Katrin Bahr
Assistant Professor of German • Fulbright and DAAD Fellowship Advisor
Co-Chair of African and African American Studies
Chair, German, Chinese, and Japanese
Offices & Programs
Education
BA: social sciences, (politics, sociology, gender studies), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
MA: social sciences, (politics, sociology, gender studies), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
PhD: German & Scandinavian Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst
BIOGRAPHY
Katrin Bahr joined the Centre College faculty in 2020. Her research and teaching interests include GDR History, Culture and Memory, Socialism in Post-colonial Africa, Photography, Women and Gender Studies, and post-1989 East-German literature and film.
Her dissertation Postcolonial Solidarity: East Germans in Mozambique, 1979-1990 offers a first detailed look at the everyday life and work experiences of East German citizens living in Mozambique in the 1980s. She has curated photo-exhibitions about the everyday life experiences of East Germans in Mozambique which were shown in the USA, Mozambique, and Germany. She is also the co-founder of the Third Generation Ost network in the United States.
AWARDS AND GRANTS
- 2018 Research Grant, Central European History Society (Dissertation research in Germany)
- 2017 Dissertation Fieldwork Research Grant, University of Massachusetts Amherst (Dissertation research in Mozambique)
- 2015-2016 Fellowship, Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies (Dissertation research in Germany)
AFFILIATIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS
- German Studies Association (GSA)
- AATG (General & Kentucky)
- Central European History Society (CEHS)
- Black German Heritage and Research Association (BGHRA)
- Women in German (WIG)
- Third Generation Ost
- Diversity, Decolonization, and the German Curriculum
COURSES TAUGHT
- Elementary German
- Intermediate German
- Umwelt und Natur
- When Women Speak – From Rosa Luxemburg to Angela Davis
- Falsifying German History in Images
- Aktivismus in Deutschland
- The African Origins of the Holocaust (Germany & Poland)
- Senior Colloquium
- Brave New Worlds
PUBLICATIONS
- Bahr, Katrin. “Between State Mission and Everyday Life: Private Photographs of East Germans in Mozambique in the 1980s.” Navigating Socialist Encounters: Moorings, Exchanges and (Dis)entanglements between Africa and East Germany. Eds., Harisch, Immanuel R., Anne Dietrich, Marcia C. Schenk, and Eric Burton. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021, 319-349.
- Bahr, Katrin. "Hinterlassene Spuren: Selbstbild und Weltbild. DDR-ExpertInnen in Mosambik." Für Respekt und Anerkennung. Die mosambikanischen Vertragsarbeiter und das schwierige Erbe der DDR, Studienreihe der Landesbeauftragten, Eds., Birgit Neumann- Becker and Hans-Joachim Döring. Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag GmbH, 2020, 131-144.
- Bahr, Katrin and Melanie Lorek. “‘Ja, wohin gehen sie denn?’: Die „3. Generation Ostdeutscher zwischen Suchen und Finden am Beispiel des 1.5 Generationskonzeptes.” Die Generation der Wendekinder: Elaboration eines Forschungsfeldes, Eds., Lettrari, Adriana, Christian Nestler and Nadja Troi-Boeck, Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, 2017, 255-277.
- Bahr, Katrin. “‘Wie war das damals’ – Blitzlicht.” Wie war das für Euch?: Die Dritte Generation Ost im Gespräch mit ihren Eltern, Eds., Enders, Judith C, Mandy Schulze, and Bianca Ely, Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2016, 66-67.
- Bahr, Katrin. “East Germany in Mozambique: Private Photographs of a Forgotten Time,” Radio GDR Podcast, January 19, 2021.
- Bahr, Katrin. “Why studying the GDR still matters today - The GDR as Lived Experience.” In Diversity, Decolonization, and the German Curriculum. Blog, June 18, 2019.
- Bahr, Katrin. “Traveling Mozambique: Family History and Search for Traces.” In Third Generation Ost: New Perspectives on the German Democratic Republic. Blog, September 17, 2018.
- Bahr, Katrin. “Das Erzählen über die DDR ist immer noch stark Westdeutsch geprägt.” In Tagesspiegel, Interview, October 23, 2014.