Dr Tara Talwar Windsor

Profile

Before coming to Leeds, I was Postdoctoral Research Associate in the EU Horizon/UKRI project ‘The Cartography of the Political Novel in Europe’ (CAPONEU) and co-led the Cambridge-based research group ‘Cultural Production and Social Justice’ (CPSJ). From 2021-23, I was Schröder Research Associate in German at Cambridge with a special remit for Equality and Diversity in German Studies.

I have also held posts as Research Fellow in Modern Languages at the University of Birmingham, Research Associate in Modern History at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal and Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen, Lecturer in History at Liverpool John Moores University, and Assistant Professor in Twentieth-Century Continental European History at Trinity College Dublin.

I completed my BA (2006), MPhil (2008) and PhD (2013) at the University of Birmingham and was doctoral research fellow at the Institute for European History in Mainz from 2011 to 2012. I have also received research awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the German Historical Institute in Paris and the German Academic Exchange Service.

I am a trustee of the British-German Association with a particular remit for univerities and EDI, and a member of the steering committee of Collaborating for Change, a project drawing together and developing strategies for advocacy and outreach for German at UK Universities.

Research interests

I specialise in German literary, cultural and intellectual politics from the early 20th century to the present, with particular interest in the role played by creative writers as public intellectuals. I am currently writing a book provisionally entitled Kaleidoscopic Memory & Epistemic Diversity in Contemporary Germany: Creative Intellectuals & the Politics of History. This draws on theories from critical race, postcolonial, and feminist studies to investigate how minoritised authors use diverse genres, media and spaces to challenge dominant narratives of cultural memory and identity in contemporary Germany.

I am the research group ‘Cultural Production & Social Justice’ and have worked on the following collaborative research projects:

• The Cartography of the Political Novel in Europe (UKRI/Horizon, University of Cambridge, 2023-2026):
• Knowing the Secret Police: Secrecy and Knowledge in East German Society (University of Birmingham, 2019-2021)
• Shifting Constellations: Germany and Global (Dis)Order (Institute for German and European Studies, Birmingham, 2019-2021)
• Inner and Outer Exile in Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain (2017-2019)
• Societies under German Occupation: Experiences and Everyday Life in World War II (Bergische Universität Wuppertal / KWI Essen, 2013-2015)

I am a founding general editor of the book series and yearbook Politics & Fiction (Open Book Publishers) and an editorial board member of the Palgrave Macmillan series German Literatures in (Post)Migration.

I passionate about public engagement and have (co-)organised several public readings with Asal Dardan, Shida Bazyar, Sharon Dodua Otoo, Mithu Sanyal, Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç, Fatma Aydemir, Karosh Taha, and Ijoma Mangold.

As part of the research project ‘Knowing the Secret Police’ I contributed to a documentary film The Open Secret, a comic entitled Was wusstet ihr? and a set of resources for teachers and students.

Qualifications

• PhD in German Studies/History (University of Birmingham)
• MPhil in Modern European Cultures (University of Birmingham)
• BA in German & History (University of Birmingham)

Professional memberships

• Association of German Studies in Great Britain & Ireland
• Women in German Studies in Great Britain & Ireland
• German Studies Association

Student education

I teach German language, literature, culture, society and history at all levels and contribute to cross-school modules on film, decoloniality and translation studies.