Kevin Ostoyich
Professor of History
Recipient of the Dixon W. and Herta E. Benz Fund for Faculty Support
Professor Ostoyich will be serving as a fellow at the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich during the Academic Year 2022-23.
Arts and Sciences Building, Room 371
219.464.6997
kevin.ostoyich@valpo.edu
Education
B.A. – University of Pennsylvania
A.M. – Harvard University
Ph.D. – Harvard University
Courses Taught
Core: The Human Experience (Fall and Spring Versions)
EAST-395: Chinese Culture and Civilization
HIST 200: European History
HIST 300: Historiography and Methods
HIST 315: Contemporary Europe: A Century of Violence
HIST 316: Blood and Iron: Imperial German History, 1871 – 1918
HIST 317: Hitler and the Third Reich
HIST 386: Internship in History (University Archives and Special Collections)
HIST 390: European Encounters with China
HIST 390: History Mystery
HIST 390: The Holocaust
HIST 390: Luther & Bach
HIST 390: Modern Germany
HIST 492: Historical Theatre: The Shanghai Jews
HIST 493: Research Seminar
Scholarly Contributions
Books
The History of the Shanghai Jews: New Pathways of Research, co-edited with Yun Xia (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).
„Sesam öffne Dich“…„Open Sesame“…Die Schatztruhe der Hochschule Reutlingen. The Treasure Trove of Reutlingen University, Translator (Reutlingen University, 2017).
The German Society of Pennsylvania: A Guide to Its Book and Manuscript Collections (German Historical Institute, 2006).
Articles and Book Chapters
“Preface: Putting a Face on Money” in Inside Operation Bernhard: Facts, Fiction, and Forgery Behind the Secret Nazi Money Machine to be published by Florence and Laurence Spungen Family Foundation (Forthcoming, August 2022).
“Forging a Balance between Fact and Fantasy: Charlotte Krueger, Debbie Walter, and the Legacy of Operation Bernhard,” in Inside Operation Bernhard: Facts, Fiction, and Forgery Behind the Secret Nazi Money Machine to be published by Florence and Laurence Spungen Family Foundation (Forthcoming, August 2022).
“Undergraduate Research in History: Into the Archives – Undergraduate Historians as Good Citizens,” co-authored with Rebecca Ostoyich, Cambridge Handbook on International Undergraduate Research (Cambridge University Press) (Forthcoming, June 2022).
“The Entertainer: Mark Newton’s Raison d’être,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University (Published online, March 2, 2022: https://www.aicgs.org/2022/03/the-entertainer-mark-newtons-raison-detre/).
“Turning ‘Limitations’ into Opportunities: Online and Unbound,” co-authored with Kari-Anne Innes and Rebecca Ostoyich, in Jennifer G. Coleman, Nancy H. Hensel, and William E. Campbell, eds., Undergraduate Research in Online, Virtual, and Hybrid Courses: Proactive Practices for Distant Students (Stylus Publishing/AAC&U/CUR, 2022).
“Characterizing Interdisciplinarity in Historical Theatre: Exploring Character with the History Student,” co-authored with Kari-Anne Innes, Theatre/Practice: The Online Journal of the Practice/Production Symposium of the Mid America Theatre Conference, Vol. 10(Published online, April 8, 2021: http://www.theatrepractice.us/current.html).
“Lucky Soldiers: Part Four of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University (Published online, August 11, 2020: https://www.aicgs.org/2020/08/lucky-soldiers/).
“Up from the Cellars: Part Three of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University (Published online, August 4, 2020: https://www.aicgs.org/2020/08/up-from-the-cellars/).
“Education for Boys: Part Two of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University (Published online, July 28, 2020: https://www.aicgs.org/2020/07/education-for-boys/).
“Rubble Girls: Part One of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University (Published online, July 21, 2020: https://www.aicgs.org/2020/07/rubble-girls/).
“Hidden in Plain Sight: The Life and Message of Raymonde Fiol,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University (Published online, December 17, 2019: https://www.aicgs.org/2019/12/hidden-in-plain-sight-the-life-and-message-of-raymonde-fiol/).
“The Unbroken Past: From Germany to Shanghai to San Francisco,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University (Published online, November 20, 2019: https://www.aicgs.org/2019/11/the-unbroken-past-from-germany-to-shanghai-to-san-francisco/).
“A Tale of Emigrants, Clerics, and Gestapo Agents: The Experiences of Johann Friedrich, Catholic Emigration Agent in Hamburg, 1911-41,” Catholic Historical Review, Vol.104, No. 4 (Autumn 2018): 659-685. (Released April 2019).
“A Doctor’s Mission: The Life and Work of Ernst Kisch,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University (Published online January 24, 2019: https://www.aicgs.org/2019/01/a-doctors-mission-the-life-and-work-of-ernst-kisch/)
“‘What is Your Title Today?’: The Challenges and Rewards of Implementing an Internship/Independent Study Hybrid Course at the Valparaiso University Archives and Special Collections,” co-authored with Rebecca Ostoyich, Case Studies on Teaching with Primary Sources, Society of American Archivists (Published online December 13, 2018: https://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/TWPSCase_7_What_Is_Your_Title_Today.pdf)
“Mothers: Remembering Three Women on the 80th Anniversary of Kristallnacht,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University (Published online November 9, 2018: https://www.aicgs.org/2018/11/mothers-remembering-three-women-on-the-80th-anniversary-of-kristallnacht/).
“A Profile of the “Hit Maker”: Recording the Life of Berliner, Shanghailander, and Philadelphian, Gunter Hauer,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, Vol. 85, No.4 (Autumn 2018): 530-555.
“Using Mystery to Encourage Undergraduate Historical Research,” in Nancy Hensel, ed., Course-based Research: Providing Opportunities for All Students to Learn through Undergraduate Research (Stylus Publishing, 2018): 111-125.
“The Story of Bert Reiner, the Toy Maker, or: An Appreciation for the Individual Experiences of Former Shanghai Jewish Refugees,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University. (Published online June 20, 2018: https://www.aicgs.org/2018/06/the-story-of-bert-reiner-the-toy-maker-or-an-appreciation-of-the-individual-experiences-of-former-shanghai-jewish-refugees/).
“A Survivor’s Luck: Reflections on Berlin and Shanghai,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University. (Published online January 22, 2018: https://www.aicgs.org/2018/01/a-survivors-luck-reflections-on-berlin-and-shanghai/).
“Shattered by Glass: Working through Memories of Kristallnacht and Shanghai,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University. (Published online November 14, 2017: https://www.aicgs.org/2017/11/shattered-by-glass/).
“Records of Shanghai: One Man’s Quest to Validate Memories of a Family’s Refugee Past,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University. (Published online October 24, 2017: https://www.aicgs.org/2017/10/records-of-shanghai/).
“Of a Bread-loaf Missile: The Shaming of Brooklyn’s Thirteenth Regiment of the National Guard during the Spanish-American War,” American Nineteenth Century History, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2017): 203-226.
“From Kristallnacht and Back: Searching for Meaning in the History of the Shanghai Jews,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University. (Published online August 2, 2017: https://www.aicgs.org/2017/08/from-kristallnacht-and-back/).
“The Sound and Silence of the German American Apollo: The Musical Score of Eugen Klee and the Kaiser Prize,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, Vol. 83, No. 1 (Winter 2016): 58-96.
“‘Back on Straw’: The Experience of Shanghai Jewish Refugees in Bremen after Escaping German National Socialism, Enduring a Japanese ‘Designated Area’, and Fleeing Chinese Communism, July 1950 – February 1952,” Studia Historica Gedanensia, Vol. 5 (2014): 113-138.
“The Tomb of the ‘True German’: Kuno Francke and the American Rejection of a German Ideal,” German Studies Review, Vol. 35, No. 3 (October 2012): 567-586.
“Religious Causation?: The Kulturkampf and German Catholic Migration during the 1870s,” in Dorothy D. Wills and Paivi Hoikkala, eds., International Dimensions of Migration (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011): 127-142.
“Emigration, Nationalism and Church Identity in Europe: The Legacy of the German St Raphael Society in International Catholic Migration Assistance,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, Vol. 9, No. 3 (August 2009): 240-254.
Encyclopedia Entries
“German Reformation,” in Immanuel Ness, ed., International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009): 1355-1358. (Peer-Reviewed).
Nine entries (Bremerhaven, Hamburg, Hugo Münsterberg, John Joseph Jessing, Kuno Francke, Leopoldine-Stiftung, Ludwig-Missionsverein, Peter Paul Cahensly, and St. Raphaelsverein zum Schutze Katholischer Deutscher Auswanderer) in Thomas Adam, ed., Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History, 3 Vol. (ABC-Clio, 2005).
Biography
Kevin Ostoyich has taught at Valpo since 2006 and served as chair of the History Department from 2015 to 2019. He has directed Valpo’s Study Abroad Center in Hangzhou, China during the Fall 2011 Semester and Valpo’s Study Abroad Center in Reutlingen, Germany from 2013 to 2015. Ostoyich holds his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his A.M. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He served as a research associate at the Harvard Business School and an Erasmus Institute fellow at the University of Notre Dame. Immediately before coming to Valpo, he taught at the University of Montana. He is currently a a board member of the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center, board member of the Sino-Judaic Institute, an international advisor board member of the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum (Shanghai, China), an associate of the Center for East Asian Studies of the University of Chicago, and a non-resident fellow of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of the Johns Hopkins University. At Valpo he has been nominated for teaching awards on multiple occasions and was bestowed the Excellence in Teaching Award for 2017-2018.
Prof. Ostoyich’s research has been funded by such institutions as the Jewish Confederation of Cleveland, the Sino-Judaic Institute, ASIANetwork, the Krupp Foundation, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, the German Historical Institute, and Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center for American History. He has been invited to speak by various institutions, including the B’nai Jeshurun Congregation and Congregation Shaarey Tikvah (Cleveland, Ohio); Case Western Reserve University; the German American Institute, Tübingen; the German Society of Pennsylvania; the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien, Heidelberg; the Jewish Public Library of San Francisco; New York University; The Rowfant Club (Cleveland, Ohio); The Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum (Shanghai, China); Shanghai University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Chicago; the University of Strasbourg; Vassar College; and WTTW/PBS.
Prof. Ostoyich is currently trying to conduct as many interviews with former Shanghai Jewish refugees as possible. If you are willing to be interviewed or know of someone who may be willing to be interviewed, please contact Prof. Ostoyich at kevin.ostoyich@valpo.edu.
Prof. Ostoyich is married to a saint named Rebecca and together they try to keep up with their superstar daughter, Daphne Freya. Professor Ostoyich loves more than anything listening to the works of J.S. Bach, Richard Strauss, and the Bee Gees with his daughter.
Recent Recognitions
Senior Fellow, German Historical Institute Pacific Regional Office/University of California, Berkeley, 2021
Fellow, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Center for Advanced Studies, 2021
Distinguished Professor, Shanghai University, 2021
Guest Professor, Shanghai University, 2020
Visiting Fellow, American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University, Summer 2018
Wheat Ridge Ministries – O.P. Kretzmann Memorial Grant, Valparaiso University, 2017-2018
Teaching Excellence Award, Valparaiso University, 2017-2018
Research Award, Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences, 2017-2018
Visiting Fellow, American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of The Johns Hopkins University, Summer 2017
Interests
Early Modern & Modern Germany, German Catholicism, Holocaust Studies, Migration Studies, German-American Studies, and the Shanghai Jews.