{{Short description|British academic and historian}} {{Use British English|date=October 2013}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}} {{Infobox scientist <!-- works for historians too --> |name = Jane Caplan |image = Jane_Caplan.jpg |image_size = |caption= |birth_name = |birth_date= {{birth date and age|1945|3|23|df=y}} |birth_place = |death_date = |death_place = |residence = |ethnicity = |spouse = |fields = Nazi Germany<br/>History of Individual Identity and Identity Documents<br/>Women's Studies<br/>Sexuality |workplaces = Somerville College, Oxford<br/>Cambridge University<br/>Bryn Mawr College<br/>Columbia University<br/>Newnham College<br/>Birkbeck, University of London<br/>Max Planck Institute<br/>IdentiNet |doctoral_advisor = |academic_advisors = Research Assistant to Historian Arnold J. Toynbee |doctoral_students = | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FRHistS}} }}
'''Jane Caplan''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FRHistS}} (born 23 March 1945) is a British academic and historian specialising in Nazi Germany and the history of the documentation of individual identity. She is currently Visiting Professor at Birkbeck, University of London, Visiting Professor of History at Gresham College and Emeritus Fellow at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford.
==Education and career== Caplan received her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Somerville College, Oxford during the 1960s/70s. After receiving her doctorate in 1974, she taught at Cambridge University, where she worked as a research assistant to Arnold J. Toynbee. While at Cambridge, Caplan helped establish one of Britain's first courses in Women's Studies.<ref name="ox.ac.uk">{{Cite web|url=https://users.ox.ac.uk/~hist0138/Bio.html|title=Jane Caplan's biography|website=users.ox.ac.uk}}</ref>
Caplan relocated to the United States, where she became visiting assistant professor at Columbia University in New York. She then moved to Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, to become the Marjorie Walter Goodhart Professor of European History, a position she held until 2004.<ref name="ox.ac.uk" />
In 2004 she returned to the UK to become a member of the History Department at the University of Oxford. She is currently a visiting professor at Birkbeck, University of London.
In 2011, Caplan became visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.
In addition to her position at Birkbeck, Caplan was appointed visiting professor of history for the 2013/2014 academic year at Gresham College.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gresham.ac.uk/visiting-professor-of-history|title=Visiting Professor's of History at Gresham College (accessed 7 March 2014)|access-date=10 March 2014|archive-date=10 March 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140310184825/http://www.gresham.ac.uk/visiting-professor-of-history|url-status=dead}}</ref> There she delivered a series of free public lectures in June 2014 collectively entitled "How do I know who you are? The History of Identity in Britain and Europe", following her research on individual identity.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gresham.ac.uk/speakers/professor-jane-caplan|title=Professor Jane Caplan | Gresham College|website=www.gresham.ac.uk}}</ref>
==Academic interests== Caplan regards her main research field to be Nazi Germany and most of her publications have been on this period of history. She also holds an academic interest in the history of women, sexuality and the history of individual identity and identity documents. She is currently working on the administration of identification in Nazi Germany, especially civil registration.<ref name="ox.ac.uk" />
She has been a member of many editorial boards. She is one of the founding editors of ''Signum – The International Society for Mark Studies''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://markstudies.org/about/|title=About Signum|website=markstudies.org}}</ref> and she currently sits on the advisory board for ''German History'',<ref name="oxfordjournals.org">{{Cite web|url=http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/gh/editorial_board.html|title=Oxford Journals | Humanities | German History | Editorial Board|date=6 July 2008|access-date=7 May 2021|archive-date=6 July 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706040649/http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/gh/editorial_board.html|url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref> ''H-Net German'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://networks.h-net.org/h-german|title=H-German | H-Net|website=networks.h-net.org}}</ref> ''International Labor and Working Class History'' and ''L’Homme: Zeitschrift fur feministische Geschichtswissenschaft''. She has also been Editor of ''History Workshop Journal'' and sat on the editorial board for ''American Historical Review'', ''German History''<ref name="oxfordjournals.org" /> and ''Journal of Modern History''.
In 2008, Caplan set up IdentiNet with Dr Edward Higgs from University of Essex. The aim is 'Documenting Individual Identity: Historical and Comparative Perspectives since 1500'. IdentiNet describes themselves as a 'network of academics from four continents, working to tell the story of individual identification within a long-term, international and comparative framework'. IdentiNet was supported by an International Networks grant from the Leverhulme Trust to the University of Oxford's Faculty of History.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://identinet.org.uk/people/lead-investigators/ |title=Lead Investigators at IdentiNet (accessed 24 February 2014) |access-date=10 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140310183422/http://identinet.org.uk/people/lead-investigators/ |archive-date=10 March 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
==Political life== In May 2016, Caplan was one of 300 prominent historians, including Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson, who were signatories to a letter to ''The Guardian'', telling voters that if they chose to leave the European Union on 23 June, they would be condemning Britain to irrelevance.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://historiansforbritainineurope.org |title=Historians for Britain IN Europe |publisher=Historians for Britain IN Europe |access-date=2017-01-17 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170519151249/http://historiansforbritainineurope.org/ |archive-date=19 May 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.historytoday.com/various-authors/fog-channel-historians-isolated |title=Fog in Channel, Historians Isolated |publisher=History Today |date=2015-05-18 |access-date=2017-01-17 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161230160012/http://www.historytoday.com/various-authors/fog-channel-historians-isolated |archive-date=30 December 2016 }}</ref>
Caplan unexpectedly found herself thrust into the public spotlight due to her insightful commentary on the highly controversial topic of privatizing the Royal Mail. While walking down the streets in Oxford, Caplan was stopped by a reporter who sought her opinion on the matter. Unfazed by the unexpected encounter, Caplan passionately delved into an impromptu rant, eloquently articulating her views and raising critical points. Her unscripted outpouring was captured on camera and shared on YouTube.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiKj0SZ8Seg (accessed 8 July 2023)</ref>
==Publications==
* ''A Study of History: A New Edition, Revised and Abridged'' with Arnold J. Toynbee (Oxford University Press, 1972). (Toynbee notes in the Foreword that "the captions to the illustrations have been drafted by Miss Caplan and approved by me" [p. 12].)
===Nazi Germany===
* Gabriele Herz, ''The Women's Camp in Moringen. A Memoir of Imprisonment in Germany 1936-1937'' (New York/Oxford Berghahn Books 2006) {{ISBN|978-1-84545-077-9}}<ref>[http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title.php?rowtag=HerzWomen Berghahn Books] (accessed 3 March 2014)</ref> * ''Nazi Germany'' (Oxford University Press, 2008)<ref>[http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199276875.do# Oxford University Press website] (accessed 28 February 2014)</ref> * ''Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany. The New Histories'' with Nikolaus Wachsmann (Routledge, 2010)<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=4QxqytSNimkC Google Books] (accessed 6 March 2014)</ref>
===History of individual identity and identity documents===
* ''Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History'' (London/Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691057231/written-on-the-body|title=Written on the Body|date=2 July 2000|isbn=9780691057231 |via=press.princeton.edu |last1=Caplan |first1=Jane |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref> * ''Documenting Individual Identity: The Development of State Practises in the Modern World'' with John Torepy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691009124/documenting-individual-identity|title=Documenting Individual Identity|date=9 December 2001|isbn=9780691009124 |via=press.princeton.edu |last1=Caplan |first1=Jane |last2=Torpey |first2=John |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20140310183422/http://identinet.org.uk/people/lead-investigators/ IdentiNet website] *[http://gresham.ac.uk/professors-and-speakers/professor-jane-caplan Gresham College page for Jane Caplan] *[http://markstudies.org/about/ Signum, The International Society for Mark Studies website]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Caplan, Jane}} Category:Academics of Gresham College Category:20th-century British historians Category:21st-century British historians Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Bryn Mawr College faculty Category:Historians of Europe Category:Fellows of St Antony's College, Oxford Category:Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Category:Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Category:Living people Category:British women historians Category:21st-century British women writers Category:20th-century British women writers Category:1945 births Category:Historians of the University of Oxford Category:Fellows of the Royal Historical Society Category:Members of the University of Cambridge faculty of history