Sep 29, 2026
Seeking Eyewitnesses: Narrating transformation!
Dr. Karoline Oehme-Jüngling, Aron Schulze, and Constanze Wirsing (from left to right) greet the eyewitnesses at the first storytelling café at the TUD’s Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections.
We are looking for people to participate in storytelling cafés who experienced the late 1980s through the 1990s in Dresden’s higher education landscape—whether as students, administrative or research staff, or political decision-makers: —and are willing to share their memories of the period known as the “university restructuring in the East” with others. These eyewitnesses did not necessarily have to have been associate members of TU Dresden during that time. Also welcome are members of institutions that were integrated into TU Dresden during the restructuring process, as well as (former) employees of the Studentenwerk, newly founded in 1991, or the Saxon State Library (SLB)—whose merger with the University Library in 1996 gave rise to the SLUB—are also invited to participate. The research team behind the “Erzähl(t)e Transformation” project is interested in hearing as diverse a range of perspectives as possible!
The first storytelling café already took place on September 11 at the Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections; further sessions will follow on October 2, November 6, and December 4, each in the afternoon at various venues. The main part of each event consists of discussions with eyewitnesses in small table groups. These are framed by short presentations on specific aspects of Dresden’s university history. Anyone interested in sharing their own experiences and memories with other eyewitnesses is warmly welcome. To register, please contact Constanze Wirsing by email or by phone at +49-351-463-36270.
The “Erzähl(t)e Transformation” project is a collaboration between the Emerging Field on Social Change, the Chair of Sociological Theories and Cultural Sociology, the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History, the Institute of History and Folklore (ISGV), the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Research (HAIT), and the Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections of TU Dresden. It was developed in connection with the upcoming university anniversary and out of a desire to explore the topics of biographical higher education research and the years of transformation. Even more than 35 years after German reunification, the events leading up to it and the subsequent upheavals have not been sufficiently researched, particularly with regard to the professional biographical experiences of current associate members of TU Dresden. The project offers the opportunity to examine various scholarly approaches in order to identify methodological parallels and promote interdisciplinary exchange. Methodological workshops were held in the lead-up to the storytelling cafés.