Dr. Douglas T. McGetchin

Ph.D., University of California, San Diego
Professor
Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Scholar, 2013-14, Kolkata (Calcutta), India
http://www.fau.edu/artsandletters/pjhr/

Areas of Expertise

  • World History
  • Modern Germany
  • Modern Europe
  • South Asian History

Email: dmcgetch@fau.edu
Office Phone: (561) 799-8226

faculty photoProfessor McGetchin specializes in the modern history of international connections between Europe and South Asia.  He teaches classes in world history, modern Germany, modern Europe, and ancient and modern South Asia. 

His publications include: with Eric Kurlander and Bernd-Stefan Grewe, Modern Germany: A Global History (Oxford University Press, 2023) and Indology, Indomania, Orientalism: Ancient India's Rebirth in Modern Germany (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009).

His edited volumes include: with Joanne Miyang Cho, Gendered Encounters between Germany and Asia: Transnational Perspectives since 1800 (Palgrave, 2016); with Cho and Kurlander, Transcultural Encounters between Germany and India in the 19th and 20th Centuries: Kindred Spirits (Routledge, 2014); and, with Peter K. J. Park and Damodar SarDesai, Sanskrit and "Orientalism": Indology and Comparative Linguistics in Germany, 1750-1958 (Manohar, 2004).  

His book chapters and articles include: “Richard Wagner and the German Study of India and Buddhism,” in Wagner in Context, edited by David Trippett (Cambridge University Press, 2024); “Die deutsche Indologie als Mittel für die Orientpolitik: Orientalismus und deutsche Weltpolitik, 1880-1945” [German Indology as an Instrument of Oriental Politics: Orientalism and German World Policy, 1880-1945], in Deutschland und der Orient: Philologie, Philosophie, historische Kulturwisssenschaften [Germany and the Orient: Philology, Philosophy, historical cultural studies], edited by Giovanni Morrone (Georg Olms Verlag, 2021); “Gandhi on the Stagecoach to Pretoria, 1893,” World History Bulletin (2019); “From Ghadar (Revolt) to Home Rule: Arguments about Violence and Nonviolence in the Struggle to Liberate India during the First World War,” World History Bulletin (Spring 2016); "Indo-German Connections, Critical and Hermeneutical, in the First World War," The Comparatist (2010); “The Whitney Müller Conflict and Indo-German Connections" in Mapping Channels Between Ganges and Rhein: German-Indian Cross Cultural Relations, ed. Jörg Esleben, Christian Kraenzle and Sukanya Kulkarni, (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008); and "Wilting Florists: The Turbulent Early Decades of the Société Asiatique, 1822-1860," Journal of the History of Ideas (2004).

His current book project under contract with Routledge “The Boycott or the Bullet: A Global History of Debates over Nonviolence since 1850,” examines the interconnections between labor struggles in Europe, the anti-imperial Indian Independence movement, and pan-African movements including the Civil Rights struggle in the United States.  Although geographically separated, all shared parallel experiments with similar challenges as well as an often overlapping and interconnected network of activists.

Professor McGetchin has presented papers at academic conferences in North America, Europe, and India, including the German Studies Association, the World History Association, the University of California, the international Conference of Asian Scholars (Berlin), South and Central Asia Fulbright Conference (Chennai), as well as specialized conferences organized at the South Asian Institute (Heidelberg, Germany), the India International Centre (New Delhi, India), University of Hawaii at Mānoa, University of Calcutta, Gurudas College (Kolkata, India), University of Toronto (Canada), University of California Los Angeles, and Harvard University.  He served as Director of the FAU Peace Studies Program 2012-13 and President of the Southeast World History Association (SEWHA), 2014-15.  He reviews books for scholarly journals including American Historical Review, German Studies Review, German Studies Quarterly, German Historical Institute London Bulletin, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Journal of World History, Journal of Modern History, Peace and Change, Peace and Conflict Studies, Philosophy East and West, The Historian, and Francia.

His grants include a U.S. Fulbright-Nehru Scholar Program Research Fellowship to Kolkata, India, 2013-14, and a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Annual Grant for dissertation research to Leipzig and Berlin, Germany, 1999-2000.  His teaching awards include FAU's university-wide Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2010, and Exceptional Faculty Award of the Northern Campus in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018, and 2022.

Courses

Undergraduate Courses

  • History of Modern Germany
  • History of Modern India
  • Asia and the West (new course added to FAU catalogue)
  • Indian Civilization
  • Independence Movements in S. Asia
  • Hitler and Nazi Germany
  • The Holocaust
  • Twentieth-century Europe to WW2
  • Age of Nationalism and Reform
  • British Empire
  • World War II
  • Introduction to Peace Studies
  • History of Civilization 1
  • Introduction to Historical Study: Global Connections
  • Introduction to Historical Study: Weimar, Germany
  • Senior Seminar: The Road Back: Memory and the Great War
  • Senior Seminar: Struggle for Independence in Colonial South Asia
  • Hitler and Gandhi

Graduate Courses

  • Readings in World History
  • Seminars in European History
    • Europe in a Global Context:  Orientalism and Imperialism
    • Peace Movements and Nonviolent Struggle

Curriculum Vitae (Available upon request)