Maria Bühner is a cultural scientist and historian. Her doctoral thesis on the subjectification of women who desire women and lesbian women in East Germany (1945–1995) draws on approaches from gender, emotion and body history. She is currently working as a research assistant at the Institute for Cultural Studies at the University of Leipzig. She previously conducted research at the Deutschen Hygiene-Museum in Dresden as part of the BMBF-funded joint research project ‘Objects and Sexuality’. She also works freelance in political education. In addition to queer contemporary history, her research focuses on the history of sexualities, gender history, material culture studies and the history of technology. In 2018, she co-edited an anthology on European gender history and in 2021 a conference proceedings on collection practices in museums and archives. In 2024, her expertise on lesbians in the GDR for the Berlin Senate was published.

Publications (selection):

Rebellion und Zärtlichkeit. Zur Geschichte lesbischen Lebens in der DDR. Berlin: Senatsverwaltung für Justiz, Verbraucherschutz und Antidiskriminierung. Landesstelle für Gleichbehandlung – gegen Diskriminierung (LADS), 2024, https://uni-leipzig.academia.edu/MariaBuehner.

 

with Benno Gammerl, Deutsche Geschichte, queere Perspektiven, in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 2025 (21), S. 4–12, https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/queer-2025/562120/deutsche-geschichte-queere-perspektiven/.