Ute Caumanns

Ute Caumanns is a lecturer at the Department of History and Cultures in Eastern Europe at the Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany. She teaches modern and contemporary Central-East European history, and visual history in a comparative European perspective.

She co-edited two volumes on conspiracy theories:
Verschwörungstheorien: Anthropologische Konstanten – historische Varianten (2001) and ‚Wer zog die Drähte?’ Verschwörungstheorien im Bild (2012).

Her current research interests lie in visual and oral representations of conspiracy theories, as well as in performativity, conspiratorial narratives, and media aspects of Stalinist show trials. Recent publications related to these fields of research include:
“Performing and Communicating Conspiracy Theories: Stalinist Show Trials in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.” Lexia, vols. 23–24, 2016: Complotto/ Conspiracy, edited by Massimo Leone and Eva Kimminich, pp. 269–88
“Verschwörungsdenken in der politischen Führung Polens im Kalten Krieg. Bierut, Berman, Werfel und der ‚Prozess der Generäle.‘”Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2016, pp. 181–94.

In 2014 and 2015, she was heading the student project Schauprozesse: Inszenierung und Medialisierung politischer Justiz in Osteuropa; the online-exhibition is available until December 2018.

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