Acknowledgements
This book began during the COVID-19 lockdowns, with all the extra labour they entailed for researchers and academics. I am therefore especially grateful to all the contributors for their collegiality and patience during the editing process, and for their insightful engagement with the topic. I would also like to thank those colleagues who unfortunately had to drop out of the volume (for health reasons, or because of the burdens of precarity) for having faith in the project – I look forward to reading your exciting research on this topic elsewhere in the future! I thank the peer reviewers for the insightful comments and constructive suggestions, and also Rey Conquer for their thorough and comprehensive copy editing. I also thank the team at Brill (Laura Bradley, Christa Stevens, Fem Eggers and Iulia Ivana) for their support and guidance throughout the whole process. I am grateful to Martin Maleschka for the permission to use his photo on the cover: an image of the Sonnenblumenhaus in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, which became symbolic of far-right violence after the riot there in 1992. All books rely on the kindness of family, friends and colleagues. I am grateful for the advice of UCD colleagues and the support of friends Stephan Ehrig, Britta Jung, Maria Roca Lizarazu, and others. I am also indebted to the projects “Diversity, Decolonization, the German Curriculum” and especially “Expanding German Studies” for their inspirational efforts to make German Studies a vehicle for social justice. Finally, most of all, I am grateful to my wife Lynda and to our son Rónan for their love and support.