Alexander Jude Beard

DPhil Research Topic

'There was an alternative': Recovering the dissident discourse of democratic socialism in East Germany, c.1983-1990.

Supervisor: Paul Betts

Co-funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council studentship and the Magdalen College Scholarship, my DPhil research concerns the democratic and humanist approaches to socialism that motivated opposition to the East German dictatorship throughout the 1980s and captured popular imagination in the revolutionary moment of 1989.

The project builds on work I conducted while completing the MPhil in Modern European History at Cambridge, fully funded by a Benefactors' Scholarship from St John's College, for which I was awarded a Distinction. My thesis, which dealt with political thought during the Peaceful Revolution specifically, was selected to be deposited in the History Faculty's Seeley Library.

My DPhil studies represent a return to Oxford, since I studied History and German here as an undergraduate at University College. I was recognised with a national award by the German History Society for my thesis on the migration of Vietnamese 'contract workers' to East Germany, as well as the Gibbs Prize (proxime accessit) by the History Faculty and numerous college prizes for my performance in Finals.

An interest in state socialism was first inspired by the year abroad I spent in Berlin, where I studied at the Humboldt University as an exchange student. Since then, I have written about East German politics and culture for a general audience. I recently visited Chemnitz on the invitation of the Internationale Stefan Heym Gesellschaft to participate in a podium discussion concerning the author; this belonged to a series of events celebrating the city’s status as European Capital of Culture in 2025.

My academic interests extend far beyond the borders of the former GDR, however, and my current research reflects enduring and intersecting fascinations with socialism, the history of ideas, and German culture, to name just a few.