Faculty member Katrin Bahr

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. 

Contact Information