Nisrine Rahal

Bio

I am a historian of Modern Germany and Europe. I received my PhD from The University of Toronto in 2022. My research examines the practices of civil society and democracy through the history of education, revolution, protest, and emotions in German speaking Europe. My current book project, A Garden for the Future and a Garden of Destruction: The Nineteenth Century German Kindergarten Movement and the Politics of Early Children’s Education, examines how the early children’s educational institute was mobilized as an alternative space of politics and power. I trace how individuals and communities founded kindergartens from which new concepts and languages of protest and power were articulated, particularly from those that were barred from traditional means of political negotiation against the forces of state and religious authorities. While working on this project, I have published on the emotions that mobilize protest, particularly hope and love. My second project focuses on the ideal of Christian love after the Holocaust in Germany and how it structured and supported the new West German political regime. Together, my research and teaching interests lay in Modern Europe, Germany, history of children and childhood, history of emotions, education, revolution, and protest.