Sarah Jacobson
Visiting Assistant Professor of History
Jacobson joined Albion as a visiting professor in 2024 after two years of postdoctoral fellowships in Germany: they were previously the Max Kade Postdoctoral Fellow for the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies (2023-24) and a postdoctoral fellow at the Leibniz Institute for European History (2022-23).
Jacobson has published several articles on European history including “Redefining Urban Citizenship: Italian Migrants and Housing Occupations in 1970s Frankfurt am Main,” “Southern Italian Migrants and Contested Social Housing Rights in 1970s Italy and West Germany,” and “Guaranteeing Human Rights? Italian Gastarbeiter:innen and Housing Activism in 1960s and 1970s West Germany.”
They teach numerous courses including Making Europe Modern: 1500-Present, Film Images of WWII, 1789 Europe 1918, Gendered Violence and Power, 1918 Europe 1989, Race and Place in Germany, and The Holocaust: History and Memory.
Student drop-in hours for Fall 2025: Tuesdays 2 – 4pm, Wednesdays
10:30 – 11:30am, and by appointment:: email [email protected].
Education
- Ph.D., History, 2021, Michigan State University (USA)Dissertation: “Squatting to Make Ends Meet: Southern Italian Migrants and the Right to a Home in
1970s Italy and West Germany.”
Dissertation Advisor: Prof. Karrin Hanshew - M.A., History, 2016, Michigan State University (USA)
- B.A., History, 2013, Brigham Young University (USA)
Courses
- Making Europe Mod., 1500 – Present
- 1789 Europe 1918
- 1918 Europe 1989
- The Holocaust: History & Memory
- Race and Place in Germany
Publications
- Southern Italian Migrants and Housing Activism in Italy and West Germany During the Long 1970s.
Winner of the 2022 Women in German Studies Book Prize. Submitted to Cornell University Press
for consideration. - “Southern Italian Migrants and Contested Social Housing Rights in 1970s Italy and West Germany”
in Reimagining Citizenship in Postwar Europe, edited by Rachel Chin and Samuel Huneke, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501779190/reimagining-citizenship-in-postwar-europe/. - “Guaranteeing Human Rights? Italian Gastarbeiter:innen and Housing Activism in 1960s and 1970s
West Germany,” in “The Multiple Meanings of Human Rights in Postwar Germany,” ed. Felix A.
Jiménez Botta, special issue, Journal of Contemporary History, OnlineFirst.
https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094241247066. - “Redefining Urban Citizenship: Italian Migrants and Housing Occupations in 1970s Frankfurt amMain,” Contemporary European History 33, n. 2 (2024): 634-50.
https://www.doi.org/10.1017/S0960777322000662 (first published online 2022).