Dr Corinne Painter

Profile

I have worked for the University of Leeds in a number of teaching and research roles since 2017. In February 2022, I was appointed as a Lecturer in Intercultural Studies with responsibilities within the Curriculum Redefined project. This project aims to create a new, interdisciplinary curriculum, co-created between academics and students, through which graduates will be equipped to respond to the global challenges of the future.

After completing my BA (Hons) in German and Japanese at the University of Leeds, I lived and worked in Germany for nearly three years. I then returned to Leeds to complete a Masters by Research exploring the experiences of German Jewish women in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich in German Jewish magazines. My PhD thesis explored the life and works of Clementine Kraemer (1873-1942), a German Jewish writer and campaigner in the women’s movement.

Media Contributions

• “The Path of Most Resistance”, ERA Magazine August 2020
• “Beyond Rosa Luxemburg: five more women of the German revolution you need to know about”, written in collaboration with Professor Ingrid Sharp. The Conversation 14 January 2019.
• “A Woman’s Place is in the Revolution”, written in collaboration with Professor Ingrid Sharp. Jacobin 15 January 2019.
• Talking ‘bout Revolutions, a podcast episode about the lived experience of Irish and German suffrage, socialist and activist women in the aftermath of war and revolution (2024).
• Cultural Studies, a podcast episode about Germany and the right, Michael Schumacher, the German revolution, women and socialism (2024). 

Responsibilities

• Programme Leader MA Professional Language & Intercultural Studies
• Transformative Educator
• PhD Supervisor

Research interests

My main research interest is to understand how power is consolidated, expressed and experienced. By moving the focus of study from what is understood to be the centre to the periphery, power dynamics are made visible. Most recently, I have been examining these dynamics through the lens of Gender and the German Revolution of 1918/19, using life writing by female revolutionaries. Through this research, the organisational structure of the revolution, how and why it happened, and the relationship between the revolutionary leaders and the rank and file can be brought to light. I am now applying these frameworks to anti-fascist resistance to explore what motivated women to engage in resistance and how female activists used their networks and resources to fight for a better world.

I am also skilled at liaising with Arts and Cultural Organisations to generate research and impact activities because I am committed to widening public access to, and engagement with, stories from our pasts. Below are some recent projects that led to significant impact:

Ways of Knowing: Developing Research Cultures of Resistance

Project lead.

This project brings together academic researchers and creative practitioners to build a community of enquiry looking at gender, crime and protest in different national contexts and through different disciplinary lenses. The project brings academic expertise in protest and the interwar period into dialogue with modern criminological research and creative practice in two in-person workshops, which will allow for experimentation with transdisciplinary and multi-modal research methods. Funded by Enhancing Research Culture (Research England). 

Commemoration, Conflict and Conscience

Project Coordinator

A year-long project, which culminated in a national festival in Bristol 2019. The project looks at ‘hidden’ or lesser known stories of the First World War, legacy, peace-building & alienation from commemoration. We are: uniting existing community groups and researchers, focusing on their work to date & generating new research; showcasing existing artistic work and performances and fostering new creative projects. Funded by the AHRC. 

Project highlights:

• Bristol Festival 27–28 April 2019

Kiel Uprising: Women's activism and the German Revolution November 1918

This project examined the end of the First World War in Germany and the German Revolution. Revolutions are often imagined as male spaces and yet, for a revolution to spread as quickly and as far as the Revolution of 1918/19 did, women must have been involved. AHRC funded.

Project highlights:

• Exhibition: "Ending War, Imagining Peace: Germany 1918" at the Peace Museum
• Play: "Women of Aktion" opened Autumn 2018 and toured the UK

Selected Conference Papers

Invited Papers

• November 2022 – “Power and Peripheries in the Courthouse”; University of Bielefeld, Germany
• October 2021 – “Women’s Activism in the German Revolution 1918/19”; University of Neuchatel, Switzerland
• July 2019 – Rosa Luxemburg and the women of the German Revolution; Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education; Cape Town South Africa
• September 2018 – Writing the Revolution: German Women as Revolutionary Agents; Aftermath German and Austrian Cultural Responses to the End of WW1; King's College London
• May 2017 – Life under the Nazis: The German Jewish Community 1933–38, German History in the North; University of Leeds
• September 2016 – German Jewish Women in the Public Sphere: an Exploration of Identity through Fiction 1913 and 1933; New Directions in German History; University of Central Lancashire

Public Talks

• November 2021 – “Hidden Histories: Revolutionary Women in Munich 1919” Working Class Movement Library,
• March 2018 – “International Women’s Day: Kiel to Otley–Women of the German Revolution”; Leeds City Museum
• March 2018 – “Hidden from History: Voices of the German Revolution 1918-1919”; Peace Museum; Bradford

Qualifications

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• PhD
• MA by Research
• BA (Hons)

Professional memberships

• Women in German Studies
• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication

Student education

I teach modules at all levels of undergraduate and MA level on topics relating to German History, Women’s Writing, Intercultural Communication and Cultural History. I am programme leader for the MA Professional Language and Intercultural Studies (MAPLIS).

I am currently supervising two MA by research projects, one examining women in revolutionary thought and one conducting a Critical Discourse Analysis of German language learning websites. Currently, I am co-supervising Rama Saidani, whose PhD project is titled “The intersection of theory and practice; exploring conflicting theoretical paradigms and their use in corporate intercultural training.” This is an important piece of work as it bridges the gap between the academic field of Intercultural Studies and how these ideas are put into practice outside Higher Education. 

If you are interested in postgraduate study, please email me (C.J.Painter@leeds.ac.uk).

Research groups and institutes

• German
• History
• Women, Gender, and Sexuality
• Cultural studies
• Interdisiplinarity
• Cultures and Societies
• Intercultural Studies