Contact Information
810 S. Wright Street
M/C 466
Urbana, IL 61801
Research Interests
Modern Germany, Intellectual History, History of Science and Technology
Research Description
My research interests lie at the intersection of German intellectual history and the history of science and technology around the turn of the twentieth century. In my Masters, I examined the influence of two distinctly Viennese intellectual currents in the later work of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. I am currently working on a project that examines the role of the gas mask in stoking fears of chemical warfare during the interwar period in Germany.
Education
B.A., History, Colby College, 2011
M.A., European History, University of Maine, 2014
Grants
Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities Fellowship, 2019
Siebel Fellowship, 2014, 2018
Nicholson Graduate Student Fellowship, 2017
DAAD Long Term Doctoral Research Grant , 2017
Fulbright Student Award, 2017
Awards and Honors
Konrad Jarausch Essay Prize for Advanced Graduate Students in Central European History for “The Pale Death: Poison Gas and German Racial Exceptionalism, 1914-1945”, 2020
German Studies Association Prize for the Best Essay in German Studies for “Wardens of the Toxic World: German Women’s Encounters with the Gas Mask, 1915-1945.”, 2019
Joseph Ward Swain Prize for the best published graduate student paper: “The Chemical Subject: Phenomenology and German Encounters with the Gas Mask in World War I”, 2019
NTM—Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin Article Prize for Young Authors for “Wardens of the Toxic World: German Women’s Encounters with the Gas Mask, 1915-1945.”, 2019
John. G. and Evelyn Hartman Heiligenstein Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2017
Courses Taught
Hist 103: A History of Everything: The Big Bang to Big Data (TA)
Hist 102A: Reacting to the Past: Science in European Society (Instructor)
Hist 140: Western Civilization to 1660: Advanced Composition (TA)
Hist 141: Western Civilization to 1660 (TA)
Hist. 253: Modern European Intellectual History (Grader)
Additional Campus Affiliations
HGMS - Jewish Culture and Society
Highlighted Publications
Thompson, Peter. “Wardens of the Toxic World: German Women’s Encounters with the Gas Mask, 1915-1945.” German Studies Review. 43, no. 2 (2020): 353-376.
Thompson, Peter. "The Chemical Subject: Phenomenology and German Encounters with the Gas Mask in World War I." History and Technology, vol. 33 3 2018, p. 249-271.
Thompson, Peter, and Serge Nicolas. "The Hipp chronoscope vs. the d'Arsonval chronometer: Differing approaches to chronometry in early German and French psychology." History of Psychology, vol. 18, no. 4 2015, p. 367-384.