Professor Dr Ute Frevert

Ute Frevert is a German historian. She researches modern and contemporary history. Her work focuses on the history of modern societies and their cultural systems. The construction and interpretation of gender differences play a significant role in her work.
Frevert examines which fields of action were assigned to women and men and how (and why) these assignments changed. In this context, she works on topics such as the social and cultural coding of violence, as in duels and in the military, or the production of honor and empathy.
In addition, she has worked on the development of European identities and identifications and on the history of political communication, especially between citizens, politicians and state representatives. In 2008, she established the history of emotions as a new field of research situated between historical science and psychology. In this context, she has written books on modern politics of humiliation, on practices of trust, and on the power of emotions in the 20th and early 21st century.