publication in History of Humanities.
• I am delighted to give a keynote lecture at Digital History Switzerland 2024 in September 2024 entitled ‘When Literacy Goes Digital: Rethinking the Ethics and Politics of Digitisation’.
• A new short article ‘Between Online and Offline: Doing Archival Research in the Digital Age’ was published in a special issue of the German archival journal ARCHIV. theorie & praxis on Originalerhalt und Digitalisierung. ^PDF.

Image: Vicki Bennett - Those Who Do Not.