Since 03/2025: Assistant Professor (Wiss. Mitarbeiterin), North American Literature, John F. Kennedy-Institute of the Freie Universität Berlin

02/2025 – 05/2025: Visiting Research Fellow at UC Santa Barbara and Stanford University 

02/2025: PhD Defense: “Postpost-9/11 Imaginaries: Narrative and Discursive Transformations Beyond the War on Terror” (summa cum laude), University of Wuppertal and Graduate School “Practices of Literature,” University of Münster

10/2024 – 02/2025: Assistant Professor (Wiss. Mitarbeiterin), Center for Narrative Research University of Wuppertal

10/2021 – 02/2025: Assistant Professor (Wiss. Mitarbeiterin), American Studies, University of Wuppertal

[04/2020 – 10/2021: Parental Leave]

10/2018 – 04/2020: Assistant Professor (Wiss. Mitarbeiterin), American Studies, University of Wuppertal

10/2017 – 09/2020: Lecturer (Lehrkraft für besondere Aufgaben), American Studies, University of Münster

2015 – 2016: Visiting Language Fellow at Vassar College, NY

Fellowships, Awards, and Grants (Selection):

02/2025 – 05/2025: DAAD scholarship for a research stay at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Stanford University

06/2021: Conference grant awarded by the Center for Graduate Studies (ZGS) of the University of Wuppertal for the public event “Erinnern ohne Zeitzeug*innen – Erinnern mit Zweitzeug*innen”

02/2021: Project Grant “Leuchtturmprojekt” awarded by Universitätsgesellschaft Münster e.V. for Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology

02/2020: Conference grant awarded by the Center for Graduate Studies (ZGS) of the University of Wuppertal for the workshop “Ecocriticism as a Current Trajectory for Narrative Research”

09/2019: Conference grant awarded by the Center for Graduate Studies (ZGS) of the University of Wuppertal for the symposium “Current Trajectories in Narrative Research”

02/2019: Research grant awarded by the Universitätsgesellschaft Münster e.V. for Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology

06/2018: DAAD/BMBF smartNETWORK international travel grant for the lecture series „Why Literary Studies Matter Now: Academic Practices in an Anti-Intellectual Climate”

04/2018: DAAD/BMBF smartNETWORK international conference grant for the Anniversary Conference of the Graduate School “Practices of Literature”

03/2018: DAAD travel grant for attending the PCA/ACA Conference in Indianapolis

01/2018: DAAD/BMBF smartNETWORK international Conference Grant for the conference “Negotiating Gender in Popular Culture”

01/2018: Conference grant by the Office for Equality and Inclusion (Gleichstellungsbüro) at the University of Münster for the student conference “Negotiating Gender in Popular Culture”

01/2018: Safir Award for student research projects for “Negotiating Gender in Popular Culture,” University of Münster

10/2017: Travel grant for the conference “Reading American TV Series,” Saarland University

08/2015 – 05/2016: “Language Fellowship” (full scholarship and teaching assistant position) at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY

06/2015: Conference grant by Universitätsgesellschaft Münster e.V. for the student conference “Self in the Making – Narrative and Performative Constructions of Identity”

Committee Work and External Functions

Since 06/2022: Postgraduate Representative and Member of the Advisory Board of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS/DGfA)

04/2023 – 02/2025: Board Member of the Center for Narrative Research (ZEF), University of Wuppertal

10/2023 – 02/2025: Evaluation Committee of the Joint Study Committee (Evaluationskommission des Gemeinsamen Studienausschusses), School of Education, University of Wuppertal

04/2019 – 02/2025: Co-Chair of the Narrative Research Group at the Center for Narrative Research (ZEF), University of Wuppertal

04/2019 – 03/2020: Hiring Committee (Berufungskommission) W2-Professorship für “French and Spanish Literary Studies,” University of Wuppertal

01/2019 – 09/2020: Joint Decision-Making Committee (Gemeinsamer beschließender Ausschuss für den Erwerb des Doktortitels in Erziehungswissenschaften), University of Münster

10/2018 – 09/2020: Representative of the non-professorial faculty (Mittelbauvertreterin), Faculty of Philology, University of Münster

10/2018 – 09/2020: Deputy Member of the faculty council (Fachbereichsrat) Faculty of Philology, University of Münster

10/2018 – 12/2019: Hiring Committee (Berufungskommission) W2-Professorship “Book Studies,” University of Münster

04/2018 – 10/2018: PhD Student Representative and Member of the Executive Board of the Graduate School “Practices of Literature,” University of Münster

10/2017 – 09/2018: Selection Committee (Auswahlkommission) Graduate School “Practices of Literature,” University of Münster

03/2017 – 05/2023: Co-editor of Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology

07/2016 – 09/2020: Coordination of the “Language Fellow Program” with Vassar College, NY, University of Münster

TEACHING (Selection)

• Temporalities in/of Crisis (from the Early Republic to the Anthropocene) | University of Wuppertal
• Representing 9/11: Literature, Media, Culture | Augsburg University (Blockseminar, WS 2024/25)
• Critical Theory | University of Wuppertal
• (Trans)Formations in North American Literature and Culture | University of Wuppertal
• Narrating the Climate Crisis – Empathy, Responsibility, (Dis)Trust | University of Wuppertal
• Introduction to Literary Studies | University of Wuppertal
• Zombie Narratives | University of Münster
• Complex TV | University of Münster
• Hotspots in Literary/Cultural Studies and Linguistics | University of Münster
• The African American Literary Tradition | University of Wuppertal
• Madness in American Fiction | University of Münster
• Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies | University of Münster
• Gender in/and Horror Movies | University of Münster
• Communicating Texts and Theories: From Slavery to Black Lives Matter | University of Münster
• Academic Skills | University of Münster
• Communicating Texts and Theories: Slavery on Page and Screen | University of Münster
• Race and Gender in Contemporary American Film and Fiction | University of Münster

Current Activities and Projects

• Postpost-9/11 Imaginaries: Narrative and Discursive Transformations Beyond the War on Terror [completed PhD thesis, currently in preparation for publication]
• (Un)Doing Trust in North American Life Writing: Crisis, Affect, Citizenship [PostDoc/habilitation project]
• More-than-Human Entanglement(s) in North American Literature
• Narrating the Climate Crisis

Talks and Guest Lectures (Selection)

• 12/2024: Entanglement, Kinship, and Ethics in a More-than-Human World. “Amorphous Bodies: Lecture-Praxis Series in Critical Posthumanist Dis/ability Studies,” Münster.
• 12/2024: Paradigms of (Dis)Trust in American Literature and Culture. LitCult Kolloquium, Freiburg.
• 11/2024: Affects, Ethics, Entanglements. Symposium “Conceptualizing More-than-Human Relationalities,” Wuppertal.
• 05/2024: (Dis)Trust, Crisis, and Cruel Optimism in the American Literary Imagination. Joint American Studies Colloquium (Düsseldorf, Wuppertal, Siegen), Wuppertal.
• 12/2024: (Un)Dead Tissue of Quotation: (Genre) Memory and the Agency of Matter in Contemporary (Zombie) Fiction. Workshop “More-than-Human Studies,” Online.
• 09/2023 Memory, Space, and the Agency of Matter in (Contemporary) Zombie Narratives. “Dead Or Alive: The Current State of Zombie Studies,” Frankfurt.
• 06/2023: Transmedia Practices and Political Meaning-Making in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Freiburg.
• 06/2023: Televisionary Club: The Marvel TV Universe (with Sarah Wagner, René Freudenthal, and Sabine Pawletta). Carl-Schurz-Haus / Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut e.V., Freiburg.
• 06/2023: Unsettling Art, Land, and Property: (Post)Human Entanglements in Rita Indiana’s Tentacle. Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA), Rostock.
• 05/2023: Transcending Conquistador Humanism: More-than-Human Entanglements in Contemporary Caribbean Fiction. Symposium “More-than-Human Studies,” Karlstad.
• 10/2022: Coexistence, Cooperation, Composition: Reflections on More-than-Human Art. Workshop “More-than-Human Studies,” Online/Karlstad/Göttingen/Wuppertal.
• 07/2022: Keynote Lecture: Post-9/11 Politics of Memory and Politics of Forgetting in Colson Whitehead’s Zone One. Workshop “Cultural Memory and Literature: Research in Dialogue,” Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.
• 07/2022: Through the Eyes of the White, Innocent Child – Communicating Risk, Vulnerability and (Environmental) Crisis in Lauren Tarshis’ I Survived Series. Conference “Natural Catastrophes in the United States: Making Sense of Risk and Vulnerabilities,” Heidelberg.
• 06/2022: Relational Responsibility/Responsible Relationality in a More-than-Human World. Symposium: “Articulations of the Nonhuman Turn in Theory, Literature, and the Arts,” Göttingen.
• 06/2022: Towards a Postpost-9/11 Mode? Narrative and Discursive (Trans)Formation Beyond the War on Terror. Düsseldorf.
• 05/2022: Negotiating Social and Environmental Justice in U.S. American Pop Music. Seminar “Environmental Justice,” Potsdam.
• 05/2022: More-than-Human Representations in Contemporary North American Film and Television. Lecture Series “Critical Futures: The Humanities in a More-than-Human World,” Wuppertal.
• 04/2022: Desert Power, Desert Thinking – New Epistemologies of the Wasteland in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (2021). European Association of American Studies (EAAS), Madrid.
• 03/2022: Posthuman Anxieties in Contemporary American Pop Culture: Re-Visiting Altered Carbon’s Gothic Mode(s). Workshop “More-than-Human Studies,” Göttingen/Wuppertal/Karlstad.
• 02/2022: Affect, (Non)Belonging, and Crisis: American Literature as a Literature of (Dis)Trust?. Workshop “Trust, Crisis, Catastrophe,” Wuppertal.
• 12/2021: Agency, Voice, and Silence in the Anthropocene – Navigating the Challenges of Posthumanism, Postcolonialism, and the Climate Crisis in Contemporary Life Writing. Symposium “Silence – Catastrophe – Crisis,” Münster.
• 11/2021: Roundtable: The Migrants That (Still) Don’t Matter. Lecture Series “Talks with Taste,” Wuppertal.
• 05/2021: Disruptions of/in Queer Life Writing – Fragmentation, Materiality, and the Body in Laura Jane Grace’s Work. Workshop, “Narrated Lives, Remembered Selves,” Regensburg.
• 03/2020: Race and Gender in Rammstein’s “Deutschland”. Workshop “The Sound of Germany II – Rammstein’s “Deutschland,” Münster.
• 11/2019: Porous Borders, Porous Bodies – Negotiating Citizenship, Gender and States of Exception in Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land. Symposium “Migrant States of Exception,” Wuppertal.
• 09/2019: Deconstructing the American Risk Society – Unreliable Narration and Knowledge Production in Showtime’s Homeland. Conference “Current Trajectories in Narrative Research,” Wuppertal.
• 07/2019: The Gothic Imagination in 21st Century Sci-Fi TV. Seminar “The American Gothic,” Augsburg.
• 06/2019: Posthuman Dystopian Fictions. Narrative Research Group, Center for Narrative Research, Wuppertal.
• 06/2019: Transmediality, Commodification, and Diversity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Lecture “North American Popular Cultures,” Wuppertal.
• 06/2019: Meditations on Authorship: Narrative Opacity in Sherley Anne Williams’ Neo-Slave Narrative. Annual Meeting Society for the Study of Narrative, Pamplona [cancelled due to illness].
• 03/2019: US American Pop Music and the Legacy of Slavery, Conference “The Sound of Germany – Wie politisch ist der Pop?,” Münster.
• 11/2018: (Post)Memory, Trauma, and the City in Contemporary Zombie Narratives. Hotspots Lecture Series, Münster.
• 06/2018: Beyond the War on Terror: Marvel’s Postpost-9/11 Television. Poster presentation, Graduate School “Practices of Literature,” Münster.
• 03/2018: Feminist Challenges to Post-9/11 Nationalism in Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane. Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA), Indianapolis.

Conference and Workshop Co-Organization (Selection):

• Symposium “Conceptualizing More-than-Human Relationalities,” University of Wuppertal (11/2024)
• Joint American Studies Colloquium, University of Wuppertal (05/2024)
• Workshop: Vertrauen, Krise/Katastrophe, Erzählen (07/2022)
• Symposium: Agency, Community, Kinship – Representations of Migration Beyond Victimhood (02/2022)
• Workshops: Trust – Catastrophe – Crisis (02/2022)
• Workshop: Ecocriticism (02/2020)
• Symposium: Migrant States of Exception (11/2019)
• Conference: Current Trajectories in Narrative Research (09/2019)
• Lecture Series: Why Literary Studies Matter Now: Academic Practices in an Anti-Intellectual Climate (2018/19)
• Symposium: Beyond Endings: Past Tenses and Future Imaginaries (2018)
• Student Conference: Pop Hero and Action Princess: Negotiating Gender in Popular Culture (2018)

Edited Volumes, Monographs, and Special Issues

• Mobility, Agency, Kinship: Representations of Migration Beyond Victimhood. Palgrave Macmillan, “Palgrave Studies in Mediating Kinship, Representation, and Difference,” 2024 (edited with Carolin Gebauer and Julia Wewior).
• Rammsteins “Deutschland”: Pop – Politik – Provokation. Metzler, 2022 (with Moritz Baßler, Christoph Jürgensen, Kerstin Wilhelms et al.).
• Migrant States of Exception II, special issue of Parallax, vol. 27, no. 3 (edited with Sylvia Mieszkowski and Birgit Spengler).
• Life Writing in the Posthuman Anthropocene. Palgrave Macmillan, “Palgrave Studies in Life Writing,” 2021 (edited with Ina Batzke and Linda M. Hess).
  • Book Review by Louis van den Hengel in Biography, vol. 46, no. 2, 2023.
  • Book Review by Inés García in European Journal of Life Writing, vol. 12, 2023.
  • Book Review by Raphael Albuquerque de Boer in Ilha do Desterro: Journal of English Language, Literature in English and Cultural Studies, vol. 76, no. 2, 2023.
  • Book Review by João Pedro Martinez Pinheiro in Anthropology & Aging, vol. 44, no.1, 2023.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

• “Through the Eyes of the White, Innocent Child: Whiteness, Vulnerability, and (Environmental) Crisis in Lauren Tarshis’s I Survived Series.” Natural Disasters in the U.S. – Making Sense of Risks and Vulnerability, edited by Natalie Rauscher and Welf Werner, Springer [forthcoming 2025].
• “A Fungal Turn in Zombie Studies? Anthropocene Aesthetics, (Genre) Memory, and the Agency of Matter in Contemporary Zombie Narratives.” Dead or Alive? The Future of Zombie Studies, edited by Tim Lanzendörfer and Marlon Lieber, University Press of Mississippi [in preparation].
• “‘Death or Rebirth’: Apocalyptic Borderscapes, Topographies of Exception, and Regulating Survival in Zach Snyder’s Army of the Dead.” Apocalyptica vol. 2, no. 2, 2023 [published 09/2024], pp. 68–92.
• “Affect and the (Un)Doing of Trust in 20^th and 21st Century Black and Asian American Fiction and Nonfiction.” KWZ: Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift, vol. 1, 2024, pp. 72–95.
• “Narrative Perspectives on Migrant Agency and Kinship: An Introduction.” Mobility, Agency, Kinship: Representations of Migration Beyond Victimhood, edited by Lea Espinoza Garrido, Carolin Gebauer, and Julia Wewior, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, pp. 1–30 (with Carolin Gebauer and Julia Wewior).
• “Stadt, Raum, Erinnerung: Transnationale archivarische Praktiken in Babylon Berlin.” Babylon Berlin und die filmische (Re-)Modellierung der 1920-er Jahre, edited by Andreas Blödorn and Stephan Brössel. Rombach, 2024, pp. 139–166 (with Felipe Espinoza Garrido)]
• “Transformations of the National – Rammstein’s “Deutschland” as a Provocation of German History.” Transformational POP. Transitions, Breaks, and Crises in Popular Music (Studies) (~Vibes – The IASPM D-A-CH Series 2), edited by Beate Flath, Christoph Jacke and Manuel Troike, 2022 (with Jan Herbst, Christoph Jürgensen, Immanuel Nover et al.).
•  “Migrant Lives in a State of Exception (II): Sovereignty, Mobility and Agency in a Globalized World.” Migrant States of Exception II, special issue of Parallax, vol. 27, no. 3, 2022, pp. 241–249 (with Sylvia Mieszkowski, Birgit Spengler, and Julia Wewior).
• “Porous Borders, Porous Bodies – Citizenship, Gender and States of Exception in Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land.” Parallax, vol. 27, no. 2, 2021, pp. 176–197.
•  “Introduction: Migrant Lives in a State of Exception (Part I).” Migrant States of Exception I, special issue of Parallax, vol. 27, no. 2, 2021, pp. 115–158 (with Sylvia Mieszkowski, Birgit Spengler, and Julia Wewior).
•  “Introduction: Life Writing in the Posthuman Anthropocene.” In Life Writing in the Posthuman Anthropocene, edited by Ina Batzke, Lea Espinoza Garrido, and Linda Hess. Palgrave, “Palgrave Studies in Life Writing series” 2021, pp. 1–19 (with Ina Batzke and Linda M. Hess).
• “Beyoncé.” These Girls: Ein Streifzug durch die feministische Musikgeschichte, edited by Juliane Streich. Ventil, 2019.
•  “Luke Cage as Postpost-9/11 TV: Spatial Negotiations of Race in Contemporary U.S. Television.” COPAS vol. 19, no. 1, 2018.

Reviews and Interviews

• “Review of: Passing and Posing between Black and White: Calibrating the Color Line in U.S. Cinema, by Lisa Gotto.” American Studies: Amerikastudien vol. 68, no. 4, 2023, pp. 555–558.
• “Documentary Filmmaking and the Representation of Migrant Lives: An Interview with Yehuda Sharim.” Migrant States of Exception II, special issue of Parallax, vol. 27, no. 3, 2022, pp. 267–281 (with Sylvia Mieszkowski, Birgit Spengler, and Julia Wewior).
•  “Review of: Not Your Average Zombie: Rehumanizing the Undead from Voodoo to Zombie Walks, by Chera Kee.” Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, no. 22, 2021, pp. 109–113.
•  “Migration Emergencies in the European Postcolony: An Interview with Thomas Spijkerboer.” Migrant States of Exception I, special issue of Parallax, vol. 27, no. 2, 2021, pp. 223–239 (with Sylvia Mieszkowski, Birgit Spengler, and Julia Wewior).

Editorial Work

• Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology, vol. 21 (1.2023).
• Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology, vol. 20 (2.2022).
• Digital Methods in Literary Studies, Jan Horstman and Frank Fischer (guest editors), special issue # 6, Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology, vol. 19 (1.2022).
• Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology, vol. 18 (2.2020).
• Hybridität und Verfahrenstechnik in der Fantastik, Tobias Lambrecht and Ralph Müller (guest editors), special issue # 4 of Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology (1.2020).
• Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology vol. 17 (2.2019).
• Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology vol. 16 (1.2019).
• Autor und Werk. Wechselwirkungen und Perspektiven, Svetlana Efimova (guest editor), special issue # 3 of Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology (2.2018).
• Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology vol. 15 (1.2018).
• Textpraxis: Digital Journal for Philology vol. 14 (3.2017).