JAMES KRAPFL
Associate Professor
Dept. of History & Classical Studies, McGill University
855, rue Sherbrooke O.
Montréal (Québec) H3A 2T7, Canada
tel. 514-398-4400 ext. 00971, fax 514-398-8365
james.krapfl AT mcgill.ca
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in history, University of California, Berkeley, 2007
M.A. in history, Central European University, Budapest, 1999 (with distinction)
B.A. in history, Stanford University, 1995
TEACHING
Interests
Modern central and eastern Europe; cultural history; the comparative history of revolutionary
phenomena; contemporary history
Courses
History 226: East Central and Southeastern Europe in the Twentieth Century
History 306: East Central Europe, 1944-2004
History 313: The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618-1918
History 329: The History of Yugoslavia
History 436: Topics: European History
Topic 2014: Europe since 1989
History 453: The History of Revolution in Europe
History 498/627: Seminar on Central and Eastern Europe
Topic 2012-13: Revolution and Resistance in Twentieth-Century Central Europe
Experience
McGill University, 2007-present
University of California, Berkeley, 2007
City University, Trenčín and Bratislava, Slovakia, 1999-2001
Recognition
Excellence in Teaching Award, Arts Undergraduate Society, McGill University, 2012
PUBLICATIONS
Books
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
[Revolution with a Human Face: Politics, Culture, and Community in Czechoslovakia after 17
November 1989]. Bratislava: Kalligram, 2009.
Last updated June 2014
JAMES KRAPFL
Book Chapters
“Die Ideale des November: Ideen und Ziele tschechoslowakischer Bürger in der Zeit des Umbruchs
1989” [The Ideals of November: Ideals and Goals of Czechoslovak Citizens in the Time of the
Upheaval of 1989]. In 1989 im deutsch-tschechisch-slowakischen Kontext [1989 in the GermanCzech-Slovak Context] edited by Miloš Řezník, Edita Ivaničková, and Volker Zimmermann, 69115. Essen: Klartext, 2013.
“The Discursive Constitution of Revolution and Revolution Envy.” In The 1989 Revolutions in
Central and Eastern Europe: From Communism to Post-Communism, edited by Kevin
McDermott and Matthew Stibbe, 271-84. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.
“De mártires a misioneros: Los estudiantes checoslovacos y la revolución de la noviolencia de 1989”
[Martyrs into Missionaries: Czechoslovak Students and the Non-Violent Revolution of 1989]. In
Vida, voces, reflexiones y esperanzas: Memorias del Segundo Seminario Internacional de
Noviolencia [Life, Voices, Reflections, and Hopes: Proceedings of the Second International
Seminar on Non-Violence], edited by Roberto Solarte Rodríguez, 111-32. Bogotá: Pontificia
Universidad Javeriana, 2010.
“Poetický základ politiky: Dějiny významu r. 1989” [The Poetic Basis of Politics: A History of the
Meaning of 1989]. In Kapitoly z dějin české demokracie po r. 1989 [Chapters from the History
of Czech Democracy after 1989], edited by Adéla Gjuričová and Michal Kopeček, 134-57.
Prague and Litomyšl: Paseka, 2008.
“Revolution and Revolt against Revolution: Czechoslovakia 1989.” In Revolution and Resistance in
Eastern Europe, edited by Kevin McDermott and Matthew Stibbe, 175-94. Oxford: Berg, 2006.
“The Ideals of Ilinden: Uses of Memory and Nationalism in Socialist Macedonia.” In State and
Nation Building in East Central Europe: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by John S. Micgiel,
297-316. New York: Institute on East Central Europe, 1996.
Articles
“Passing the Baton, Despite Bananas: The Twentieth-Anniversary Commemorations of 1989 in
Central Europe.” Remembrance and Solidarity, no. 3 (June 2014): 63-101.
“Sites of Memory, Sites of Rejoicing: The Great War in Czech and Slovak Cultural History.”
Remembrance and Solidarity, no. 2 (March 2014): 109-46.
“Kulatý stůl pro patnáct miliónů: Revoluční chápaní demokracie” [A Round Table for Fifteen
Million People: The Revolutionary Understanding of Democracy]. Dějiny a současnost [History
and the Present], special issue (October 2009): 31-34.
“Civic Forum, Public against Violence, and the Struggle for Slovakia.” Working paper, Berkeley
Program in Eurasian and East European Studies, Spring 2009. 28 pp.
“The Diffusion of ‘Dissident’ Political Theory in the Czechoslovak Revolution of 1989.” Slovo
(London), vol. 19, no. 2 (Autumn 2007): 83-101.
“Czech Perceptions of Roma in the First Republic.” Center for Slavic and East European Studies
Newsletter, University of California, Berkeley, vol. 24, no. 2 (Spring 2007): 9-12, 16-21.
“The Rhetoric of the Velvet Revolution.” Center for Slavic and East European Studies Newsletter,
University of California, Berkeley, vol. 19, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 3-7, 16-19.
“The Sacred and the Velvet Revolution.” Kosmas: Czechoslovak and Central European Journal,
vol. 14, no. 2 (Spring 2001): 51-64.
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JAMES KRAPFL
“The Velvet Revolution’s Lost Treasure: The Rise and Fall of a Public Sphere.” Slovo (London),
special issue (March 2000): 55-67.
“The Turning of the Years: The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia Witnessed in Prague and Bratislava.”
Kde domov můj? [Where Is My Home?], vol. 1, no. 1 (March 1993), 6-9.
Reviews
Review of Turning Prayers into Protests: Religious-Based Activism and Its Challenge to State
Power in Socialist Slovakia and East Germany, by David Doellinger. American Historical
Review, forthcoming.
Review of Worlds of Dissent: Charter 77, the Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech Culture
under Communism, by Jonathan Bolton. Canadian Journal of History, vol. 48, no. 3 (Winter
2013): 521-23.
Review of The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, edited by
Günter Bischof, Stefan Karner, and Peter Ruggenthaler. Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol. 54, no.
1-2 (March-June 2012): 230-31.
Review of Politiky a političky: Aspekty politickej subjektivity žien [Politicians and Female
Politicians: Aspects of Women’s Political Subjectivity], edited by Jana Cviková. Slovenská
politologická revue [Slovak Journal of Political Sciences], vol. 12, no. 2 (April 2012): 182-86.
Review of Konec experimentu: Přestavba a pád komunismu v Československu [The End of the
Experiment: Perestroika and the Fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia], by Michal Pullmann.
Střed [Centre], vol. 3, no. 2 (2011): 160-64.
Review of Making History: Czech Voices of Dissent and the Revolution of 1989, by Michael Long.
Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol. 51, no. 1 (March 2009): 106-07.
Review of The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom, by Andrzej
Paczkowski. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, vol. 13, no. 1 (April 2005): 127-29.
Review of The Longman Companion to East European History since 1919, by Adrian Webb.
Journal of Contemporary European Studies, vol. 12, no. 1 (April 2004): 132-34.
Review of Slovakia: Escape from Invisibility, by Karen Henderson. Journal of Contemporary
European Studies, vol. 11, no. 2 (November 2003): 295-97.
Editorials and Interviews
“Lidé vzdali Listopad brzy” [People Surrendered November Early]. Interview by Rostislav Matulík.
Mladá fronta dnes [The Young Front of Today] (Prague), 15 November 2011, p. 12A.
“Podvod? To teda nie: Konspiračné teórie o novembri neplatia” [A Swindle? Not Quite: Conspiracy
Theories of November Are Invalid]. Sme [We Are] (Bratislava), 12 November 2011, p. 11.
“Spomienky na November slúžia prítomnosti, preto sa stále menia” [Memories of November Serve
the Present, Thus They Are Constantly Changing]. Interview by Miroslav Tížik. Pravda [Truth]
(Bratislava), 5 November 2011, pp. 16-19.
“Ako vzniká dobré vedecké dielo?” [How Does a Good Academic Work Come into Being?].
Interview by Miroslav Tížik. Je to tak [So It Is], 6 August 2011.
“Revoluce 1989 pohledem zvenčí” [An Outside View of the Revolution of 1989]. Interview by Jan
Mervart. Český rozhlas [Czech Radio], 27 November 2010.
“Jednoznačne to bola revolúcia” [It Was Definitely a Revolution]. Interview by Tomáš Gális and
Jozef Ryník. Týždeň [Week], 16 November 2009, pp. 60-62.
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JAMES KRAPFL
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“From Socialist Media to Social Media: Comparing Languages of Revolution, 1989-2013,” on the
panel “Evaluating 1989 Critically.” Third German-Polish Research Conference, Gießen,
Germany, March 2014
“‘Privatization Will Break the Nomenklatura Brotherhood’: Selling the Free Market to Socialist
Czechs and Slovaks, 1989-92,” on the panel “The Socialist Revolution of 1989 in
Czechoslovakia: Reconfiguring Normalization.” Annual convention of the Association for
Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), Boston, November 2013. Panel
organizer
“Europe, 1989-2012: A Progress Report on the Global Revolution in the Sphere of Human
Consciousness.” Conference on “The Art of the Impossible: Culture, Philosophy, and Dissent
from Havel to the Present,” School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of
London, May 2013
“The 1989 Revolution from Below.” Conference on “Everyday Life and Domination Practices in
20th-Century Central Europe,” Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public
Spheres, Vienna, June 2012
“The Evolution of Revolution in Modern Europe: A Cultural Historical Interpretation.” Keynote
address at the Revolutions Colloquium, University of Stirling, Scotland, June 2012
“The Meaning of Revolution in Czechoslovakia, 1989-1992.” Czech and Slovak History and Culture
Conference, National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, March 2011
“Passing the Baton, Not the Banana: The 20th-Anniversary Commemorations of 1989 in Kraków,
Budapest, Leipzig, Prague, Bratislava, Brno, and Timişoara,” on panel entitled “1989-2009:
Commemorating the Revolution/Turn/Change/Fall/Events of 1989 in Central and Eastern
Europe.” Annual convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
(ASEEES), Los Angeles, November 2010. Panel organizer
“Placing 1989 in the History of European Revolutions.” Conference entitled “From Old Regimes to
New Democracies? Transitions in Eastern Europe, 1989-1990,” University of California,
Berkeley, April 2010
“Using the Flyers, Bulletins, and Collective Proclamations of 1989 for the Analysis of Popular
Mentalities in a Revolutionary Situation.” Conference marking “The 20th Anniversary of the
Velvet Revolution / 20. výročie Nežnej revolúcie,” Institute of National Memory, Bratislava,
November 2009
“Revolution with a Human Face: Popular Ideas and Idealism in Czechoslovakia, 1989-1990.”
Conference on “The Global 1989,” Princeton University, October 2009
“Narrating the Turn/Fall/Collapse/End/Extinction/Demise/Change/Events of 1989, or, The Stolen
Revolution Revisited.” Conference entitled “1989-2009: The East European Revolutions in
Perspective,” London, October 2009
“‘Najkrajší svet môže byť náš’: Československí občania a význam revolúcie na míestnej úrovni (od
novembra 1989 do januára 1990)” [“The Most Beautiful World Can Be Ours”: Czechoslovak
Citizens and the Meaning of Revolution at the Local Level (from November 1989 to January
1990]. Conference entitled “Rok 1989 v československo-nemeckom kontextu / ‘1989’ im
deutsch-tschechisch-slowakischen Kontext” [1989 in Czechoslovak-German Context],
Bratislava, October 2009
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JAMES KRAPFL
“The Concepts and Political Language of 1989 in the Czech Lands and Slovakia.” Conference
entitled “1989: Society, History, Politics / 1989: společnost, dějiny, politika,” Liblice, Czech
Republic, September 2009
“Power in the Streets: Czechoslovak Citizens and Revolution at the Grassroots, 1989-1990.”
Conference on “The 1989 Revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe,” Sheffield Hallam
University, September 2009
“The Ideals of November (1989),” on set of panels devoted to the theme “Is There a Czech
Revolutionary Tradition?” Annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement
of Slavic Studies (AAASS), Philadelphia, November 2008. Panel organizer
“The Contested Legacy of 1968 in 1989.” Conference entitled “Light in Shadows: Czechoslovakia
1968,” University of Toronto, October 2008
“A Big Bang of Signifiers: Nineteen Eighty-Nine and the Theory of Revolution.” Conference on
“The 1989 Revolutions: Roots, Courses, and Legacies,” Stanford University, March 2008
“A Revolution of Ethics: Czechoslovakia, 1989.” Workshop on “Democracy, Law, and Intimacy:
Toward a Moral History of Postwar Europe,” University of Montreal, November 2007
“Civic Forum, Public against Violence, and the Struggle for Slovakia.” Annual convention of the
American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), Washington, D.C.,
November 2006
“Emplotting the Gentle Revolution: Narrative Strategies in Czech and Slovak Discourse, 19891992.” World Congress of the Czecho-Slovak Society of Arts and Sciences, České Budějovice,
June 2006
“Excluding the People, Excluding Themselves: 1989 and the Czech Dissident Myth.” Seventh
International Postgraduate Research Conference on Central and Eastern Europe, School of
Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, February 2006
“Revolution and Revolt against Revolution: Elite vs. Popular Conceptualizations of ‘Revolution’ in
Czechoslovakia, 1989-1992,” on panel entitled “Penser la Révolution de 1989: Interpretive
Frames and the Shaping of Transition in East Central Europe.” Annual convention of the
American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), Salt Lake City,
November 2005. Panel organizer
“Martyrs into Missionaries: Czechoslovak Students and the Revolutionary Non-Violence of 1989.”
II Seminario sobre Noviolencia, “Dimensión Politica de la Noviolencia” [The Political
Dimension of Non-Violence], Javeriana University, Bogotá, October 2005
“Czesław Miłosz and the Idea of Central Europe.” Conference on “The Weight of History and
Games of Interpretations: Societies of Central Europe in the Twentieth Century,” Budapest,
September 2004
“The Diffusion of ‘Dissident’ Political Theory in the Czechoslovak Revolution of 1989.” Annual
convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS),
Toronto, November 2003
“Czech Perceptions of Roma in the First Republic.” Annual convention of the Association for the
Study of Nationalities (ASN), Columbia University, April 2003
“From Absurdity to Synergy: The First World War in Czech Mythology, 1918-1938,” on panel
entitled “A Usable Past: State-Building and Memories of War, 1918-1938.” Annual convention
of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, November 2002. Panel organizer
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JAMES KRAPFL
“Legitimacy and the Sacred: Contrasting Approaches to the Place of Violence in Czechoslovakia’s
‘Gentle’ Revolution.” Conference on “The Contours of Legitimacy in Central Europe,” St.
Antony’s College, Oxford, May 2002
“Revolution in the Czech and Slovak Hinterlands, 1989-1990.” Pacific Coast East European
Historians’ Workshop, Stanford University, May 2002
“The Rhetoric of the Velvet Revolution.” Conference entitled “Faith, Dope, and Charity: Purity and
Danger in East European Politics and Culture,” School of Slavonic and East European Studies,
University of London, November 2001
“Patočka, Girard, and the Philosophy of History.” Annual convention of the Colloquium on
Violence and Religion, Antwerp, May 2001
“The Sacred Contested: Czech and Slovak Political Culture in the Nineties.” Conference entitled
“Eastern and Central Europe: Lessons from the Past, Prospects for the Future,” Graduate School
for Social Research, Warsaw, November 2000
“The Sacred and the Velvet Revolution.” World Congress of the Czecho-Slovak Society of Arts and
Sciences, Washington, D.C., August 2000
“The Velvet Revolution’s Lost Treasure.” Conference entitled “Between the Bloc and a Hard Place:
Moving toward Europe in Post-Communist States,” School of Slavonic and East European
Studies, University of London, November 1999
“The Ideals of Ilinden: Uses of Memory and Nationalism in Socialist and Post-Socialist Macedonia.”
Symposium on Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, April 1996
“The Ideals of Ilinden: Uses of Memory and Nationalism in Socialist Macedonia.” Conference on
State and Nation Building in East Central Europe, Columbia University, March 1996
GUEST LECTURES
“Kdo se bojí středoevropské revoluce roku 1989? Smích a zapomnění v nové normalizaci” [Who’s
Afraid of the Central European Revolution of 1989? Laughter and Forgetting in the New
Normalization]. Institute of Economic and Social History, Charles University, Prague, June 2013
“Historická analyza revolúcii” [The Historical Analysis of Revolutions]. Sociological Institute,
Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, June 2012
“Baltic Identity Past and Present.” Baltic Students’ Society at McGill University, March 2012
“Môže demokratická revolúcia býť demokratická?” [Can a Democratic Revolution Be Democratic?].
Bratislava Institute of Humanism, August 2011
“Theoretical Insights from the Russian Revolution of 1917—on the Twentieth Anniversary of the
Romanian Revolution of 1989.” Department of Politics, West University of Timişoara,
Romania, December 2009
“89 is 68 Upside Down: The Fate of the Prague Spring in the Velvet Revolution.” Graduate
Association of Students in History, McGill University, November 2008
“Revolution with a Human Face: Ideals and Idealism in Czechoslovakia, 1989-90.” Department of
History, McGill University, October 2007
“Revolution and Revolt against Revolution: Czechoslovakia 1989.” Department of History,
Javeriana University, Bogotá, October 2005
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JAMES KRAPFL
“Kulturní historie a rok 1989 v Československu” [Cultural History and the Year 1989 in
Czechoslovakia]. Institute for Contemporary History, Prague, June 2005
“Violence and the Sacred in Revolutionary Czechoslovakia, 1989-1992.” Institute of Ethnology,
Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, May 2004
“Medzinárodné vzťahy a kultúrna história nežnej revolúcie v Československu” [International
Relations and the Cultural History of the Gentle Revolution in Czechoslovakia]. Selye János
University, Komárno, Slovakia, May 2004
“Reflections on the Revolution in Czechoslovakia.” Department of History, Ljubljana University,
March 2001
ROUNDTABLES
“Secession in Europe: From Czecho-Slovakia’s ‘Velvet Divorce’ to the Scottish and Crimean
Referenda.” Department of History, McGill University, April 2014
“What Have We Learned after 25 Years? Revisionist Approaches to the Revolutions of 1989.”
Annual conference of the British Association of Slavonic & East European Studies, Fitzwilliam
College, Cambridge, April 2014
“Perspectives on Syria.” Department of History, McGill University, March 2014
“Fascism Forever?” Department of History, McGill University, December 2013
RESEARCH GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, & HONOURS
Slovak Research and Development Agency Team Research Grant (with colleagues from the Slovak
Academy of Sciences and Comenius University in Bratislava), 2013-17
Quebec Fund for Research on Society and Culture (FQRSC) Research Grant for the Establishment of
New Professors, 2011-14
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant,
2011-13
Mellon Foundation / American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Early Career Post-Doctoral
Fellowship, 2009
American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2007-08
(declined)
Reinhard Bendix Memorial Research Fellowship (University of California, Berkeley), 2006-07
Paul Hertelendy Award in Hungarian Studies (University of California, Berkeley), 2006-07
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Summer Fellowship (used at the University of
Debrecen, Hungary), 2006
Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Summer Language Training Grant (used at the
University of Debrecen, Hungary), 2006
American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Dissertation Fellowship in East European Studies,
2005-06
Paul Hertelendy Award in Hungarian Studies (University of California, Berkeley), 2005-06
Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Summer Language Training Grant (used at the
University of Debrecen, Hungary), 2005
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JAMES KRAPFL
National Security Education Program (NSEP) David L. Boren Graduate Fellowship (used for
research in the Czech Republic and Slovakia), 2005
Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) (used for research in
Slovakia and the Czech Republic), 2004
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship (for study of Hungarian), 2003
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Summer Fellowship (used at the University of Debrecen
and Eötvös Lórand University, Budapest), 2003
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship (for study of Hungarian), 2002-03
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) Summer Language Fellowship (used at the
Goethe Institute, Prien am Chiemsee, Germany), 2002
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship (for study of Hungarian), 2001-02
Academic Merit Tuition Waiver (Central European University, Budapest), 1998-99
Fulbright Research Fellowship (used in the Czech Republic), 1996-97
National Honors Semester organized by the National Collegiate Honors Council (U.S.A.) at Charles
University, Prague, and Palacký University, Olomouc, 1992
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY
Editorial Boards
International Political Anthropology (Cambridge), 2008-present
Forum Historiae (Bratislava), 2013-present
Czech Journal of Contemporary History (Prague), from 2014
Service to Professional Associations
Executive board member, Slovak Studies Association, 2012-14
Conference Organizing
Member of the organizing committee for the conference “Slovenská verejnosť, diskurz a politika na
sklonku 60. rokov 20. storočia” [The Slovak Public, Discourse, and Politics at the End of the
1960s], to be held in Bratislava, November 2014
Member of the organizing committee for the international conference “Kritická teória Jürgena
Habermasa v sociologickom výskume / The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas in Sociological
Research,” held in Bratislava, November 2012
Co-organizer of the international postgraduate conference, “Power and Power Relations in East
European Politics and Societies,” held at the University of California, Berkeley, November 2002
LANGUAGES
Fluent in Czech and Slovak
Proficient in German and Hungarian
Reading knowledge of French, Polish, and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS)
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