Publications

Serial Fu Manchu. The Chinese Super-Villain and the Spread of Yellow Peril Ideology. Temple University Press, 2013.

Diaspora. Eine kritische Begriffsbestimmung. Transcript, 2005. (Einleitung.pdf)

Artificial Africas. Images of Colonialism in the Times of Globalization. University Press of New England, 2002.

Selbsterkenntnis, Körperfühlen. Medizin, Philosophie und die amerikanische Renaissance. Fink, 1997.

Spec. Issue "Refracting Modernity." With Lilean Buhl and Sabrina Czelustek, JMPS, vol. 15, no. 2, 2024.

Modernity and the Periodical Press: Trans-Atlantic Mass Culture and the Avantgardes, 1880-1920, with Felix Brinker, Brill, 2022. 

Modernities and Modernization in North America, with Ilka Brasch, Winter, 2018. 

Kurz & Knapp: Zur Mediengeschichte kleiner Formen vom 17. Jahrhundert bis heute, with Michael Gamper, transcript, 2017 (OPEN ACCESS). 

Chinatowns in a Transnational World. Myths and Realities of an Urban Phenomenon, with Vanessa Künnemann, Routledge, 2011.

Trans-Pacific Interactions. The United States and China, 1880-1950, with Vanessa Künnemann, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Ich Tarzan! Menschenaffen und Affenmenschen zwischen Science und Fiction, with Gesine Krüger and Marianne Sommer, Transcript, 2008.

Melodrama! The Mode of Excess from Early America to Hollywood, with Frank Kelleter and Barbara Krah, Winter, 2007.

VIRUS! Mutationen einer Metapher, with Brigitte Weingart, Transcript, 2004.

Globalkolorit. Multikulturalismus und Populärkultur, with Mark Terkessidis, Hannibal-Verlag, 1998.

Hyperkultur. Zur Fiktion des Computerzeitalters, with Martin Klepper and Peter Schneck, De Gruyter, 1996.

"Backwards Modernity: The Crisis, Miscellaneity, and the Legacy of Slavery." JMPS, vol. 15, no. 2, 2024, pp. 101-120. https://doi.org/10.5325/jmodeperistud.15.1.0101

“Refracting Modernity: An Introduction.” With Lilean Buhl and Sabrina Czelustek, JMPS, vol. 15, no. 2, 2024, pp. 1–18. https://doi.org/10.5325/jmodeperistud.15.1.0001

"Chorus Girl Modernity: Of Salamanders and Periodical Culture." Modernism/ modernity, 2023.

"Poetic Parties and Casual Configurations: The Little Review and Form." Journal of Modern Periodical Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, December 2022. 

“Poetic Parties and Casual Correlations: The Little Review and Form.” JMPS, vol. 13, no. 2, 2022, pp. 205–225. https://doi.org/10.5325/jmodeperistud.13.2.0205

"Against Method." Amerikastudien/ American Studies, vol. 67, no. 1, Spring 2022, pp. 11-13.

“Running Late: The Silent Serial, the Cliffhanger, and the Exigencies of Time, 1914-1920.” Oxford Handbook of Silent Cinema, edited by Charlie Keil and Rob King, Oxford UP, 2024, pp. 618-37.

“Engineered Desire: The Smart Set, Mass Culture, and the Dispositif of Distraction.” Modernity and the Periodical Press: Trans-Atlantic Mass Culture and the Avantgardes, 1880-1920, edited by Felix Brinker and Ruth Mayer, Brill, 2022.

"Dad und die Gelbe Gefahr: Der Film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings." Geschichte der Gegenwart, September 19, 2021.

“Unique Doubles: Ornamental Sisters and Dual Roles in the Transitional Era Cinema.” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, vol. 60, no. 5., January 2021, 22-47 (OPEN ACCESS). 

“Periodically Queer: Sexology and Non-Normative Sexualities in the Little Magazine The Masses.” Modernist Cultures, vol. 15, no. 4, Winter 2020.

“Endless Deferral: Theories of Mass Culture and the Aesthetics of Affect.” REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, edited by Winfried Fluck, Rieke Jordan, Stephan Kuhl, and Johannes Voelz, Gunter Narr, 2020, pp. 81-102.

“The Crime Fiction Series.” Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction, ed. Jesper Gulddal et al. Routledge, 2020, pp. 31-38.

“Kurze Formen”; “Serialität.” Ästhetische Eigenzeiten: Ein Wörterbuch. Ed. Michael Bies, Michael Gamper and Steffen Richter. Wehrhahn, 2020, pp. 182-90, 306-14.

"Kleine Literaturen als globale Literatur," Handbuch Transnationalität und Literatur, edited by Doerte Bischoff and Susanne Komfort-Hein, De Gruyter, 2019, pp. 203-15.

“Daydreams of Society: Class and Gender Performances in the Cinema of the Late 1910s,” Hollywood at the Intersection of Identity, edited by Delia Malia Konzett, Rutgers UP, 2019, pp. 21-38.

"Introduction: Modernities and Modernization in North America," with Ilka Brasch, Modernities and Modernization in North America, edited by Ilka Brasch and Ruth Mayer, Winter, 2018, pp. 9-20.

“Border Crossings: Serial Figures and the Evolution of Media,” with Shane Denson, translated by Abigail Fagan, NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Autumn, 2018, (OPEN ACCESS). 

"Media/Knowledge: American(ist) Epistemic Formats 1900/2000," with Alexander Starre, Projecting American Studies, edited by Frank Kelleter and Alexander Starre, Winter, 2018, pp. 273-286.

“Erzählen, Wissen und kleine Formen: Eine Einleitung,” with Michael Gamper, Kurz & Knapp: Zur Mediengeschichte kleiner Formen vom 17. Jahrhundert bis heute, edited by Michael Gamper and Ruth Mayer, Transcript, 2017, pp. 7-22. (OPEN ACCESS)

"Clipästhetik in der Industriemoderne: Das frühe Kino und der Zwang zur Kürze,” Kurz & Knapp: Zur Mediengeschichte kleiner Formen vom 17. Jahrhundert bis heute, edited by Michael Gamper and Ruth Mayer. Transcript, 2017, pp. 251-268. (OPEN ACCESS)

"Bits and Pieces: Seriality, Shortness and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend." Film Studies vol. 17, no. 1, Fall 2017, pp. 16-31.

"Serielle Synchronizität: Zeitmanagement im US-amerikanischen Film Serial der 1920er Jahre.” De-Synchronisieren: Leben im Plural, edited by Gabriele Brandstetter, Anne Schuh, and Kai van Eikels, Wehrhahn, 2017, pp. 223-234

"In the Nick of Time? Detective Film Serials, Temporality, and Contingency Management, 1919-1926," Velvet Light Trap, vol. 79, Spring 2017, pp. 21-35.

"Spectral Seriality: The Sights and Sounds of Count Dracula," with Shane Denson, Media of Serial Narrative, edited by Frank Kelleter, Ohio State UP, 2017, pp. 108-24.

“Modernity Management: 1920s Cinema, Mass Culture and the Film Serial,” with Ilka Brasch, Screen, vol. 57, no. 3, Autumn 2016, pp. 1-14.

"'Never twice the same': Fantômas' Early Seriality." Modernism / modernity, vol 23, no. 2, April 2016, pp. 341-64 (OPEN ACCESS). 

"Early Post-Cinema: The Short Form, 1900/2000," Post-Cinema: Theorizing 21st-Century Film, edited by Shane Denson and Julia Leyda, Reframe, 2016, pp. 1-36 (OPEN ACCESS)

"Die Geburt der Nation als Migrationspraxis: Benedict Andersons Imagined Communities." Schlüsselwerke der Migrationsforschung: Pionierstudien und Referenztheorien, edited by Julia Reuter and Paul Mecheril,  Springer VS, 2015, pp. 263-74. 

"Dracula: Die serielle Figur als Medium und Grenzgänger," Total: Universalismus und Partikularismus in postkolonialer Medientheorie, edited by Ulrike Bergermann and Nanna Heidenreich, Transcript, 2015, pp. 117-33. 

“Postcolonial/Transcultural/Transnational: American Studies, American Literature, and the World.” American Studies Today: New Research Agendas, edited by Erik Redling et al., Winter, 2014, pp.139-55. 

“Machinic Fu Manchu. Popular Seriality and the Logic of Spread.” Journal of Narrative Theory, vol. 43, no. 3, 2013, pp. 186-217. 

"Image Power: Seriality, Iconicity, and The Mask of Fu Manchu." Screen, vol. 53, no. 4, Winter, 2012, pp. 1-20.

“Bildstörung. Serielle Figuren und der Fernseher.” With Shane Denson. Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft, 2012, pp. 90-102 (OPEN ACCESS) 

"Die Logik der Serie. Fu Manchu, Fantômas und die serielle Produktion ideologischen Wissens." Pop. Kultur und Kritik, vol. 1, no. 1, 2012, pp. 136-54.

"'Island is not far': Zur Konstruktion von Insularität, Ausschluss und Exil auf Angel Island, 1910-1940.” Literatur und Exil: Neue Perspektiven, edited by Doerte Bischoff and Susanne Komfort-Hein, De Gruyter, 2013, pp. 283-95. 

“Diaspora.” Leit- und Streitbegriffe der Interkulturalitätsdebatte, edited by Gita Dharampal-Frick, Minou Friele, and Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, Alber Verlag, 2012, pp. 183-87.

“Discursive Contamination: Terrorism, The Body Politic, and the Virus as Trope.“ With Brigitte Weingart. (machine). body. gender. technology, edited by Michaela Hampf and MaryAnn Snyder-Körber, Winter, 2012, pp. 137-56.

“Grenzgänger. Serielle Figuren im Medienwechsel.” With Shane Denson. Populäre Serialität: Narration-Evolution-Distinktion. Zum seriellen Erzählen seit dem 19. Jahrhundert, edited by Frank Kelleter, Transcript, 2012, pp. 185-203.

“Die asiatische Diaspora: Begriffe, Geschichte, Debatten.” Asiatische Deutsche. Vietnamesische Diaspora und Beyond, edited by Kien Nghi Ha, Assoziation A, 2011, pp.43-56.

"A 'bit of orient set down in the heart of a Western metropolis': The Chinatown in the United States and Europe." Chinatowns in a Transnational World. Myths and Realities of an Urban Phenomenon, edited by Vanessa Künnemann and Ruth Mayer, Routledge, 2011, pp. 1-25.

"'The greatest novelty of the age': Fu-Manchu, Chinatown, and the Global City." Chinatowns in a Transnational World. Myths and Realities of an Urban Phenomenon, edited by Vanessa Künnemann and Ruth Mayer,  Routledge, 2011, pp. 116-34.

"A Rage for Authenticity: Richard Powers' The Time of Our Singing, Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude, and the Quest for Pure Hybridity." The Pathos of Authenticity. American Passions of the Real, edited by Andrew Gross, Ulla Haselstein and MaryAnn Snyder-Körber, Winter, 2010, pp. 163-78.

"The Glittering Machine of Modernity: The Chinatown in American Silent Film." Modernism/ modernity, vol. 16, no. 4, 2009, pp. 661-84.

"Transnational Nationalisms – China and the United States in a Pacific World. An Introduction." With Vanessa Künnemann. Trans-Pacific Interactions. The United States and China, 1880-1950, edited by Vanessa Künnemann and Ruth Mayer, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 1-18.

"Paper Citizens and Biometrical Identification. Immigration, Nationality, and Belonging in Chinese America during the Exclusion Era." Trans-Pacific Interactions. The United States and China, 1880-1950, edited by Vanessa Künnemann and Ruth Mayer,  Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 85-104.

"The Dangers of Diaspora: Some Thoughts about the Black Atlantic." Transcultural English Studies: Theories, Fictions, Realities, Asnel-Papers 12, edited by Frank Schulze-Engler and Sissy Helff, Rodopi, 2009, pp. 91-102.

"Figuren des Dazwischen. Menschenaffen und Affenmenschen als Grenzwesen. Eine Einleitung." With Gesine Krüger and Marianne Sommer. Ich Tarzan! Menschenaffen und Affenmenschen zwischen Science und Fiction, edited by Gesine Krüger, Ruth Mayer, and Marianne Sommer, Transcript, 2008, pp. 7-22.

"Entartung? Tarzan, Charles Darwin, Max Nordau und der Mann der Zukunft." Ich Tarzan! Menschenaffen und Affenmenschen zwischen Science und Fiction, edited by Gesine Krüger, Ruth Mayer and Marianne Sommer, Transcript, 2008, pp. 133-48.

"The Things of Civilization, the Matters of Empire. Representing Jemmy Button." New Literary History, vol. 39, 2008, pp. 193-215.

"Mutations: The Trope of the Virus". The Body as Interface: Dialogues Between the Disciplines, edited by Sabine Sielke and Elisabeth Schäfer-Wünsche, Winter, 2007, pp. 197-202.

"'Intollerable excesse and bravery.' On Dressing Up in Puritan New England". Styling Texts: Dress and Fashion in Literature, edited by Cynthia Kuhn and Cindy Karlson, Cambria Press, 2007, pp. 39-59.

"Virus Discourse: The Rhetoric of Threat and Terrorism in the Biothriller." Cultural Critique vol. 66, no. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 1-20.

"'A story must have a plot, otherwise it's not a story': Anzia Yezierska's Melodramatic Meaning-Making." Melodrama! The Mode of Excess from Early America to Hollywood, edited by Frank Kelleter, Barbara Krah and Ruth Mayer, Winter, 2007, pp. 247-62.

"The Melodramatic Mode Revisited. An Introduction." With Frank Kelleter. Melodrama! The Mode of Excess from Early America to Hollywood, edited by Frank Kelleter, Barbara Krah and Ruth Mayer, Winter, 2007, pp. 7-17.

"The Atlantic in Black and White. A Critique of the Black Atlantic." Europe and America. Cultures in Translation, edited by Markus Hünemörder, Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson and Meike Zwingenberger, Winter, 2006, pp. 177-84.

"'Just Driving.' Contemporary Road Novels and the Triviality of the Outlaw Existence." From Landscape to Technoscape: Concepts of Space in American Culture, edited by Klaus Benesch and Kerstin Schmidt, Rodopi, 2005, pp. 369-84.

"'Bei Berührung Tod': Virenthriller, Bioterrorismus und die Logik des Globalen." VIRUS! Mutationen einer Metapher, edited by Ruth Mayer and Brigitte Weingart, Transcript, 2004, pp. 209-29.

"Viren zirkulieren. Eine Einleitung." With Brigitte Weingart. VIRUS! Mutationen einer Metapher, edited by Ruth Mayer and Brigitte Weingart, Transcript, 2004, pp. 7-41.

"Mythos Afrika: Peter Beard und Alfredo Jaars Afrikafotografien." Mythen in Kunst und Literatur: Tradition und kulturelle Repräsentation, edited by Annette Simonis and Linda Simonis,  Böhlau-Verlag, 2004, pp. 404-18.

"Fauler Zauber: Von Inseln im Netz und Löchern in der Matrix." Cyberfiktionen: Neue Beiträge, edited by Jörn Glasenapp and Claudia Lillge, Reinhard Fischer Verlag, 2002, pp. 84-99.

"Science Studies – Global Studies? Kulturwissenschaften im Wandel". Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven in der Nordamerika-Forschung, edited by Friedrich Jaeger, Stauffenberg, 2002, pp. 63-80.

"'Africa as an Alien Future': The Middle Passage, Afrofuturism, and Postcolonial Waterworlds." Amerikastudien/American Studies, vol. 45, no. 4, 2000, pp. 555-66.

"The White Hunter. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, Clint Eastwood, and the Art of Acting Male in Africa." Subverting Masculinities, edited by Frank Lay and Russell West, Rodopi, 2001, pp. 247-67.

"Trick Translation: African Adventures And American Affairs." The Making of America, edited by Susanne Rohr, Sabine Sielke and Peter Schneck, Winter, 2000, pp. 199-214.

"Pop as a Difference Engine: Music, Markets, and Marginality." Simulacrum America, edited by Elisabeth Kraus and Carolin Auer, Camden House, 2000, pp. 149-60.

"'Arousing the slumbering woman's nature.' Poetry, Pornography, and other 19th Century Writing on Female Passion." Nineteenth Century Studies, vol. 13, 1999, pp. 83-101.

"Vielbevölkerte Zone. Kulturwissenschaften zwischen Gutmenschentum und dem Glamour der Rebellion." Die kleinen Unterschiede. Der Cultural Studies-Reader, edited by Jan Engelmann, Campus, 1999, pp. 231-43.

"Looking Forward to Looking Back. Steve Erickson's Retrofitted Future in 'From Arc d'X.'" Re-Visioning the Past. Historical Self-Reflexivity in American Short Fiction, edited by Bernd Engler and Oliver Scheiding, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1998, pp. 411-24.

"Revising Slavery. Contemporary Black Culture and the Turn to the Past." Annals of Scholarship, vol. 12, no. 3,4, 1998, pp. 83-90.

"Schmutzige Fakten: Wie sich Differenz verkauft." Mainstream der Minderheiten. Pop in der Kontrollgesellschaft, edited by Tom Holert and Mark Terkessidis, ID-Archiv, 1996, pp. 153-68.

"Übersetzungsmaschinen und Techno-Affen. Michael Crichtons Congo". Aktuelle Tendenzen der Unterhaltungsliteratur, edited by Dieter Petzold and Eberhard Späth, Universitätsbund Erlangen-Nürnberg, 1998, pp. 161-72.

"'Taste It!' American Advertising, Ethnicity, and the Rhetoric of Nationhood in the 1920s."Amerikastudien/American Studies, vol. 43, no. 1, 1998, pp. 131-41.

"Retuschierte Bilder. Multikulturalismus, Populärkultur und Cultural Studies." With Mark Terkessidis. Globalkolorit. Multikulturalismus und Populärkultur, edited by Ruth Mayer and Mark Terkessidis, Hannibal-Verlag, 1998, pp. 7-23.

"Cosmo-Politisch. Feminismus, Globalisierung und Modemagazine der Neunziger". Globalkolorit. Multikulturalismus und Populärkultur, edited by Ruth Mayer and Mark Terkessidis, Hannibal-Verlag, 1998, pp. 163-79.

"Magical Mystery Tours : Ben Okri, Ishmael Reed and the New Age of Africa." Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, vol. 45, no. 3, 1997, pp.  226-35.

"Neither Life Nor Death: Poe's Aesthetic Transfiguration of Popular Notions of Death." Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism, vol. 29, no. 1, 1996, pp. 1-8.

"Hyperkultur – Die ganze Welt ist ein Text." With Peter Schneck. Hyperkultur: Zur Fiktion des Computerzeitalters, edited by Martin Klepper, Ruth Mayer and Peter Schneck,  De Gruyter, 1996, pp. 1-13.

"Cyberpunk. Eine Begriffsbestimmung". Hyperkultur. Zur Fiktion des Computerzeitalters, edited by Martin Klepper, Ruth Mayer, and Ernst-Peter Schneck, De Gruyter, 1996, pp. 221-33.

"Der Text als Hologramm: Die Cyberpunk-Literatur und die Kultur der Virtualität." Hyperkultur: Zur Fiktion des Computerzeitalters, edited by Martin Klepper, Ruth Mayer, and Ernst-Peter Schneck, De Gruyter, 1996, pp. 221-33.

"Mythifying Africa." Connotations, vol. 5, no. 2-3, 1995/1996, pp. 187-207.

"'Ther's somethin' in blood, after all.' Late Nineteenth Century Fiction and the Rhetoric of Race."REAL. Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, vol. 11, 1995, pp. 119-37.

"Discursive Difference: Toward a Correlation of the Scientific and the Aesthetic." Amerika­studien/American Studies, vol. 39, no. 4, 1994, pp. 499-510.