Elizabeth Heineman
Drop-in Hours: by appointment only
Lisa Heineman has been at the University of Iowa since 1999 and teaches courses in Germany and Europe, gender and sexuality, and human rights. Her classes are sites of hands-on work, creative thinking, and collaborative discovery.
The running thread in Professor Heineman’s research has been the interplay of intimate human relationships and History writ large. Her books and articles have explored state regulation of gender and sexuality in fascism, liberal democracy, and communism; historical memory; the social upheavals of war; the intersections of gender and national identity; sexuality, business, and consumption; and sexual violence. Her interest in public history has led her to found and host a podcast, collaborate in the creation of a museum exhibit, and co-curate a digital crowdsourcing project. She is currently working on a family history that explores unaccompanied child refugees from Nazi Germany – and the difficult situation awaiting families who were lucky enough to be reunited.
Professor Heineman earned a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993. She is the 2010 recipient of the AICGS/DAAD Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German and European Studies and the 2011 winner of the New Millennium Prize in Literary Non-Fiction.
Teaching
Professor Heineman teaches classes on Germany and Europe in the twentieth century, the history of gender and sexuality in modern Europe, and Western Civilization. She also regularly teaches graduate seminars in modern European History. Courses recently taught include:
- HIST:1403 The West and the World III
- HIST:2151 Introduction to the History Major: Nazi Germany
- HIST:2465 Europe Since 1945
- HIST:3157 Gender, Sexuality, and Human Rights
- HIST:4475 Germany's Twentieth Century
- HIST:4478 The Holocaust in History and Memory
- HIST:6410 Teaching Proseminar
- HIST:7122 Readings: History of Gender and Sexuality
- HIST:7126 Readings: History of Human Rights
- HIST:7455 Seminar Modern Europe
- SJUS: 2050 Jews, Judaism, and Social Justice
Awards and service
Awards
- Senior Fellow, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Study (2012-13)
- Collegiate Scholar (2013-15)
- New Millennium Prize in Literary Non-Fiction (2011)
- AICGS/DAAD Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German and European Studies (2010)
- Faculty Scholar Award, University of Iowa (August 2004-July 2007)
- Howard Foundation Fellowship (August 2003-July 2004)
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2003)
- Dean's Scholar, University of Iowa (2002-2003)
- DAAD Faculty Fellowship (2000)
- American Philosophical Society Research Grant (1998)
- German Marshall Fund Fellowship (1997-1998)
- James Bryant Conant Fellowship, Center for European Studies, Harvard University (1995-1996)
Service
- Departmental Executive Officer, Department of History (2014-18)
- Academic Coordinator, Sexuality Studies Program (2007-2010)
- Executive Board, University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (2007-2012)
Public History
- Founding Co-Curator, The New Fascism Syllabus (2016-19)
- Co-Principle Investigator, German Iowa and the Global Midwest (2016-17)
- Host, New Books in Gender and Sexuality (New Books Network) (2011-12)
Publications
Books
Articles
- “German Iowa and the Global Midwest: Discussing Immigration and Xenophobia in the Trump Era”
- "When History Meets Politics: In the Humanities Classroom—and Outside"
- Consuming Sex: A Photo-Essay on the Legacy of the Magnus Hirschfeld in the West German Erotica Industry, 9145-1975. IN: Not Straight from Germany
- “On Losing One’s Children Twice: An Intimate Vergangenheitsbewältigung,” Modern Germany in Transatlantic Perspective
- Historicizing Gender and Conflict, co-author with Jo Butterfield, The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict, Ed Dina Haynes, Fionnuala Ni Aoláin, Nahla Valji, and Naomi Cahn
- “Towards a History of Transnational Sex in World War II”
- “What Sex are Sex Shops? The Retailing of Erotica in West Germany Before the Legalization of Pornography” IN: Transformations of Retailing in Europe after 1945
- “Sexuality in West Germany: Post-Fascist, Post-War, Post-Weimar, or Post-Wilhelmine?” Mit dem Wandel leben.
- “Jörg Schröder: Linkes Verlagswesen und Pornografie,” Das linksalternative Milieu, [“Jörg Schröder, Left Publishing, and Pornography,” The Left-Alternative Milieu]
- "The History of Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: Conference Report"
- "'The History of Morals in the Federal Republic': Advertising, PR, and the Beate Uhse Myth," in Selling Modernity: Advertising and Public Relations in Germany
- "The Economic Miracle in the Bedroom: Big Business and Sexual Consumer Culture in Reconstruction West Germany"
- "Der Beate Uhse Mythos Respektabilität, Geschichte und autobiographisches Marketing in der frühen Bundesrepublik" [The Beate Uhse Myth: Respectability, History, and autobiographical Marketing in the Early Federal Republic]
- "Gender, Sexuality, and Coming to Terms with the Past in Germany"
- "Gender, Public Policy, and Memory: Waiting Wives and War Widows in the Postwar Germanys," The Work of Memory: New Directions in the Study of German Society and Culture
- "Sexuality and Nazism: The Doubly Unspeakable?"
- "Whose Mothers? Generational Difference, War, and the Nazi Cult of Motherhood"
- "Single Motherhood and Maternal Employment in Divided Germany: Ideology, Policy, and Social Pressures"
- "The Hour of the Women: Memories of Germany's 'Crisis Years' and West German National Identity"
- "Complete Families, Half Families, No Families at All: Female-Headed Households and the Reconstruction of the Family in the Federal Republic of Germany"
- "Gender Identity in the Wandervogel Movement"
Commentary and popular writing
- "I'm a Holocaust scholar. We need to talk about what's happening in Gaza"
- “The Early 20th-Century German Trans-Rights Activist Who Was Decades Ahead of His Time"
- Roundtable: Teaching Judaism and Social Justice
- "Opinion: Recognizing Palestinian human rights, put conditions on military aid to Israel"
- "Iowa Republicans ignore real crisis, threaten abortion rights instead"
- "Stifling free speech isn't necessary to combat anti-Semitism"
- "The early 20th-century German trans-rights activist who was decades ahead of his time"
- "Violent past, digital future: Angela Merkel’s remarks at Davos"
- Merkel’s challenge: Governing Germany in an Age of Rising Nationalism
- How ‘Germany’s Hugh Hefner’ Created an Entirely Different Sort of Sex Empire
- “What to Do When They Bring You Your Dead Baby In the Hospital”
- “Still Life with Baby”
- “Still: A Conversation about Collaboration”
- “Fertility Goddess”
- “My Stillborn Child’s Life After Death”
- “Würmchen”
- “A death certificate, an autopsy report, a pile of insurance claims”
- Modern Germany and Europe
- Gender and Sexuality
- Historical Memory
- Human Rights and Atrocity
