Keynote Speakers

Prof. Dr. Martin Hartmann

Professor Hartmann studied philosophy, comparative literature und sociology at the University of Constance, the London School of Economics and the Freie Universität in Berlin. He received his PhD with a thesis entitled "Kreativität der Gewohnheit. Grundzüge einer pragmatistischen Demokratietheorie (The Creativity of Habit: Principles of a Pragmatist Theory of Democracy)" at the Goethe University Frankfurt in 2001 where he also qualified in 2009 as a professor (Habilitation) with a thesis entitled "Die Praxis des Vertrauens (The Practice of Trust)".

While a scientific assistant and lecturer at the Department of Philosophy of the Goethe-University Professor Martin Hartmann was also a research associate at the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt (Institut für Sozialforschung). He was a visiting fellow at the University of Chicago and the "Maison des Sciences de l’Homme" in Paris and an associate professor at the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, the Technische Universität Darmstadt and the Goethe University Frankfurt.

Prof. Dr. Susan Castillo

Professor Susan Castillo's work draws on scholarship from the fields of history, literature, sociology, gender studies, political science, anthropology, and history of art. She edits Journal of American Studies (CUP), the leading publication in United States Studies on this side of the Atlantic, and she is on the Executive Boards of the International American Studies Association, the National Conference of University Professors, and the British Association for American Studies. Her anthology of Early American writing, The Literatures of Colonial America: An Anthology was received with similar enthusiasm by critics. Professor Richard Gray, FBA, comments, “This is that rare thing, a landmark anthology. Shifting the critical paradigms as it does, while providing a rich diversity of material, this anthology will undoubtedly be an indispensable resource for students of American literature and history." Her edited volumes, Engendering Identities: Native American Women in Literature and Culture and Pos-Colonialismo e Identidade (Lusophone post-colonial history, sociology, literature, and popular culture) are similarly interdisciplinary, multi-lingual and wide-ranging in nature. She has also published a book of poetry, The Candlewoman’s Trade (2003) with Diehard Press and is a practicing literary translator.

 

Opening Address

John B. Emerson

John B. Emerson was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 1, 2013 as U.S. Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany and presented his credentials to German President Joachim Gauck on August 26, 2013. Mr. Emerson served on President Clinton’s senior staff, from 1993-1997. He served as Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel, and subsequently as Deputy Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, where he was the President’s liaison to the nation’s governors. Mr. Emerson also coordinated the Economic Conference of the Clinton-Gore transition team and led the Administration’s efforts to obtain congressional approval of the GATT Uruguay Round Agreement in 1994, and the extension of China’s MFN trading status in 1996. In 2010, President Obama appointed Mr. Emerson to serve on the President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.

 

Art contribution

Isabella Streffen, Ph.D.

Isabella Streffen is an artist currently based in the UK, where she works across media to examine and respond to fundamental problems of politics, perception, technology and narrative.  She has a particular fascination with and feeling for contested sites, performing a kind of intellectual fieldwork that engages with the conditions of a particular culture, place and world-view to throw light on their origins and consequences. 

Isabella has exhibited in Europe and the US since  receiving her BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Sheffield Hallam University in 2001.  She subsequently received her MFA from Newcastle University and her PhD “I Spy With my Military Eye: strategies of military vision in fine art practice” from Newcastle University. She was post-doctoral researcher at CRUMB at the University of Sunderland before joining the department of English and American Studies at the University of Manchester in spring 2013 to co-curate the forthcoming exhibition Show Me The Money: Visualising Finance 1700-present. She also joined the Fine Art team at Oxford Brookes in the summer of 2013 as an Early Career Research Fellow.

Isabella works collaboratively as co-editor with Siofra McSherry and Sarah Archino of AndOr, a project experimenting with on-line and off-line dialogues between artists, writers, and art historians.

Isabella is currently working on three major projects: dronology, a website cataloguing and collating data on projects/research relating to drones, which also comprises the research background for her forthcoming film Volo; her long-term project Border Strategy (2010-); and on the preparatory stage of a substantial new body of work Aerial Culture.