Academic Presentations
07/2026 — Produktivität und Attraktivität. Die Ordnung weiblicher Lebensführung in DDR-Ratgebermedien (Productivity and Attractiveness: Ordering Women's Conduct of Life in GDR Advice Media), Conference "Wie Ratgeber Leben ordnen" (How Advice Literature Orders Lives), University of Konstanz
06/2026 — Reading Empire from Below: Letters from Lviv to the People's Movement of Ukraine, 1989
International Workshop "The Long Perestroika from Afar: Making Peripheries Central," Panel "Perestroika as Decolonisation?," Seeon
04/2026 — Embodying Socialism: Regulated Behavior and Appearance in the GDR
8th Hermann Weber Conference on Historical Communism Research: "Punitive Education. On the relationship between violence, ideology and care in 'total institutions' under communist rule," Dresden
11/2025 — Shaping the Socialist Other: Travel Guides and the Invention of East Germany
2025 ASEEES Convention, Washington, DC
09/2025 — The Scandal that Wasn't: Illicit Trade in late Cold War Berlin
49th GSA Conference, Washington, DC
05/2025 — Vom ›sozialistischen Menschen‹. Wer erfüllte die Norm in der DDR? (On the 'Socialist Person': Who Met the Norm in the GDR?)
Keynote, 35th Bautzen Forum: Abseits der Norm. Umgang mit »Andersartigkeit« in der DDR (Off the Norm: Dealing with "Otherness" in the GDR), Bautzen
02/2025 — Inventing East Germany: the GDR's Narrative Construction in Travel Literature
Conference "(Re-)Branding Regions in East Central Europe. Space and Spatial Representations in Transition after World Wars I & II," Vienna
01/2025 — Schönheit in der DDR (Beauty in the GDR)
Fellow Lecture, Alfried Krupp Institute for Advanced Study, Greifswald
11/2024 — Exhibiting Liberation: a new Museum of Opposition and Resistance in the GDR
2024 ASEEES Convention, Boston
11/2024 — German "Aufarbeitung": Myths and Their Political Impact
International Summer School "The Nexus of Decision 2024: Poland, Ukraine, Germany," Wielgolas/Cieńsza (Poland)
06/2024 — From "Worker's Paradise" to "Wild East": the GDR's Narrative Construction in Travel Literature
RUTA Association, Ukraine
10/2023 — "The female worker of today must express her new sense of self also in her clothing" – Negotiating Women's Appearances in the GDR
2023 ASEEES Convention, Philadelphia
10/2023 — "They just want to peek over the fence": Tourism from West to East Germany
47th GSA Conference, Montreal, Canada
09/2023 — Negotiating Socialist Beauty: Body Politics, Gender, and National Identity in East Germany, 1950s–1980s
Workshop "Re-thinking the (Post-)Socialist Body. Art, Theory & Politics," Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (Max Planck Institute), Florence, Italy
05/2021 — Tourism through the Iron Curtain. Travelling from West to East Germany
Workshop "Tourism, Sports, and Politics in the 20th Century," University of Minnesota
06/2021 — »Amerikas Berlin«? Entstehung und Herausforderung einer besonderen Beziehung ("America's Berlin"? The Emergence and Challenge of a Special Relationship), Seminar "Zwischen Kennedy und Kreml – Die internationale Dimension des Mauerbaus 1961" (Between Kennedy and the Kremlin – the International Dimension of the Building of the Wall, 1961), Point Alpha Foundation
07/2019 — Berlin – Everyday Life in a Cold War Border Region
Keynote, "Walls in History" Conference of the International Students of History Association, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
11/2018 — Freizeit beim Feind. Private Aufenthalte von US-Soldaten in Ost-Berlin (Leisure with the Enemy: Private Visits by US Soldiers to East Berlin)
Conference "Tourismus nach Plan: Begegnungen, Deutungen und Erfahrungen im östlichen Europa während des Kalten Krieges" (Tourism by Plan: Encounters, Interpretations, and Experiences in Eastern Europe during the Cold War), Lüneburg, Nordost-Institut at the University of Hamburg
09/2018 — Von der Frontstadt zur Friedensstadt? West-Berliner Deutungskämpfe in den 1970er und 1980er Jahren (From Frontline City to City of Peace? West Berlin's Interpretive Battles in the 1970s and 1980s)
52nd German Historians' Convention (Historikertag), Münster
06/2017 — Von Jubel- und Anti-Berlinern: US-Präsidenten auf Besuch in West-Berlin (Of Cheering and Anti-Berliners: US Presidents Visiting West Berlin)
Conference "Divided – Reagan in Berlin," Berlin Wall Foundation
04/2016 — Amerikanische Besatzung und politischer Aktivismus in West-Berlin (American Occupation and Political Activism in West Berlin)
Workshop of the Duitsland Instituut Amsterdam
10/2015 — Locating the GDR
39th GSA Conference, Washington, DC
05/2015 — West-Berlin and the United States – an "imagined community"?
Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar of the GHI Washington, Berlin
12/2014 — Die »Schutzmächte« und der »Vorposten der Freiheit«. Deutungen West-Berlins im Wandel der Zeit (The "Protecting Powers" and the "Outpost of Freedom": Changing Interpretations of West Berlin over Time)
Conference "Biotop Berlin. Neuere Forschungen zur Geschichte West-Berlins" (Biotope Berlin: Recent Research on the History of West Berlin), Berlin City Museum
09/2014 — "…the most widespread violation of American law since prohibition": German Fräuleins and GIs in Post-War Berlin
4th European Congress on World and Global History, Paris
09/2014 — Remembering Cold War Berlin
38th GSA Conference, Kansas City, MO
04/2014 — Vom »Muttchen« zum »Honey Child«? Die sogenannte Fraternisierung (From "Muttchen" to "Honey Child"? So-Called Fraternization)
Workshop "Die Lust am »Anderen« – Globalgeschichte zu Intimität und Regulierung von Sexualität im 20. Jahrhundert" (The Desire for the "Other" – a Global History of Intimacy and the Regulation of Sexuality in the 20th Century), Erfurt
Public History / Citizen Science
05/2026 — »Guten Morgen, du Schöne!« Ein Nachmittag über Mode und Kosmetik in der DDR ("Good Morning, Beautiful!" An Afternoon on Fashion and Cosmetics in the GDR), Citizen Science format, Fashion Museum Meyenburg
05/2025 — »Guten Morgen, du Schöne!« Ein Gesprächsabend zu Mode, Kosmetik und Körperkultur in der DDR ("Good Morning, Beautiful!" An Evening Conversation on Fashion, Cosmetics, and Body Culture in the GDR), Greifswald, Alfried Krupp Institute for Advanced Study
01/2025 — »Schönheit für alle!« Ein Gesprächsabend zu Aussehen und Körperpflege in der DDR ("Beauty for All!" An Evening Conversation on Appearance and Personal Grooming in the GDR), German Hygiene Museum Dresden
09/2024 — Do it Yourself – Schönheit in der DDR (Do It Yourself – Beauty in the GDR)
Museum Utopie und Alltag (Museum of Utopia and Everyday Life), Eisenhüttenstadt
Lecture and evening conversation, music by Anne Müller
11/2024 — Frauenbilder und Frauenpolitik in der DDR (Images of Women and Women's Policy in the GDR), lecture and conversation for the opening of the exhibition "Frauenarbeit. Frauenalltag. Frauenrechte" (Women's Work. Women's Everyday Life. Women's Rights), Bautzen Town Hall
04/2023 — »Vom Scheitel bis zur Sohle« Schönheit in der DDR ("From Head to Toe": Beauty in the GDR), lecture and evening conversation, Geisa
Public Evening Events (selection)
07/2025 — German "Aufarbeitung": Myths, Challenges, and Their Political Impact,
Talk in the series "Vitsche Talks: Wine, Words, Turning Points", Vitsche e.V., Berlin
09/2024 — Berlin Memory Culture: Individual and Collective Memory in times of Russia's war against Ukraine
Interdisciplinary Lab "The Journey from Dangerous to (Un)Safe", Vitsche e.V., Pilecki Institute Berlin
Book Presentations: »Die Schutzmacht – Die Amerikaner in Berlin, 1945–1994« (The Protecting Power – The Americans in Berlin, 1945–1994)
- 05/2019, book presentation at the invitation of the ZeitZeugenBörse, Amerikahaus Berlin
- 11/2019, book presentation at "Le Divan historique," German Historical Institute Paris
- 12/2019, book presentation at the Tempelhof-Schöneberg Museum, Berlin
- 02/2020, book presentation at the Berlin Wall Foundation
02/2018 — Trends und Phasen der DDR-Lehre (Trends and Phases in Teaching GDR History)
Berlin, panel discussion "Alles gesagt? Die DDR in der akademischen Lehre" (All Said and Done? The GDR in Academic Teaching), Deutsche Gesellschaft e.V.
08/2017 — Radio Glasnost – außer Kontrolle (Radio Glasnost – Out of Control), Long Night of Museums, event of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records (BStU)
