Contingency and Contraction:
Modernity and Temporality in the United States (DFG-funded)
Research in the American Studies Division ranges across US-American history, from the revolutionary era to contemporary subjects. The divison places a strong focus on the study of Modernity, particularly the literature, film, periodicals, and illustrative arts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Other strong fields of inquiry include studies of gender, feminism, popular culture and seriality, contemporary literature, and the literature of the early Republic.
Teaching in the American Studies division is research-guided and project oriented, as exemplified in projects such as "Blogging the Election" (directed by Dr. Abigail Fagan), which students continue using the title "Blogging Beyond the Election," or the student podcast coordinated by Felix Brinker.
Ongoing Projects
Felix Brinker. "Made-Up Facts, Alternative Truths: Mass Print Media, Conspiracy Theories, Proto-Science Fiction, and the US-American Political Imaginary, 1830-1900" (Habilitation/ second book project)
Alejandra Bulla. "Hollywood on Mexican Screens: Cinematic Remaking, Markets, and Memory" (Dissertation)
Sabrina Czelustek. "Scraps of Modernity: The Work of Reproducible Images in Early 20th Century Scrapbooks" (Dissertation)
Stefan Dierkes. "Hollywood in Germany: Remaking, Memories, and Movie Generations" (Dissertation)
Abigail Fagan. "Disciplinary: Reconsidering the colonial university in the post-diversity era (working title)" (Habilitation/ second book project)
Florian Groß. "Negotiating Creativity in Post-Network Television Series" (Dissertation)
Hanna Masslich. "From Noah's Ark to Climate Change: The Flood Motif in Contemporary Fiction (working title)" (Dissertation)
Ruth Mayer. "Multiplication: Modernity, Mass Culture, Gender" (Forschungsprojekt mit Lilean Buhl und Sabrina Czelustek)
Bettina Soller. "Fan Fiction Writing: Collaborative Processes and the Performance of Authorship. Towards a Conceptualization of Categories" (Dissertation)
Katerina Steffan. "Vulnerable Bodies: Anger and Sorrow in New England Puritanism" (Dissertation)
Lujain Youssef. "Reconceptualizing Metafiction Through Affect in Contemporary American Literature (working title)" (Dissertation)
Completed Projects
Ilka Brasch. "H. H. Brackenridge's Modern Chivalry: Materiality, Archival History, Nation & Empire" (Habilitation)
Buhl, Lilean. "Resonances of Modernism: Mass Cultural Strategies of Multiplication in Modern Poetry and Avantgarde Art, 1900-1930" (Dissertation)
Annabel Friedrichs. "Imagining Change: Visual and Textual Representations of Femininity in Mass and Avant-Garde Magazines, 1880-1920" (Dissertation)
Ruth Mayer. "Contingency and Contraction: Modernity and Temporality in the United States, 1880-1920" (Forschungsprojekt mit Felix Brinker und Annabel Friedrichs)
Anna-Lena Oldehus. "Weird! Affect and Whiteness in Contemporary Immigrant Literature" (Dissertation)