Biography

Claudius Torp holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Bielefeld (Germany).
In his dissertation “Politics and Consumption in Weimar Germany”, Torp offers a new interpretation of the Weimar Republic as a consumer society in crisis caught between the experience of scarcity and the expectation of affluence. Political reactions to this challenge display a kind of democratic paternalism as contemporaries tried, ultimately unsuccessfully, to incorporate consumers’ rights and duties into the political system.
Torp’s current research interests focus on the history of transnational consumer boycotts. At Bielefeld University, he has taught courses on modern German history and on theories of imperialism. His fields of expertise also include the history of the Early American Republic, thanks to participation in a yearlong graduate studies programme at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. His degree in philosophy and history from the University of Bielefeld, makes him well-versed in political and historical theory.
Recently, he has edited (with Heinz Gerhard Haupt) a reference book on the history of the consumer society in Twentieth-Century Germany (Die Konsumgesellschaft in Deutschland, 1890-1990. Ein Handbuch, Campus: Frankfurt/New York 2009).