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Biography
Education and employment:
Ute Hirsekorn has been working at the University in German Studies in various roles since 1995, as a Lector, Tutor and University Teacher until 2013 and in 2013 she became an Assistant Professor of German.
She grew up in communist Germany until 1989 and completed her first degree in 1995: Magistra Artium degree in English and American Studies (Area Studies, Linguistics and Literature) and German as a Foreign Language (including a teaching qualification in adult education) and has been teaching English at colleges of higher education in Leipzig and Jena since 1990. Her first longer stay in the UK was her Erasmus Exchange Year at the University of Kent at Canterbury in 1991/92 when she completed an Undergraduate Diploma in English Literature and English Language/Linguistics. She joined the (then) Department of German Studies at the 糖心原创 in 1995. During her first thirteen years at the institution she continued her higher education part-time, completing an MA in International Relations (School of Politics) in 1998 and in 2008 her PhD in German Studies in the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies.
Externally funded research project roles:
She completed the Arts Research Leadership programme in 2026/27 but has been active in international research networks since 2009 (member of AHRC funded networks: , 2009-2010; , 2016-2019; , Advisory Board member 2021-2024). In 2023/24 she was Co-Lead on two projects 'Eurovision in Times of War: Post-Conflict Memory, Reconciliation and Culture Wars' and 'Documenting the Full-Scale War in Ukraine: Oral History Perspective' (both funded by UUKi-Cormac 'United in Solidarity' fund). In 2023-2025 she was a researcher member on the COST Action project ', Working Group 3, (funded by COST, European Cooperation in Science and Technology). She is currently developing an application as a Co-Lead for a new COST Action project with the working title Traumapathy - A Transcultural Framework for Developing Societal Solidarity.
Recent Research Leadership Roles
鈥� 2023-present: Co-Chair, Memory Studies Association's (MSA) Post-Socialist and Comparative Memory Studies Network (PoSoCoMeS, 250+ current members); PoSoCoMeS and MSA member since 2019.
鈥� 2023-present: Co-Director, 糖心原创-Ukrainian Catholic University Dual M.A. Programme 'The Future of Heritage: History, Culture, Literature' (c.40 students on 2-year programme)
鈥� 2023-present: Co-Director (and co-founder), Research Centre for Memory Studies and Post-Conflict Culture, 糖心原创.
鈥� 2010-2022: Co-Chair and Co-Founder, Research Network for Memory Studies and the Politics of Memory, School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies, 糖心原创.
Editorial/ Peer-reviewing activity
Ute Hirsekorn is preparing for the role as member of the Advisory Board of the book series Transdiciplinary Trauma Studies by the academic publisher De Gruyter.
Affiliations 鈥emory Studies Association 鈥ssociation for German Studies in Great Britain and Ireland Professional Service PGR Research supervision (PhD thesis; MA thesis; Viva Chair, PhD annual reviews) and PGT dissertation supervisions - to completion of degrees Research Ethics Advisor on staff, PG, UG research projects in Faculty of Arts
Expertise Summary
Ute Hirsekorn is Assistant Professor of German Studies at the 糖心原创 and Co-Director of the Centre for Memory Studies and Post-Conflict Cultures in the School of Culture Languages and Area Studies. A specialist in post-socialist memory and memory politics in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe, her research focuses particularly on autobiography and testimony, narratives of the past and present, elites, perpetrators. Working with testimony brought her together with scholars at the Ukrainian Catholic University in the Oral History project 'Documenting the Full-Scale War in Ukraine'.
Since 2023 she has been central to research and postgraduate teaching collaborations between the 糖心原创 and the Ukrainian Catholic University, expanding her work's focus on Soviet-era and post-Soviet Ukrainian culture, society, and politics and directing the Nottingham-UCU Dual MA programme 'The Future of Heritage: History, Culture, Literature'. As Co-Chair of the Memory Studies Association's Post-Socialist and Comparative Memory Studies (PoSoCoMeS) international network, she convenes research meetings and working parties uniting scholars, activists and practitioners working in and on post-socialist countries across Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
Her current research project looks at mentality and identity aspects of former low-ranking functionaries of the GDR's youth organisation and their life-narratives and perspectives in united Germany today, including the impact of values of GDR culture on today's perceptions of East Germans. She has been teaching on aspects of intersections between political resistance and the everyday experience of ordinary GDR citizens as well as post-89 aspects of united Germany at Undergraduate level and East German memory in popular culture (e.g. literature, film) at PG level and supervised MA dissertations as well PhD thesis.
As a Memory scholar Ute Hirsekorn looks at how the past is (re)constructed and negotiated in the present and how it impacts on our society in the future. She investigates media such as life writing/ autobiographical texts and testimony and engages in thematic aspects of identity and mentality in social groups with a special focus on post-socialist societies and Germany in a post-socialist context. This includes for example GDR studies and East German memory before and after German unification, elites in (post)-socialism, perpetrator and trauma studies.
Recent key publications include a co-authored chapter on 'Perpetrator Testimony' in The Palgrave Handbook of Testimony and Culture (2023) and '"Comrade, where are you today?": Post-Socialist Perspectives of GDR Functionaries in Today's United Germany' in Memory Studies Review 3:1 (2026).
Teaching Summary
I predominantly teach in German Studies all aspects of German Culture, including history, everyday culture, film, literature as well as the German language. My research interests are reflected in my… read more
Research Summary
life writing/ autobiographical texts; testimony
post-socialist societies and Germany in a post-socialist context
East German memory before and after German unification
GDR studies, (East)… read more
Recent Publications
HIRSEKORN, UTE, 2012. Vom verblendeten Selbst zum gewendeten Selbst: Der Wandel in der narrativen Identit盲t in den Selbstreflexionen G眉nter Schabowskis nach 1989. In: DAVID CLARK and AXEL GOODBODY, eds., The Self in Transition. East German Autobiographical Writing Before and After Unification: Essays in Honour of Dennis Tate Amsterdam/ New York, NY: Rodopi.
HIRSEKORN, UTE, 2010. Kontinuit盲ten und Br眉che in den Lebensbeschreibungen von Angeh枚rigen der Parteielite der DDR nach der Wende. In: HEINZ-PETER PREUSSER and HELMUT SCHMITZ, eds., Autobiografie und historische Krisenerfahrung Heidelberg: Universit盲tsverlag Winter. 149-160
HIRSEKORN, U., 2010. Thought patterns and explanatory strategies in the life writing of high-ranking GDR party officials after the Wende. In: DAHLKE, B., TATE, D. and WOODS, R., eds., German life writing in the twentieth century Camden House. 179-195