MONOGRAPH
Hilmar, Till. 2023. Deserved. Economic Memories after the Fall of the Iron Curtain, New York: Columbia University Press, find the book at CUP or on Amazon
In this essay for AEON Magazine, I share some key insights from the book:
https://aeon.co/essays/in-post-communist-europe-economics-is-laden-with-morality
Reviewed in: CEU Review of Books, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, Understanding Society, Economic Sociology (MPIfG)
For a list of current talks and presentations, see the website of the Department of Sociology, University of Vienna
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Hilmar, Till (forthcoming). Signifying the Present in Links to the Past: Memory Organizations React to the February 24, 2022 Russian Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine, in: American Journal of Cultural Sociology
Paolillo, Rocco, Hilmar, Till & Patrick Sachweh. 2025. Contingencies of Solidarity: Comparing Twitter discourses in Italy and Germany during the Covid-19 crisis, in; Sociological Reserach Online, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13607804241306383
Abramowski, Ruth & Till Hilmar. 2025. #moralischverletzt – Berufsethische Ansprüche und die Artikulation kollektiver Ungerechtigkeitserfahrungen von Pflegekräften während der Coronapandemie [#moralischverletzt – Professional ethical demands and the articulation of collective experiences of injustice by nursing staff during the coronavirus pandemic], in: Zeitschrift für Soziologie (Schwerpunktheft Verletzbarkeit und Gesellschaft), OnlineFirst, https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zfsoz-2025-2005/html
Hilmar, Till. 2024. Who deserves economic relief? Examining Twitter/X debates about Covid-19 economic relief for small businesses and the self-employed in Germany, in: Journal of Social Policy, OnlineFirst, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000096
Hilmar, Till, Iveta Ķešāne, Nina Margies & Monika Verbalyte. 2024. Introduction to the Special Issue: Deep transformations: Lived experiences and emotions in social change narratives, in: Cultural Sociology, OnlineFirst, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17499755241233619
Ulinskaitė, Jogilė, Hilmar, Till & Monika Verbalyte. 2024. Emotions in a time of radical change: Untangling narratives of pride and achievements in post-1989/91 Lithuania and East Germany, in: Cultural Sociology, OnlineFirst, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17499755241231059
Hilmar, Till. 2023. Restoring economic pride? How right-wing populists moralize economic change, in: Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 31(2), 291-305, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14782804.2022.2056
Hilmar, Till. 2022. Fragile bonds of recognition: Exploring the social underpinnings of sentiments of exclusion in post-1989 East Germany, in: European Journal of Sociology, 63(2), 247-278 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003975622000236729
Hilmar, Till & Patrick Sachweh. 2022. „Poison to the economy.“ (Un-)taxing the wealthy in the German federal parliament from 1996 to 2016 in: Social Justice Research, 35(4), 462-489, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-021-00383-y
Hilmar, Till. 2021. Culture in Network Breaks. Tie Dissolution as a Vehicle of Justice, Poetics, 87, [101528], https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X20302825
Hilmar, Till. 2021. Sich treu geblieben? Symbolische Grenzziehungen in inner-ostdeutschen Sozialgefügen vor dem Hintergrund des Nachwendeschocks, in: Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 50(2), 131-152, https://doi.org/10.1515/zfsoz-2021-0010
Hilmar, Till. 2021. “Economic memories” of the aftermath of the 1989 revolutions in East Germany and the Czech Republic, East European Politics and Societies, 35(1), 89-112, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0888325420902248
Hilmar, Till. 2019. The Temporal Logic of Deservingness. Inequality Beliefs in Two Post-Socialist Societies, Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 5, 1-16, https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2378023119864231
-> A presentation of this paper can be found on Youtube
Hilmar, Till. 2016. Narrating Unity at the European Union’s new History Museum: A Cultural Process Approach to the Study of Collective Memory, European Journal of Sociology, 57(2), 297–329. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003975616000114
Hilmar, Till. 2016. Storyboards of Remembrance. Representations of the Past in Visitors’ Photography at Auschwitz, Memory Studies, 9 (4), 455–470. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1750698015605572
BOOKS and EDITED VOLUMES
Hilmar, Till. 2023. Deserved. Economic Memories after the Fall of the Iron Curtain (New York: Columbia University Press)
Haag, Hanna & Till Hilmar (eds.) (2024). Erinnerung des Umbruchs, Umbruch der Erinnerung. Die Nachwendezeit im deutschen und ostmitteleuropäischen Gedächtnis (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag), https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-42651-4
Hilmar, Till. 2014. Storyboards der Erinnerung. Eine empirische Fallstudie zu Geschichtsbildern und ästhetischer Wahrnehmung beim Besuch der Gedenkstätte Auschwitz-Birkenau (Vienna: New Academic Press).
Hilmar, Till. 2010 (ed.). Ort, Subjekt, Verbrechen. Koordinaten historisch-politischer Bildungsarbeit zum Nationalsozialismus, (Vienna: Czernin – Verein GEDENKDIENST).
BOOK CHAPTERS
Hilmar, Till, Rocco Paolillo & Patrick Sachweh (2025). Contagious economic failure? Discourses around “zombie firms” in Covid-19 ridden Germany and Italy, in: Martin Butler, Sina Fazin, Michael Fuchs & Fabian Hempel (eds.), Coming to Terms with a Crisis: Cultural Engagements with Covid-19 (Bielefeld: Transcript), 169-192, open access: https://www.transcript-publishing.com/978-3-8376-7060-8/coming-to-terms-with-a-crisis/
Hilmar, Till. 2024. The ‘Turncoat’ as a Social Form. Tracing Everyday Grammars of Justice post-1989, in: Jill Massino & Markus Wien (eds.), History Doesn’t Travel in One Direction: Everyday Life and ‘Real-Existing’ Post-Socialism (West Lafayette: Purdue Univ. Press), open access: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/ces/9/
Hilmar, Till. 2024. Technik und Moral statt Politik: Ostdeutsche und tschechische Ingenieur:innen erinnern die Nachwendezeit, in: Hanna Haag & Till Hilmar (eds.), Erinnerung des Umbruchs, Umbruch der Erinnerung. Die Nachwendezeit im deutschen und ostmitteleuropäischen Gedächtnis (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag), https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-658-42651-4_8
Hilmar, Till. 2023. Economic Change, Skills, and Shifting Horizons of Social Recognition: East German and Czech Care Workers Remember the Disruptive 1990s, in: Veronika Pehe & Joanna Wawrzyniak (eds.), Remembering the Neoliberal Turn. Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989 (New York: Routledge), 115-131, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/b23366-9/economic-change-skills-shifting-horizons-social-recognition-till-hilmar
Hilmar, Till. 2022. Class, in: Jenny Wüstenberg & Yifat Gutman (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism (New York: Routledge), 180–184, https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Memory-Activism/Gutman-Wustenberg/p/book/9780367650391
Hilmar, Till. 2021. Einleitung, in: Verein GEDENKDIENST (ed): Orientierungen, Irritationen. Studienfahren an Erinnerungsorte der NS-Verbrechen (Vienna: LIT), 3-12.
Sachweh, Patrick and Hilmar, Till. 2020. Moral Economy. Moral Forces in Economic Activity, in: Zafirovski, Milan (ed.). A Modern Guide to Economic Sociology (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar), 166-185.
Hilmar, Till. 2020. Links to the Past, Bridges for the Present? Recognition Among Memory Organizations in a European Network, in: Jenny Wüstenberg & Aline Sierp (eds.): Agency in European Memory (Oxford/New York: Berghahn), 241–260, https://doi.org/10.1515/9781789206951-014
Hilmar, Till. 2019. Bringing the East back in? Relational Historiography at the House of European History in Brussels, in: Wakounig, Marija; Kühnel, Ferdinand (eds.), Approaching East-Central Europe over the Centuries, Europa Orientalis/19 (Vienna: LIT), 183–198.
Hilmar, Till. 2018. Fremdheit als Vertrauensfrage, in: Tidona, Giovanni (ed): Fremdheit. Xenologische Ansätze und ihre Relevanz für die Bildungsfrage (Heidelberg: Mattes), 93–102.
Hilmar, Till. 2013. Ausgehend vom historischen Ort, wohin? „Diskursive Orte“ der Vermittlungsarbeit zum Nationalsozialismus auf Studienfahrten, in: Linda Erker, Klaus Kienesberger, Erich Vogl, Fritz Hausjell (eds.): Gedächtnis-Verlust? Geschichtsvermittlung und -didaktik in der Mediengesellschaft (Cologne: Herbert von Halem), 54–69.
SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
Beitrag in ORF III Aktuell, „Polarisierung in der Gesellschaft“, April 22 2025, https://on.orf.at/video/14272514/15865681/polarisierung-in-der-gesellschaft
„Ökonomische Opfer im Osten?“ in Merkur Heft 910, March 2025, https://www.merkur-zeitschrift.de/artikel/oekonomische-opfer-im-osten-a-mr-79-3-81/?r=2cf0d40e5df7262cd762b227d8824bcd
🎙️ Ö1 Science Arena: „Leben wir in einem neuen Biedermeier?“, December 09, 2024 https://oe1.orf.at/programm/20241209/778851/Leben-wir-in-einem-neuen-Biedermeier
„The merit principle also brings disappointment“ (Princip zásluhovosti přináší i zklamání), Interview and Book Discussion of Deserved in PageNotFound (in Czech): https://pagenotfound.cz/clanek/sociolog-hilmar-princip-zasluhovosti-prinasi-i-zklamani
„Economic Memories and Sense-making of the Profound Institutional Change“, Contribution to the Economic Sociology & Political Economy Blog, March 09, 2024, https://economicsociology.org/2024/03/09/economic-memories-and-sense-making-of-the-profound-institutional-change/
„Freundschaft in Krisenzeiten“ – Junge Forschung DiePresse, January 29, 2024, https://www.diepresse.com/18032540/freundschaft-in-krisenzeiten
🎙️ New Books Network Podcast, hosted by Jill Massino, January 10, 2024: Deserved. Economic Memories after the Fall of the Iron Curtain, https://newbooksnetwork.com/deserved
🎙️ „Economic Memories of Transformation“ – RECET Transformative Podcast August 02, 2023, hosted by Rosamund Johnston, https://recet.podbean.com/e/economic-memories-of-transformation-till-hilmar/
„Who deserves what? Making sense of inequalities during times of crisis“, Rudolphina Magazine University of Vienna, March 23,2023, https://rudolphina.univie.ac.at/en/memories-of-transformations-and-inequality
„Covid-19 sparks new East-West Divide, 30 Years after Reunification“, The Wall Street Journal, Oct 03, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-sparks-new-east-west-divide-in-germany30-years-after-reunification-11601717400
„Im Zeitalter des Vergleichs – und des Verrats?“ derstandard.at, July 2016, https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000040984089/im-zeitalter-des-vergleichs-und-des-verrats
„Fotos gegen das Vergessen“. NZZ, January 27, 2015, https://www.nzz.ch/panorama/auschwitz-duerfen-touristen-in-kz-gedenkstaetten-fotos-machen-ld.732058
„Politische Bildungsreisen“, in: Wiener Zeitung, March 26/27, 2011
REVIEWS
Book review: Agents of Reform: Child Labor and the Origins of the Welfare State by Elisabeth Anderson. Acta Sociologica. https://doi.org/10.1177/00016993221136028
Book review of Daniel Ziblatt, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, Cambridge University Press 2017, in Falter, January 2018
Book review of Arlie Hochschild, Strangers in their own land. Anger and mourning on the American right, The New Press 2016, in Falter, December 2016
„Diesseits und jenseits des Holocaust. Aus der Geschichte lernen in Gedenkstätten“, Conference report on HSoZKult 03/2012
Review of Bettina Schaefer (ed.): Lass uns über Auschwitz sprechen. Gedenkstätte – Museum – Friedhof. Begegnungen mit dem Weltkulturerbe Auschwitz, Brandes&Apsel, Frankfurt a.M 2009, reviewed in Theologie und Geschichte Vol. 7 (2012)
Review of Christian Gudehus; Ariane Eichenberg; Harald Welzer (eds.): Gedächtnis und Erinnerung. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch,J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010 reviewed in GEDENKDIENST 4/2011
GitHub: https://github.com/tillhilmar