Martin Schaad

Contemporary Historian and Deputy Director, Einstein Forum, Potsdam

WYSIWYG – Bildproduktion im Politischen

On Sunday, January 11, 2015, more than forty heads of state from around the world marched arm in arm for almost 307 meters along Boulevard Voltaire in Paris. It was a display of solidarity with France, and one of the many unity marches across the nation after the terrorist attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket. The talk looks at some examples from the flood of images precipitated by the event. What were the circumstances under which the visual communication of these subcutaneous, emotional, political, and diplomatic messages took place? Why did these images appear in the media and not others?

Martin Schaad is deputy director of the Einstein Forum. He studied history, economics, and philosophy at the University of Stirling and completed his Ph.D. in modern history at St Antony’s College, Oxford. He also holds an MBA from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. Alongside many essays on contemporary subjects, he is the author of the books Bullying Bonn: Anglo-German Diplomacy on European Integration, 1955–61 (2000), “Dann geh doch rüber”. Über die Mauer in den Osten (2009), and Die fabelhaften Bekenntnisse des Genossen Alfred Kurella (2014).

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