Katrin Bahr

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.