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)
• 2021 Deutsch Macht Spass Grant, AATG
• 2021 “Campus Weeks 2021 – Time To Act,” Germany Embassy 
• 2021 Nominee, “Food for Thought” – Next Generation Scholarship in German Studies, German Studies Association 
• 2021 Grant for event: “The Right-Wing East? – A Generational Journey from the GDR to the Present,” Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Chicago 
• 2022 German Teacher of the Year, AATG-KY 
• 2024 DEFA Film Library Program Award, University of Massachusetts Amherst

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, mutal aid group (DDGC)

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: Von den 68ern zu Black Lives Matter
• The African Origins of the Holocaust (abroad)
• Namibia: From Genocide to Activism
• Senior Colloquium
• Brave New Worlds: Dystopian and Utopian Societies 
• International Short Stories
• Love and Sex Under Socialism
• Belonging: Holocaust and Nakba
• Culture and Media in Modern Germany

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. “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.
• Kinder Palästinas – “The Children of Palestine” (dir. Kurt Tetzlaff, 1980, 54 min) (subtitles, 2024) Aida – “Aida” (dir. Marwan Salamah, 1985, 22 min) (subtitles 2024) …Vom Olivenbaum – “…About the Olive Tree” (dir. Marwan Salamah, 1987, 28 min) (subtitles 2024)
• Bahr, Katrin. “Jenseits der Heimat. Sozialismus, Leben und Erinnerung,” Art in Networks; GDR and its Global Relations (film project 2022),
• Bahr, Katrin. “East Germany in Mozambique: Private Photographs of a Forgotten Time,” Radio GDR Podcast, January 19, 2021.