I am a cultural historian and my work focuses on the German Democratic Republic and representations thereof within the memorial culture of modern Germany. 

Since 2019, I have been Research Associate on the AHRC project: "Knowing the Secret Police: Secrecy and Knowledge in East German Society".  My role within the project investigates networks of antifascists within the GDR and how they interacted with the Ministry for State Security (Stasi). 

Before joining Newcastle, I completed an AHRC supported PhD in Modern Languages at the University of Birmingham on the subject of communist-oriented opposition within the GDR and how the same is reconstructed within German state-mandated memory. This included a one year Fellowship at the Humboldt University Berlin supported by the Study Stipend of the Berlin House of Representatives.

Memberships

– German Studies Association 

– Memory Studies Association

– Gesellschaft für dialektische Philosophie

– Royal Historical Society

My research interests include:

• The German Democratic Republic
• The Cold War
• Collective Memory Theory
• Ideology Theory
• Antisemitism and Holocaust Studies
• State-mandated Memory
• The History of the Workers' Movement
• Nietzsche Reception
• Brecht Reception

• Brown AD. ‘Purging Cosmopolitanism’? Paul Merker and the Politics of Memory. 2022. In Preparation.
• Brown AD, Sayner J. Representing the Stasi: Archives, Knowledge and Citizenship in the former German Democratic Republic. In: Sikka, T; Longstaff, G; Walls, S, ed. ‘Disrupted Knowledge: Scholarship in a Time of Change’. Haymarket/Brill, 2022. In Preparation.
• Brown AD. Paul Merker – ‘Ein Moment Kommunistischer Ungleichzeitigkeit’. In: Preuss, E; Emery, L; Hines, M, ed. Through the Wall(s): Pluralizing East Germany. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2021. In Preparation.
• Brown AD. I Was the Last Communist Premier of East Germany: An Interview with Hans Modrow. Jacobin 2019.
• Brown AD. “In Defence of Reason? Friedrich Nietzsche in Thomas Mann’s ‘Nietzsches Philosophie im Lichte unserer Erfahrung’ and Georg Lukács’ ‘Die Zerstörung der Vernunft‘”. Nietzsche-Studien 2018, 47(1), 379–397.
• Brown AD. Hanns Eisler: “The Karl Marx of Music. Jacobin 2018.