Dr. Zipser has published three major books that focus on different and very important aspects of GDR literature and cultural politics: In 2013 he published Von Oberlin nach Ostberlin. Als Amerikaner unterwegs in der DDR-Literaturszene, a documentary memoir based on experiences he had with writers and the secret police (Stasi) while doing research and travelling in communist East Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. The memoir draws heavily on a 344-page file the secret police compiled on him with the help of informants, sections of which are incorporated into the book along with appropriate commentary. He is currently translating the memoir into English and has created a website where the translations can be viewed: www.richard-zipser.com. In 1995 he published Fragebogen: Zensur. Zur Literatur vor und nach dem Ende der DDR, a documentary with a critical introduction and interviews with 70 former GDR writers on the topic of literary censorship. In 1985 he published, with the collaboration of Dr. Karl-Heinz Schoeps, DDR-Literatur im Tauwetter: Wandel-Wunsch-Wirklichkeit. This three-volume book contains a critical introduction, literary texts by 45 GDR writers, interviews with these writers, their statements on writing, and bio-bibliographical sketches. It documents in a comprehensive way the short-lived period of “thaw” in GDR cultural politics, from 1971 to 1977, when ideological restrictions on literature and the arts were relaxed.

From 1986 to 2014, Dr. Zipser was General Editor of DDR-Studien/East German Studies, a series of scholarly monographs on topics in the humanities and social sciences pertaining to the GDR.