Heidi Hein-Kircher is director of the Martin Opitz Library (Herne) and professor at Ruhr-University Bochum. She earned her M.A. and PhD from Heinrich Heine-University in Düsseldorf in 2000 and worked on the research staff of the Herder-Institute for Historical Research in East Central Europe – Member of the Leibniz-Association in Marburg, Germany between 2003 and 2024, since 2009 as the head of department “Academic Forum”. In 2018, she received her habilitation degree at Philipps-University Marburg. In her research, she focuses on urban history (emerging cities), on memory studies, historical critical security, and conflict studies, and on modernity, family values and gender history in Eastern Europe. Selected Publications: Lembergs ‘polnischen Charakter sichern. Kommunalpolitik in einer multiethnischen Stadt der Habsburgermonarchie 1861/62-1914 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2020), Consumption and Advertising in Eastern Europe and Russian in the Twentieth Century, ed. with Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger and Julia Malitska (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023); Rampart Nations. Bulwark Myths of East European Multiconfessional Societies in the Age of Nationalism, ed. with Liliya Berezhnaya (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books 2019). ORCID: 0000-0003-3455-5410.