Academic Appointments:

University of British Columbia:

• Professor Emeritus of History, 2018–.
• Professor of History, 1996–2018.
• Associate Professor of History, 1978-96.
• Assistant Professor of History, 1973-78.

Universität Konstanz: Gastprofessor (Visiting Professor), July 2004.

Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University: Visiting Fellow, Spring 2004.

Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte, Göttingen: Stipendiat (Visiting Member), July 2002.

Universität Augsburg: Gastprofessor (Visiting Professor), Summer 1995.

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J.: Member, School of Historical Studies, 1986-87.

Research Interests

• Early modern European urban and social history
• German history 1500-1800
• German Jewish history
• Social history of the Reformation
• Early modern world history

For additional information about my teaching and research, please go to my research and teaching website: https://friedrichs.arts.ubc.ca/

As of July 1, 2018, I have retired and I am now a Professor Emeritus of History.

Research Interests

My current major area of research concerns social networks and patterns of acculturation among German Jews of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I recently published an annotated edition of the diary of a young Jewish bank apprentice in Dresden from the years 1833 to 1837 (see listing under Publications). I am now studying the family and household structure of the Jewish community of Dresden in the early nineteenth century. A later project will involve the Jewish community of Bernburg (Anhalt) in the mid-nineteenth century.

I recently completed a research project on house-destruction as an extension of punishment for serious crimes in early modern Europe. An article presenting my findings has recently been published and is listed under Publications below.

After many years devoted chiefly to working on the social and political history of cities in early modern Germany and Europe, in 2003-2004 I undertook a comparative study of urban political cultures in early modern Europe and Asia. In connection with this project I was awarded a Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute faculty training grant to spend three months in India during the fall of 2003. From February to June 2004 I continued my work on this project as a Visiting Fellow at the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University. Two papers based on this research have been published and are listed under Publications.

Books

C.R. Friedrichs. A Jewish Youth in Dresden: The Diary of Louis Lesser, 1833-1837. Bethesda, MD: University Press of Maryland, 2011.

C.R. Friedrichs. Urban Politics in Early Modern Europe. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.

C.R. Friedrichs. The Early Modern City, 1450-1750. London and New York: Longman, 1995.

C.R. Friedrichs. Urban Society in an Age of War: Nördlingen, 1580-1720. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1979.

Articles/Book Chapters

C.R. Friedrichs, “House-Destruction as a Ritual of Punishment in Early Modern Europe,” European History Quarterly, vol. 50, pp. 599-624, 2020.

C. R. Friedrichs, “How German Was the German Home Town?”, Central European History, vol. 47, pp. 488-495, 2014.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Leisure and Acculturation in the Jewish Community of Dresden, 1833-1837”, Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, vol. 56, pp. 1-26, 2011.

C. R. Friedrichs, “What Made the Eurasian City Work? Urban Political Cultures in Early Modern Europe and Asia”, in City Limits: Perspectives on the Historical European City, G. Clark, Owens, J., and Smith, G. T. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010, pp. 29-64.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Urban Transformation? Some Constants and Continuities in the Crisis-Challenged City”, in New Approaches to the History of Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, T. Dahlerup and Ingesman, P. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 2009, pp. 253-272.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Urban Elections and Decision-Making in Early Modern Europe and Asia: Contrasts and Comparisons”, in Urban Elections and Decision-Making in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 , R. Schlögl Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009, pp. 300-21.

C. R. Friedrichs, “The European City Hall as Political and Cultural Space, 1500-1750”, in Early Modern Europe: From Crisis to Stability, P. Benedict and Gutmann, M. P. Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 2005, pp. 234-58.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Das städtische Rathaus als kommunikativer Raum in europäischer Perspektive”, in Kommunikation und Medien in der Frühen Neuzeit: Historische Zeitschrift, Beiheft 41, J. Burkhardt and Werkstetter, C. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005, pp. 159-74.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Jewish household structure in an early modern town: The Worms ghetto census of 1610”, The History of the Family, vol. 8, pp. 481-493, 2003.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Artisans and Urban Politics in Seventeenth-Century Germany”, in The Artisan and the European Town, 1500-1900 , ed. by G. Crossick, Leicester: Scolar Press, 1997, pp. 41-55.

C. R. Friedrichs, “But Are We Any Closer to Home?: Early Modern German Urban History Since German Home Towns”, Central European History, vol. 30, pp. 163-185, 1997.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Teaching the Unteachable: A Canadian Perspective”, The Holocaust: Remembering for the Future, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 548, no. Nov., pp. 94-104, 1996.

C. R. Friedrichs, “German Cities in the Late Early Modern Era: Some Problems and Prospects”, Urban History, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 72-85, 1996.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Jews in the Imperial Cities: A Political Perspective”, in In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany, ed. by R. Po-chia Hsia and Hartmut Lehmann, Washington, D.C. and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 275-288.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Urban Politics and Urban Social Structure in Seventeenth-Century Germany”, European History Quarterly, vol. 22, pp. 187-215, 1992.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Anti-Jewish Politics in Early Modern Germany: The Uprising in Worms, 1613-17”, Central European History, vol. 23, pp. 91-152, 1990.

C. R. Friedrichs, “The First-Year History Course: The Case for Content”, History and Social Science Teacher, vol. 24, pp. 128-31, 1989.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Politics or Pogrom? The Fettmilch Uprising in German and Jewish History”, Central European History, vol. 19, pp. 186-228, 1986.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Urban Conflicts and the Imperial Constitution in Seventeenth-Century Germany”, Journal of Modern History, vol. 58, no. Suppl., pp. S98-S123, 1986.

C. R. Friedrichs, “German Town Revolts and the Seventeenth-Century Crisis”, Renaissance and Modern Studies, vol. 26, pp. 27-51, 1982.

C. R. Friedrichs, “The Swiss and German City-States”, in The City-State in Five Cultures, ed. by Carol G. Thomas and Robert R. Griffeth, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio Press, 1981, pp. 109-142.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Early Capitalism and Its Enemies: The Wörner Family and the Weavers of Nördlingen”, Business History Review, vol. 50, pp. 265-287, 1976.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Capitalism, Mobility and Class Formation in the Early Modern German City”, Past & Present, vol. 69, pp. 24-49, 1975.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Marriage, Family and Social Structure in an Early Modern German Town”, Canadian Historical Papers, pp. 17-40, 1975.

Conference Presentations

C. R. Friedrichs, “Finding or Choosing? Urban Elections in Early Modern Europe”, in Symposium on Elections Before Democracy, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 2016.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Konfliktlösungen und Streitschlichtungsmuster frühneuzeitlicher Städte in Europa und Asien: Internationale Vergleiche und Perspektiven (Models of Conflict Resolution in Early Modern Cities in Europe and Asia: International Comparisons and Perspectives)”, in Workshop on “Konfliktlösung ohne Gericht? Streitschlichtungsmuster im Rahmen von Städteunruhen in der Frühen Neuzeit,” Bad Homburg, Germany, 2012.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Merkmale und Funktion der rituellen Hauszerstörung in der frühneuzeitlichen Stadt (Characteristics and Functions of Ritual House-Destruction in the Early Modern City)”, in Conference on Space and Culture in the Early Modern City, Cadenabbia, Italy, 2012.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Die rituelle Hauszerstörung als strafrechtliche Massnahme in der Frühen Neuzeit (Ritual House-Destruction as a Form of Criminal Punishment in the Early Modern Era)”, in Invited Lecture, University of Heidelberg, 2011.

C. R. Friedrichs, “How German Was the German Home Town?”, in German Studies Association conference, Louisville, KY, 2011.

C. R. Friedrichs, “House-Razing as Rituals of Retribution in the Early Modern City”, in Renaissance Society of America annual meeting, Venice, Italy, 2010.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Language and Identity in European History: The Case of the German Jews”, in Invited Lecture, University of Mumbai, 2009.

C. R. Friedrichs, “The Archives Right Under Our Noses (Keynote lecture)”, in Qualicum History Conference, Parksville, B.C., 2008.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Jewish Selfhood in a Christian Society: Youth and Religious Identity in Nineteenth-Century Germany”, in Annual McMartin Lecture, Carleton University, Ottawa, 2008.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Letters from a Lost Fatherland: Micro-Histories of Mass Murder”, in Kristallnacht Commemorative Lecture, Vancouver, BC, 2006.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Adventures in (Urban) Space: Moving Through the Early Modern City (Keynote lecture)”, in Workshop on Jews and Urban Space in Early Modern Europe, University of Maryland, 2005.

C. R. Friedrichs, “Towards a Global View of Urban Political Cultures: The Governance of Cities in Early Modern Europe and India ”, in International Congress of Historical Sciences, Sydney, Australia, 2005.

C. R. Friedrichs, “The European City in Global Perspective, 1500-1800 (Keynote lecture)”, in City Limits? The European City, 1400-1900, University of Manitoba, 2004.

Additional

C. R. Friedrichs, “Jüdische Jugend im Biedermeier: Ein unbekanntes Tagebuch aus Dresden 1833-1837 (Simon-Dubnow Institut für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur, Leipzig, 22 pp.)”, 1997.

• Just Desserts Award, UBC Alma Mater Society, 2006
• Killam Teaching Award (UBC), 1997
• Wallace K. Ferguson Prize (Canadian Historical Association),1982 for Urban Society in an Age of War