James Krapfl (on leave)
PhD (University of California, Berkeley)
MA (Central European University)
AB (Stanford University)
James Krapfl is a historian of modern European political culture and mentalities. Inspired by the experience of revolution and resistance to oppression in central Europe, his work asks how power and meaning are interrelated, what constitutes the power of the powerless at different times and places, and how the solidarity of those shaken by violence can become a force in history.
Prof. Krapfl’s first book reinterpreted the revolutionary experience of 1989 by gathering an unprecedented wealth of evidence on grassroots political thought and action. The book, which won the George Blazyca Prize and the Czechoslovak Studies Association book prize, showed that the democracy most citizens envisaged in 1989 was not exactly liberal, and that their attachment to socialism was stronger than most foreign observers realized, making such later phenomena as populism and Ostalgie less surprising than they were seen. These findings inspired Prof. Krapfl’s current research, which asks what changed in the minds of Czechoslovak, East German, Hungarian, and Polish citizens during the era of the Prague Spring and its aftermath, from 1968 to 1971. With this project nearing completion, Prof. Krapfl has begun writing a general history of Europe since 1989, emphasizing transformations in mentalities and political culture across the continent. In addition to these major projects, Prof Krapfl has written on topics as diverse as Macedonian nationalism and Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, veterans’ memories of World War I and central European phenomenology. His research has been funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, les Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture, the Slovak Research & Development Agency, the Mellon Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies. He has been a visiting scholar at universities and research institutes in Bratislava, Jena, Olomouc, Prague, and Vienna.
In his teaching, Prof. Krapfl emphasizes creative problem-solving and the relevance of history to navigating the present. He has received the H. Noel Fieldhouse Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Arts Undergraduate Society’s Excellence in Teaching Award. Prof. Krapfl edits Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue canadienne des slavistes, having previously edited East European Politics & Societies, and in the course of this work he has coordinated special issues or sections on the Belarus Uprising of 2020–21, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, histories of emotion, approaches to the decolonization of Slavic studies, the Euromaidan, and Europe since 1989. He also worked with Paul Wilson to publish a revised, definitive translation of Václav Havel’s landmark essay, The Power of the Powerless. Prof. Krapfl is a vice president of the Canadian Association of Slavists, and he co-organizes the Montreal Central European Studies Workshop.
Modern central European history, history of political culture and mentalities, history of ideas, history of the present.
HIST 226 – East Central & Southeastern Europe in the Twentieth Century
HIST 306 – East Central Europe, 1944–2004
HIST 310 – Themes in European History – The German Problem: From Reformation to European Union
HIST 313 – The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1918
HIST 329 – History of Yugoslavia
HIST 453 – History of Revolution in Europe
HIST 503 – Topics in Modern European History – Local Histories of the World Revolution, 1914–23
HIST 570 – Topics: Historical Interpretation – Violence and the Sacred in European Political Culture since 1415
HIST 573 – Seminar on Central Europe – Revolution and Resistance in Twentieth-Century Central Europe
Revolution with a Human Face: Politics, Culture, and Community in Czechoslovakia, 1989–1992. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2013.
Revolúcia s ľudskou tvárou: Politika, kultúra a spoločenstvo v Československu po 17. novembri 1989. Bratislava: Kalligram, 2009.
“From Leipzig to Kyiv through Brussels: How the Revolution of 1989 Defined an Era.” East European Politics & Societies 38, no. 4 (2024).
“Ukraine’s Euromaidan and Revolution of Dignity, Ten Years Later.” Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue canadienne des slavistes 65, nos. 3–4 (2023). Co-authored with Elias Kühn von Burgsdorff.
“Decolonizing Minds in the ‘Slavic Area,’ ‘Slavic Area Studies,’ and Beyond.” Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue canadienne des slavistes 65, no. 2 (2023).
“Building the Normalisation Panorama, 1968–69.” In Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe in the Era of Normalisation, 1969–1989, edited by Kevin McDermott & Matthew Stibbe. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
“The Revolution Continues: Memories of 1989 and the Defence of Democracy in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.” Cultures of History Forum (May 2020). Co-authored with Andrew Kloiber.
“The Power of the Powerless Today.” Special issue, East European Politics & Societies 32, no. 2 (2018). Co-edited with Barbara J. Falk.
“Passing the Torch, despite Bananas: The Twentieth-Anniversary Commemorations of 1989 in Central Europe.” Remembrance and Solidarity 3 (2014).
“Sites of Memory, Sites of Rejoicing: The Great War in Czech and Slovak Cultural History.” Remembrance and Solidarity 2 (2014).