Stefan Rinke  Stefan Rinke (born December 31, 1965) is a German historian and specialist in Latin American history. Since 2005 he has been Professor at the Institute of Latin American Studies and at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut at Freie Universität Berlin. After graduating from the Gymnasium Julianum in Helmstedt in 1984, Stefan Rinke studied History and American Studies in Bamberg and Bowling Green (Ohio) from 1985 to 1990. He completed his studies in 1989 with a Master of Arts in Bowling Green and in 1990 with a diploma in history in Bamberg. The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung supported him with a doctoral scholarship from 1991 to 1993. In 1995 he received his doctorate at the Catholic University of Eichstätt with a thesis on German-Latin American relations during the Weimar Republic from a transnational perspective. His advisor was . The work appeared in 1996 as the first volume in the series Historamericana, which was founded by König and Rinke. From 1996 to 1998, the German Research Foundation (DFG) granted him a postdoctoral fellowship. During this time he spent research periods in Santiago de Chile and Washington D.C., among other places. In September 1998 he was appointed Visiting Assistant Professor for the Comparative History of the Americas and Europe at Tufts University, where he taught until 1999. In the same year, Stefan Rinke took up a position as Assistant Professor (wissenschaftlicher Assistant) in Eichstätt. In 2003, he completed his ‘Habilitation’ with a study on North Americanization and socio-cultural change in Chile. In 2005, he was appointed Professor of Latin American History at Freie Universität Berlin. From 2007 to 2009 and from 2017 to 2019 he was chairman of the Institute of Latin American Studies. Stefan Rinke explores the history of Latin America primarily from a transregional and global historical perspective. His research focuses on cultural globalization and North Americanization, popular culture, revolutions, memory and historical consciousness, history of knowledge, trans-American relations, temporality and future. They cover the period from colonial times (Columbus, Conquista of Mexico, identities), the independence period (Atlantic revolutions, thinking about the future), the 19th century (state-building and dictatorships, USA and Latin America), the 20th century (World War I, football, aviation, experts) to contemporary history (memory and conflict in Columbia and Chile, Colonia Dignidad).