Sarah Thomsen Vierra

Ph.D. Student
vierra@email.unc.edu

Major Field: European History

Other Fields: Global History and Middle East History

Advisor: Konrad Jarausch

Research Interests: My research focuses on the development of the Turkish community in West Germany from the beginning of Turkey’s participation in the Gastarbeiter program in 1961 to German reunification in 1990.   In my master's thesis, I examined the contributions of Turkish-German cultural elite to the broader German discussion of immigrant identity and experience through literature and film.  In my dissertation, I will shift the focus from the cultural elite to the broader community, connecting everyday experience, the development of local identity, and integration.  Specifically, my dissertation will explore how first generation Turkish immigrants and their children worked to create spaces of belonging in their new home and how, through these spaces, they understood, developed, and defined themselves in relation to each other and to broader German society.