Karen Hagemann

(Dr. phil., 1989, University of Hamburg; Habilitation, 2000, Technical University of Berlin) is James G. Kenan Distinguished Professor of History at the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  From 2003 to 2005 she was Professor of History and Co-Director of the Centre for Border Studies at the University of Glamorgan, Wales. 1987 till 2003 she taught Modern German and European history and gender history (19th-20th centuries) first at the Department of History and since 1995 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies on Women and Gender of the Technical University of Berlin, which she co-founded together with Prof. Karin Hausen.

In the academic year 1991 she was a member of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (SCASSS) in Uppsala, Sweden, and in the academic year 2000-01 a member of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, USA. In the summer term 2000 the TU-Berlin and the University of Salzburg offered her visiting professorships. 2002-03 the University of Toronto invited her as the DAAD-Chair for German and European Studies at the Munk Centre for International Studies. For the summer term 2003 the University of Trier, offered her the Rheinland-Pfalz-Chair for International and Interdisciplinary Studies on Women and Gender. In spring and summer 2004 she was a Research Fellow of the Social Science Research Center Berlin, and in fall 2008 a Research Fellow at the Institute for Arts and Humanities of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  In the academic year 2011-12 she was the John G. Medlin, Jr, Fellow at the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.  In spring 2015 she was the German Transatlantic Program Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.  In the academic year  2015-16 she was an European Insitutes for Advances Studies (EURIAS) Senior Fellow at the Netherlands Institute  for Advanced Studies in Wassenaar. For the fall 2020 she was granted a Senior Faculty Research and Scholarly Leaves by UNC-Chapel Hill.

Her research in Modern German, European and Transatlantic history,  women and gender history and military history (19th-20th centuries) includes studies in the fields of the history of welfare states and education policies, the history of working-class culture and the labor movement, the history of the women’s movement, family history and the history of everyday lives. Her more current research focuses on the gendered political and cultural history of the military and war, the nation, nationalism and collective memories. It was funded by grants by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council, the German Ministry of Research and Education, the Gerda-Henkel-Foundation, the German Academic Research Foundation, the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, and the Volkswagen Foundation.