Thomas Goldstein

Ph.D. Candidate (ABD)
tgoldst@email.unc.edu

Major Field: Modern European History

Other Fields: Russian and East European History

Advisor: Konrad Jarausch

Research Interests: My dissertation focuses on the professional culture of the official
East German Writers Union (Schriftstellerverband) during the last two decades of the
history of the German Democratic Republic (1970-1990).  Specifically I am interested in
the Writers Union as a site of assymetrical interaction and negotiation between authors
and the dictatorship: on the one hand the state used the organization as a means of
curtailing intellectual dissent; on the other, writers, needed by the state to promote
regime legitimacy, often used the Writers Union to publicly comment on the progress of
socialism in East Germany, expressing views that mostly praised the government but
nonetheless on occassion took issue with key components of official socialist policies.