About

Kerstin Barndt is the Chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan and an Associate Professor of German Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in German Studies from the Free University Berlin. Her academic focus includes German literature, philosophy, and linguistics, with a particular emphasis on the literary, museum, and exhibition cultures of the long twentieth century, as well as the history of reading. Her research explores the intersections of gender, literary form, and emerging social spheres in Germany after World War I, notably through her first book, Sentiment and Sobriety. This work emphasizes gender theory and women's history, which has also led her to curate exhibits on topics such as the history of abortion and the birth control pill at Dresden's Hygiene Museum. Currently, she is working on a book manuscript titled Layers of Time, examining how museums, post-industrial landscapes, and exhibitions in Germany navigate issues of national representation, regional revival, globalization, deindustrialization, and migration, with a focus on temporal and historiographical concerns from deep time to the Anthropocene. Barndt also co-edits a book series on Museums and Narratives and has editorial projects related to German literature and museum studies. She has curated exhibitions and collaborated on research projects related to the history of university collections and museums, including a notable project for the University of Michigan's bicentennial. Her scholarly contributions extend to her role as a former director of the Museum Studies Program at the University of Michigan, and she has received numerous grants and awards for her work.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Programming language
• Art
• Business
• Medicine
• Financial economics
• Law
• Psychology
• Advertising
• Economics

Selected publications

• Filmfans und Fotoamateure. Die Filmwelt 1929 – 1943

  Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift · 2025-12-16

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This article analyzes the Scherl Verlag’s popular magazine Filmwelt (1929 – 1943) against the backdrop of the shift from democracy to fascism. Tracing the mix of popular film fandom and amateur photography that characterizes this »Film- und Foto-Magazin«, the authors note a gradual shift from dialogic, interactive (but also normative and didactic) modes of popular address prior to 1933 to a more unidirectional form of top-down communication during the late 1930s and into the early war years. Their reading of Filmwelt contributes to an understanding of the politics of popular culture and media in the transition towards authoritarianism. Drawing on scholarship on amateur photography, film stardom, and the German history of associations (»Vereinswesen«), the article maps both the continuity of popular discourses on photographic media across the cesura represented by the advent of National Socialism, and visible as well as invisible changes that index the increasing fascization of the magazine’s themes, rubrics, and modes of address over its fourteen-year run, as well as the instant ›aryanization‹ of its personnel in the wake of Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933.

  PublisherDOI

• Introduction: Museums, Narratives, and Critical Histories

  2024-02-19 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Frontmatter

  De Gruyter eBooks · 2024

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• CONTRIBUTORS

  Berghahn Books · 2022

  • Medicine
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 4. Mothers, Citizens, and Consumers: Female Readers in Weimar Germany

  Berghahn Books · 2022 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Art
  PublisherDOI

• ‘‘MEMORY TRACES OF AN ABANDONED SET OF FUTURES’’

  Duke University Press eBooks · 2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Economics
  PublisherDOI

• Montage

  2018-09-10 · 4 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• The Chatter of the Visible: Montage and Narrative in Weimar Germany

  The German Quarterly · 2017-07-01 · 20 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Object Lessons and the Formation of Knowledge: The University of Michigan Museums, Libraries, and Collections 1817–2017

  2017-09-19 · 10 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  "Object Lessons and the Formation of Knowledge explores the museums, libraries, and special collections of the University of Michigan on its bicentennial. Since its inception, U-M has collected and preserved objects: biological and geological specimens; ethnographic and archaeological artifacts; photographs and artistic works; encyclopedia, textbooks, rare books, and documents; and many other items. These vast collections and libraries testify to an ambitious vision of the research university as a place where knowledge is accumulated, shared, and disseminated through teaching, exhibition, and publication. Today, 200 years after the university's founding, museums, libraries, and archives continue to be an important part of U-M, which maintains more than 20 distinct museums, libraries, and collections. Viewed from a historic perspective, they provide a window through which we can explore the transformation of the academy, its public role, and the development of scholarly disciplines over the last two centuries. Even as they speak to important facets of Michigan's history, many of these collections also remain essential to academic research, knowledge production, and object-based pedagogy. Moreover, the university's exhibitions and displays attract hundreds of thousands of visitors per year from the campus, regional, and global communities. Beautifully illustrated with color photographs of these world-renowned collections, this book will appeal to readers interested in the history of museums and collections, the formation of academic disciplines, and of course, the University of Michigan"...Provided by publisher

  Publisher

• 5: Exhibiting 1989/2009: Memory, Affect, and the Politics of History

  Boydell and Brewer eBooks · 2017-12-31 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Manuela Achilles

  University of Virginia

  9 shared

• Rainer María Rilke

  9 shared

• Hanne Darboven

  University of Virginia

  9 shared

• Brigid Doherty

  University of Virginia

  9 shared

• Stephan Jaeger

  Integra (United States)

  5 shared

• Scott Spector

  Indiana University

  5 shared

• Ba- Bayan Kathryn

  Indiana University

  4 shared

• Stephen Berrey

  Rice University

  4 shared

Awards & honors

• Research Grant, Prussian Heritage Foundation [2024]
• Michigan Humanities Grant [2023]
• Meet the Moment Grant for Meeting the Mnomen : Restoration o…
• Humanities Collaboratory Project Grant: ReConnect/ReCollect.…
• LSA and U-M Bicentennial Grants for Object Lessons [2017]