OBAMA INSTITUTE

Annual Report 2019 AnnualAnnual Report Report 2019 2019 Contents

Opening Remarks 7 The Third Year of the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies 10 A View from Abroad 14 2019 at a Glance

The Obama Institute 19 Mission and History of the Obama Institute 21 Obama Institute Bylaws 24 Executive Board 27 Advisory Board 28 Obama Fellowship 29 Fellow’s Report 31 Obama Dissertation Prize 32 Winner’s Report 34 Hans Galinsky Memorial Prize 35 Prof. Dr. Gustav Blanke and Hilde Blanke Prize Imprint 36 Obama Lectures 37 Offices, Awards, and Appointments Editorial Staff Torsten Kathke, Christine Plicht Teaching at the OI in 2019 41 Selected Teaching Projects Layout 46 Teaching at Germersheim Rebecca Heeb 47 Bachelor of Arts in American Studies (Mainz) 48 Master of Arts in American Studies (Mainz) 50 Ph.D. in American Studies Obama Institute for 52 Study Abroad Transnational American Studies 54 Summer School 2019 Jakob-Welder-Weg 20 55128 Mainz Research at the OI in 2019 Germany 58 Research at the OI in 2019 60 Conferences +49-6131-39-22357 67 Selected Research Projects [email protected] 77 Habilitation 79 Selected Dissertations www.obama-institute.com 87 Selected Book Publications 91 List of Other Publications © Obama Institute for 96 List of Presentations Given by Members Transnational American Studies 2019 102 List of Presentations at the Obama Institute All rights reserved. 106 List of Faculty and Staff Members Opening Remarks

6 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 AnnualAnnual Report Report 2019 2019 | ObamaObama Institut Institute77 The Third Year of the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies

Alfred Hornung Speaker

The third year of the Obama Institute was filled with more exciting activities at home and abroad with which we continued to pursue our academic and institutional goals to engage in research and teaching of Transnational American Studies at JGU Mainz and to coordinate joint programs with universities in Rhineland-Palatinate, also part of third-party funded collaborative the Atlantic Academy in Kaiserslautern as research activities. These cross-cultural well as with international partners in Europe, and cross-disciplinary approaches to North America, Asia, and Australia. The year Transnational American Studies are also started out with the good news of being reflected in a number of conferences and recognized as one of the research platforms academic events organized in 2019. Dr. of the Johannes Gutenberg University Allison M. Stagg engaged the support of securing continuous funding of the Ministry the Terra Foundation for American Art for of Education, Science, Continued Education, a conference, co-organized with Oliver and Culture for our joint research project Scheiding and the art historian Gregor on “Disruption and Democracy in America: Wedekind, on “International Perspectives on Challenges and Potentials of Transcultural American Art” in February. Tim Lanzendörfer and Transnational Formations.” Members of and Obama fellow Mathias Nilges (St. the Obama Institute and colleagues engage Francis Xavier University) jointly organized in the following research areas: Migration “Reading in the Age of Trump: The Politics and Transculturalism, Transnational and Possibility of Literary Studies Now” in Periodical Cultures, Transnational Religion, May. Mita Banerjee and Alfred Hornung Global Indigeneities, Transpacific Relations, collaborated with colleagues from the and Medical Culture, some of which are Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and

Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 9 the Department of Medical Humanities and gave the keynote address on “Loyalty, in North America as well as exchange editorial staff, Thorsten Kathke and Christine Ethics at Columbia University to run the third Patriotism, and Nationalism in Times of relations with institutions in Europe, Asia, Plicht, who compiled this Annual Report workshop on narrative medicine in June, Crisis” and our Master students and PhD and Australia. The first two candidates, expertly with the layout assistance of preceded by a conference on “Medical candidates presented their topics in an Ashley Cheyemi R. McNeil and Thomas Rebecca Heeb. Last but not least, we Cultures.” The narrative medicine workshop elevator pitch format. Leibniz Prizewinner Breideband, completed the Dual PhD owe special thanks to Anette Vollrath is open for professionals and scholars with Heike Paul (University of Erlangen- Program with Georgia State University in and Christine Plicht, who untiringly and a background in medicine, health care or Nürnberg) gave the annual Obama May, receiving the German Dr. phil. and the proficiently handle all administrative tasks the humanities and administered by the lecture, set on Thanksgiving Day, on “Civil American PhD degree. The Annual Summer of the Obama Institute. Center for Continuing Education at Mainz Sentimentalism in Contemporary Political School through the South of the United University. In July, Axel Schäfer combined and Popular Culture.” On this occasion we States is another highlight of our program, the expertise of Obama fellows with the also award the Obama dissertation prize, directed by Prof. John R. Duke (Harding scholarship of participants in his seminar which Dr. Noaquia Callahan received for her College, AR). We encourage our students to for a final conference session on “The Black University of Iowa thesis in American history participate in these joint efforts to promote Diaspora and African American Intellectual on “Heat of the Day: Mary Church Terrell and Transnational American Studies and History.” The research group “Transnational African American Feminist Transnational we invite new students to join our Periodical Cultures,” directed by Jutta Ernst Activism,” and the Hans Galinsky prize for attractive program. and Oliver Scheiding, conducted several undergraduate and graduate papers in The Obama Institute for Transnational workshops throughout the year, leading early American studies. American Studies attracts national and up to a major international conference in The publication organs of the German international attention for its pursuit of January of 2020. Members of the Obama Association for American Studies, the the Obama spirit and its dedication to the Institute continue to be active participants journal Amerikastudien/American Studies past president’s ideas. At a time when the in third-party funded research, such as the and the book series American Studies: impeachment of the current president research group “Un/doing Differences” and A Monograph Series were edited in the has reached the Senate floor, it is good a follow-up collaborative research center Obama Institute. And we continue to closely to recall Barack Obama’s integrity on “Human Differentiation,” as well as the cooperate with the Journal of Transnational and empathy, also because of its expected research training group on “Life Sciences/ American Studies (Stanford), Sabine Kim outcome. Life Writing.” serving as managing editor and Alfred On behalf of the Executive Board I would The Obama fellowship program, which Hornung as European editor. like to express our gratitude to the support intends to augment our American Studies This Annual Report documents the and cooperation of the members of our competence, continues to provide valuable impressive output of all members of the Advisory Board and the Affiliate members input for research and teaching in areas Obama Institute in terms of research at the Johannes Gutenberg University. less represented in Mainz. This year we activities, publications, organizations of and We would also like to thank the University enjoyed the expertise of seven fellows presentations at conferences. It also lists and the State of Rhineland-Palatinate for from Great Britain, the United States, and some of the excellent achievements of our their collegiate and financial support for Canada in the fields of North American Bachelor, Master and, doctoral students, our work. Thanks are due to all students literature, culture, history, and politics. For who profit from our international network and faculty members who empower the our Fourth of July celebration, Historian of relations, an extensive direct exchange Obama Institute with their energy and Richard King (University of Nottingham) program with 18 partner universities commitment. Special thanks go to the

10 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 11 the bushfires in Australia indicted Prime I have heard it suggested by some A View from Abroad Minister Scott Morrison for the short-sighted younger scholars that transnationalism is environmental policies of his government, now past its sell-by date, the relic of an and it is true that this career politician, more era of Clinton, Blair and Obama that tried Paul Giles | The University of Sydney used to dealing with parochial affairs such to reconcile progressive social democracy Advisory Board Member as budget deficits and internal divisions with international market capitalism. It could within his own Liberal Party, appeared way be argued, however, that the transnational out of his depth. He also appealed, typically turn is simply entering a different, tougher “Some say the world will end in fire,” wrote enough, to an old spirit of Australian and more contentious phase. It will surely Robert Frost: “Some say in ice.” Visiting exceptionalism, blaming the crisis purely be no surprise to historians fifty years hence snowy Seattle in January 2020 for the on Australia’s extreme climate and saying that the increased permeability of borders annual MLA Convention, I was asked it was the kind of situation that his resilient in various forms during the early years of continually about the bushfires in Australia, compatriots had lived through many times the twenty-first century engendered new where I have lived for ten years now, and before. But even those inclined to read the modes of collective anxiety, and that this their impact upon the local population. bushfires in a more scientific way expressed induced a social reaction in the emergence There were, of course, large swathes reservations about placing blame on of leaders who promised tougher of the country that remained relatively Morrison personally or attributing these immigration controls and greater protection untouched by these events; fires always events merely to particular choices made for local jobs: Boris Johnson, Matteo look good on the television news, and I by national politicians. While I was visiting Salvini, Scott Morrison, Donald Trump. was surprised how many of my colleagues Seattle, Eric McFarland—a professor of But all of these figures are also in other countries had apparently received most unsettling aspect of 9/11 was the chemical engineering at the University of responding to emerging conditions of the misleading impression that the whole of way it indicated how the United States California, Santa Barbara—wrote in a letter transnationalism, at a time when all of Australia was already a towering inferno. Yet had become imbricated within a world it to the New York Times that vocal critics the major social and political challenges of course the damage to livestock, property could no longer fully control. Unlike the of the Prime Minister, such as Australian facing the world, from the economy to the and indeed human life was very significant, exceptionalism of the Cold War era, when novelist Richard Flanagan, “seem to climate, necessarily exceed the constraints and even more disconcerting for global America was able to present itself as a believe that Australia has some significant of national borders. It is, of course, precisely audiences was the sense that this might moral beacon to the wider world, the United control over atmospheric carbon dioxide, the fact that such issues cannot be resolved turn out to be a mere foreshadowing of States at the beginning of the twenty- and that by government action, wildfires simply within a national jurisdiction that events that could soon occur elsewhere first century found itself uncomfortably and changes to the Great Barrier Reef makes them so disturbing, not just for due to global warming. One Australian enmeshed in an interdependent system potentially associated with climate change the populations involved, but also for the newspaper compared the impact of these where digital technology, migration and can somehow be mitigated. Australia is a processes of democracy more broadly. bushfires to 9/11, and there might indeed the international mobility of capital had country with under 25 million people. If One of the key questions for the be said to be an uncanny resemblance in rendered it newly vulnerable to being all Australians stopped use of fossil fuels twenty-first century will surely be if, and some of the issues around transnationalism ruptured from both within and without. entirely, there would be no significant effect how, systems of political representation and threats to the autonomy of a national Similarly with climate change: it operates as on any environmental consequence of that are still largely locked into nineteenth- domain that both events evoked. a system of planetary circulation that takes carbon emission ... Addressing the effects century models might be able to catch up As many subsequent critical no heed of national jurisdictions or borders. of fossil fuel combustion on climate is global with the new conditions of a transnational commentators have suggested, the Much of the domestic commentary on challenge that requires global participation.” environment.

12 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 13 In his recent book The Age of the Crisis of Man, Mark Greif described how there were efforts after World War II by Reinhold Niebuhr and others to promote the idea of world community and governance, but they achieved only a relatively limited realization in the shape of the United Nations, and the absence of any mechanism for formal global government has clearly hindered the world’s subsequent capacity to deal with issues such as climate change. Given this predicament, the remit of the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies should be seen as extending far beyond the agenda of President Obama himself. The solutions that Obama himself proposed—in terms of trade, defence, health care and so on— were of less significance in the long run than the larger questions raised during his presidency, driven by various social and technological developments, about the increasingly complex relations between national governments and transnational spaces. These are crucial questions that will continue to reverberate for many years to come.

14 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 45 2019 Publications at a Glance

48 Locations in OI Faculty Members 2 Mainz & Germersheim 7 Conferences 43 Guest Lectures 124 Bachelor, Master, and Phd Graduations 1381 Students

E Different Study Programs Benefit from 14 OI Course Offers 21 International Exchange Partners

Presentations Given by OI members 8 70 OI Fellows The Obama Institute

The Obama Institute aims to foster an under- standing of the U.S. as a vibrant, complex culture in a changing world order, in which different visions of “Americanness” are taken up by communities “across the globe. Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee

Annual Report 2019 | Obama Institut 19 The Obama Institute

Mission and History of the Obama Institute

The history of the Obama Institute for now forms the USA-Bibliothek in the Georg Transnational American Studies begins Forster Building, complementing the holdings with the institution of the chair for of the departmental and university library. The American literature at Johannes Gutenberg cultural influences of this American presence University in 1952. After the establishment transformed German society and animated of the first professorship on the culture of the course of American Studies at Mainz. North America in Germany at the University of Hans Galinsky, the first chair and founder of Berlin in 1930, also in the service of providing American Studies, followed an all-inclusive useful information for the political regime, and comprehensive approach to American American authorities instituted positions at literature and culture from the multi-language German universities for the study of the United colonial beginnings to its modern expressions States after the war in Munich and Erlangen- in the twentieth century with a link to an Nürnberg in 1946, and in Mainz in 1952. The American language education in German choice of Mainz for the third chair of American Gymnasiums. His successors, Winfried Studies was certainly connected to the strong Herget and Oliver Scheiding, as well as his presence of American troops in the state of professorial colleagues, Klaus Lubbers, Hans Rhineland-Palatinate in the Southwest of Helmcke, Renate von Bardeleben, and Frieder Germany with important air bases in Ramstein Busch, followed this path. Together with new and Spangdahlem. professorial appointees, Alfred Hornung, Mita Mainz, the capital of Rhineland-Palatinate, Banerjee, Jutta Ernst, and Axel Schäfer, they and Wiesbaden, the capital of the state transformed the original one-chair basis over of Hesse across the Rhine River, used to the years into a cooperative research platform have several barracks until the relocation with an international standing. of troops to the United States in the 1990s. In the first decade of the twenty- Today there are still 35,000 troops stationed first century, the CHE (Centrum für in Rhineland-Palatinate, and Wiesbaden- Hochschulentwicklung) ranking recognized Erbenheim is the home of the Lucius D. Clay the quality of American studies at Mainz Garrison and became the Headquarters of as one of the four research intensive fields United States Army Europe (USAREUR) in of the University. In the research rating of 2012. When the American troops left Camp English and American Studies in Germany, Lindsey in Wiesbaden in 1993, they donated administered by the German Council of their extensive library with digital data bases Science and Humanities in 2010-12, Mainz to Johannes Gutenberg University where it American Studies, together with the John

Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 21 The Obama Institute

F. Kennedy Institute in Berlin, received the brother Mark. The president of Johannes highest score in research excellence. In 2012, Gutenberg University, Georg Krausch, and the Obama Institute we also celebrated our 60-year anniversary members of the University Council strongly Bylaws and organized the Annual Convention of the supported the idea of the Obama Institute. German Association for American Studies on To gain President Obama’s permission for the topic of “American Lives,” with Ambassador the Institute, Dr. Hans Friderichs, former Philip Murphy of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin Economic Affairs Minister and chairperson Regulations of the “Obama Institute” (OI) research platform addressing the audience in the opening of the University Council, served as a liaison within the Department of English and Linguistics, ceremony. In our talks, we introduced the idea with Ambassador Philip Murphy and the White Faculty of Philosophy and Philology to found an Obama Institute for Transnational House. In the summer of 2013, the Embassy (Resolution of the Faculty Council on November 30, 2016) American Studies. Both the eminent status communicated to us that “President Obama of Mainz American Studies and the popular would be pleased to have an Institute named acclaim of the American President Barack after him.” The general agreement was to plan Obama in Germany motivated us to pursue the official inauguration of the Obama Institute Preamble § 1 (Tasks) the formation of such an institute, similar to after the second term of his presidency. In “The Obama Institute (OI) researches the The OI undertakes interdisciplinary and the John F. Kennedy Institute in Berlin, but preparation of this event, we organized an roles of the USA in a changing global world transnational research on the roles of the with a different research agenda. international conference on “Obama and in the most diverse areas, including culture, USA with the most diverse approaches, The re-election of the President and his Transnational American Studies” in October history, literature, media, economics, including how nation-states such as the USA political objectives coincided with major 2014, in which Dr. Auma Obama participated religion, medicine, the arts, and music. are redefining themselves at the beginning research and teaching goals of our American as a keynote speaker relating aspects of her The research undertaken by the OI is of the 21st century, how the complex Studies program: the multi-ethnic constitution German academic education and presenting interdisciplinary and transnational and demands of global migration and refugee of the United States of America, interreligious her Foundation Sauti Kuu, a self-help program leads the way in the new definition of area displacement contribute to new forms of communication, the importance of life writing, for young people in Kenya. We also had to studies and cultural studies in the 21st social relations, and how communication and the transnational dimension of American clear several administrative hurdles and get century. In doing so, the OI fills a gap in – such as between indigenous groups and politics and culture. In addition to the idea the agreement of the Department of English current research by no longer restricting settler societies – can be opened. of liberty and freedom, one of the major and Linguistics, the Faculty of Philosophy and American Studies to the national borders of incentives for the foundation of the John Philology, the University Boards of the Senate the USA. The OI studies not only processes § 2 (Members) F. Kennedy Institute, the proposed Obama and the University Council. President Krausch of cultural exchange, but also shifting The work in the areas outlined in § 1 is Institute would be guided by the idea of proved to be a great help and saw to it that relations of the most various kinds. Staff principally a prerequisite for membership diversity underlying the development of the “Regulations of the ‘Obama Institute’ (OI) from different research groups are currently in the OI. Founding members are those American society in the twenty-first century. research platform” within the Department of working collaboratively across disciplines, members of the Executive Board, Advisory This also includes research on the activities English and Linguistics successfully passed all including scholars of Cultural and Literary Board, and Associate Members who are of his family members at home and abroad, bodies and went into effect on December 16, Studies, Law, Geography, History, and named in the appendix to these regulations. such as Michelle Obama’s concerns for health 2016. The appendix lists the members of the Sociology.” The Executive Board will decide on the issues and nutrition, the welfare programs Executive Board, Advisory Board Members, acceptance of further members (§ 3). of the president’s Luo sister Auma in Kenya, and Associate Members. and the musical education of children in Chinese orphanages pursued by his Kenyan

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§ 3 (Executive Board) § 6 (Tasks of the Speaker) § 9 (Associate Members) Prof. Dr. Jürgen Wilzewski The Executive Board consists of professors (1) The Speaker represents the OI externally. The Associate Members are Mainz (TU Kaiserslautern) from the teaching area American Studies in The rules of § 79, Subsection 1, No. 1 of the University scholars. They shall establish Prof. Dr. Zhang Longxi the Department of English and Linguistics, Higher Education Act und § 9, Subsection and ensure the interdisciplinary networking (City U of Hong Kong) Faculty of Philosophy and Philology, and 1 of the organizational regulations of the of the OI at JGU. from the American Studies, British Studies, Department of English and Linguistics are Associate Members and Anglophone Studies divisions, Faculty not affected. (2) The Speaker is responsible § 10 (Tasks of the Associate Members) Prof. Dr. Manfred Beutel of Translation Studies, Linguistics, and to the Executive Board. (3) The Speaker Associate Members will be consulted on (Psychosomatic Medicine) Cultural Studies. can, in urgent, pressing circumstances the basis of their research specializations as Prof. Dr. Dieter Dörr (Law) effect interim decisions on behalf of the well as their expertise for advice in ongoing Prof. Dr. Heike Drotbohm (Anthropology) § 4 (Tasks of the Executive Board) Executive Board. The Executive Board must conversations and will work jointly with Prof. Dr. Thomas Efferth The Executive Board has the following be informed immediately; the Board can members of the Executive Board on the (Pharmaceutical Biology) tasks: annul the interim decision or measure as development of the research program. Prof. Dr. Anton Escher (Cultural Geography) • Advising and deciding on basic matters long as these were not legally required Prof. Dr. Dagmar von Hoff (German) concerning the OI and third-party rights were not created as Prof. Dr. Friedemann Kreuder • Development of the conceptual direction a result of the decision. (4) The Speaker shall Appendix (Theater Studies) and the research program inform all members of the Advisory Board Executive Board Members Prof. Dr. Matthias Krings (Anthropology) • Deciding the financial and personnel and all Associate Members concerning the Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee Prof. Dr. Franz Rothlauf (Economics) arrangements current projects of the OI. Prof. Dr. Jutta Ernst Prof. Dr. Michael Simon • Electing the OI Director Prof. Dr. Alfred Hornung (Cultural Anthropology) • Advising and deciding on the acceptance § 7 (Advisory Board) Prof. Dr. Axel Schäfer and exclusion of OI members. The Advisory Board is formed of: Prof. Dr. Oliver Scheiding The Executive Board will meet at least twice representatives with American Studies per semester. expertise in Rhineland-Palatinate, the Advisory Board Members Atlantic Academy Rhineland-Palatinate Prof. Dr. Martin Brückner (U of Delaware) § 5 (Speaker) e.V., as well as outstanding researchers in Prof. Dr. Rita Charon (Columbia U) The Speaker of the OI is a member of the Germany and abroad. Prof. Dr. Shelley Fisher Fishkin (Stanford U) Executive Board and is elected by the other Prof. Dr. Paul Giles (U of Sydney) members of the Executive Board. The § 8 (Tasks of the Advisory Board) Prof. Dr. Craig Howes (U of Hawai’ʻi) term of office will usually be one year. The Via (virtual) conferences once per semester, Prof. Dr. Gerd Hurm (U Trier) Speaker’s role will be assumed in rotation the Advisory Board advises on questions and Prof. Dr. Ursula Lehmkuhl (U Trier) by the members of the Executive Board. issues relating to the research strategies of Prof. Dr. Greg Robinson (U du Québec) the national and international collaboration Dr. David Sirakov (Atlantic Academy with the Executive Board members. Rhineland-Palatinate) Prof. Dr. Werner Sollors (Harvard U) Prof. Dr. Elizabeth West (Georgia State U) Prof. Dr. Charles Wilson (U of Mississippi)

24 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 25 The Obama Institute

Prof. Dr. Jutta Ernst Executive Board As a professor of American Studies, Jutta Ernst is attached to JGU’s Germersheim campus. She is the author of Edgar The Executive Board has the following tasks: Allan Poe und die Poetik des Arabesken (1996) as well as • Advising and deciding on basic matters concerning the OI Amerikanische Modernismen: Schreibweisen, Konzepte • Development of the conceptual direction and the research program und zeitgenössische Periodika als Vermittlungsinstanzen • Deciding the financial and personnel arrangements (2018). She has also overseen and co-edited various • Electing the OI Director editions, including The Canadian Mosaic in the Age of • Advising and deciding on the acceptance and exclusion of OI members. Transnationalism (2010) and Transkulturelle Dynamiken Aktanten – Prozesse – Theorien (2015), and has authored The Executive Board will meet at least twice per semester. Its current members are: a multitude of book chapters, encyclopedia entries, and academic articles.

Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee Prof. Dr. Alfred Hornung (Speaker) Mita Banerjee is professor for American Studies, specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature A research professor of American Studies and English and culture, with a focus on Ethnic and Indigenous Studies. specializing in Transnational American Studies and Life She is a co-founder of the Center of Comparative Native Writing, Alfred Hornung is the speaker of the Obama and Indigenous Studies (CCNIS) at JGU, and co-speaker Institute. He cooperated in the foundation of the Obama of the research training group “Life Sciences – Life Institute for Transnational American Studies at Mainz as Writing: Boundary Experiences of Human Life between a forum of exchange with the universities of the state Biomedical Explanation and Lived Experience” funded by of Rhineland-Palatinate, the Atlantic Academy, and the German Research Foundation (DFG). Banerjee is the international partner universities. He is general editor of author of, among others, Race-ing the Century (2005), Color American Studies: A Monograph Series on behalf of the Me White: Naturalism/Naturalization in American Literature GAAS. Recent publications are Jack London: Abenteuer (2013), and Medical Humanities in American Studies (2018). des Lebens (2016) and The Routledge Companion to Transnational American Studies (2019).

26 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 27 The Obama Institute

Prof. Dr. Axel Schäfer Advisory Board Axel Schäfer is professor of American History at the Obama Institute. His research centers on nineteenth and twentieth- century U.S. intellectual and cultural history with a focus The Advisory Board is formed of conferences once per semester, the on religion and politics, transatlantic social thought, and representatives with American Studies Advisory Board advises on questions and public policy. He is the author of American Progressives expertise in Rhineland-Palatinate, the issues relating to the research strategies of and German Social Reform, 1875–1920: Social Ethics, Atlantic Academy Rhineland-Palatinate the national and international collaboration Moral Control, and the Regulatory State in a Transatlantic e.V., as well as outstanding researchers with the Executive Board members. Context (2000), Countercultural Conservatives: American in Germany and abroad. Via (virtual) Evangelicalism from the Postwar Revival to the New Christian Right (2011), and Piety and Public Funding: Evangelicals and the State in Modern America (2012).

Prof. Dr. Martin Brückner Prof. Dr. Rita Charon Prof. Dr. Shelley Fisher Fishkin Prof. Dr. Paul Giles Prof. Dr. Oliver Scheiding (University of Delaware) (Columbia University) (Stanford University) (University of Sydney)

Oliver Scheiding is professor of American Literature and Early American Studies. His research focuses on periodical studies, short fiction studies, print culture and material culture studies. He is author of Worlding America: A

Transnational Anthology of Short Narratives before 1800 Prof. Dr. Craig Howes Prof. Dr. Gerd Hurm Prof. Dr. Ursula Lehmkuhl Prof. Dr. Jürgen Wilzewski (Stanford University Press, 2015) and the monograph (University of Hawai’i) (Universität Trier) (Universität Trier) (T Universität Kaiserslautern) The Early American Novel (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2003). He also co-edited A Peculiar Mixture: German-Language Cultures and Identities in Eighteenth-Century North America (Penn State University Press, 2013). He edited the journal Amerikastudien – American Studies on behalf of the German

Association of American Studies (2011-2019). His research Prof. Dr. Greg Robinson Dr. David Sirakov Prof. Dr. Werner Sollors Prof. Dr. Elizabeth West projects in the field of periodical studies have been funded (Université du Québec) (Atlantische Akademie) (Harvard University) (Georgia State University) by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since 2009 (see GEPRIS).

Prof. Dr. Charles Wilson Prof. Dr. Zhang Longxi (University of Mississippi) (City University of Hong Kong)

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Obama Fellowship Fellow’s Report

Through the Obama Fellowship program, Previous Fellows Elizabeth Shermer | the Obama Institute for Transnational Loyola University Chicago American Studies invites outstanding 2018 international scholars to lecture and work at Celeste-Marie Bernier (U of Edinburgh) Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. The Michael Boyden (Uppsala U) I had an exceptional time as an Obama Fellowship offers financial support, office Suzanne Ferriss Fellow in May 2019. I have held long- space, and facilities for visiting scholars. (em., Nova Southeastern U) and short-term fellowships in both North Fellows spend a significant amount of time Mark Noonan (CUNY) America and Europe and consider the at the Obama Institute, usually between two Markus Reisenleitner (York U) Obama Fellowship one of the most and four weeks. They pursue their individual Laura Stevens (U of Tulsa) rewarding. I appreciated the space to work research, but are expected to participate in on the project that brought me to Mainz graduate teaching, as well as offer a public 2017 but truly benefitted from the opportunity to lecture and make themselves available to Craig Howes (U of Hawai’i at Manoa) meet faculty members and students. They postgraduate students. Michaela Hoenicke Moore (U of Iowa) ensured that I left the Obama Institute with Nina Morgan (Kennesaw State U) new ideas for my teaching and research that will benefit me for years to come. Obama Fellows 2019 2016 The Obama Institute’s vibrancy struck of climate change have shaped and been Patrick Erben (U of West Georgia) me the most. I immediately discovered shaped by growing inequality. Another Ian Afflerbach (U of North Georgia) Rebecca Harrison (U of West Georgia) an upcoming conference on Trump as session reintroduced me to a scholar who Hsuan L. Hsu (U of California, Davis) Sandy Isenstadt (U of Delaware) well as the lecture schedule. Such rich, is tackling finance in the nineteenth century, Richard King (em., U of Nottingham) Alan Lessoff (Illinois State U) varied offerings are hard to find at many which challenged me to think about how I Walter Benn Michaels Charles Wilson (U of Mississippi) universities and institutes, especially in a might reconsider how I might write about (U of Illinois at Chicago) single academic term. I immediately wished that sector in the twentieth century. Mathias Nilges 2015 that I could stay longer. But I really appreciated that the Obama (St. Francis Xavier U, Nova Scotia) Greg Robinson (U du Québec) I really enjoyed attending the offerings Institute gave me the opportunity to think Elizabeth Tandy Shermer Martin Brückner (U of Delaware) while I was in Mainz. These events gave through those questions with other faculty (Loyola U, Chicago) Shauna Morgan Kirlew (Howard U) me the opportunity to hear about new and students. I met so many folks who David K. Thomson (Sacred Heart U) research outside my areas of expertise. filtered through the halls while I was there. Denise Uyehara (Performance Artist) All of those lectures helped me think It was a really wonderful opportunity to Elizabeth West (Georgia State U) about my work as well as the larger field of hear about their work and their thoughts American studies and history. For example, on current scholarly trends. I especially I attended a lecture about dystopian novels benefitted from sharing an office with the that inspired me to think about how fears UC Davis exchange graduate student who

30 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 31 The Obama Institute

generously shared her thoughts on my work the Institute has to offer. For example, it as well as telling me about her own. would have been wonderful to have been Obama Dissertation Prize But I will especially remember my sent the schedule of talks and conferences experience in Mainz’s classrooms. I am in advance. I had a really hard time finding really glad that I had the opportunity to the rooms for both since I did not have time Each year, the Obama Institute for Winner 2019 share my current book project and field to figure out where the locations were. I Transnational American Studies at Noaquia N. Callahan questions, both during the session and also would have liked to know which other Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, (Colored Bird Institute | Ph.D. from after (when students wanted to ask more fellows might be there at the same time so Germany awards the Obama Dissertation University of Iowa, USA) personal questions about student loans and I could have reached out to make plans for Prize for outstanding Ph.D. work in the field “Heat of the Day: Mary Church Terrell and debts). It was also really helpful to delve a coffee. of transnational American studies. The African American Feminist Transnational back into the history and historiography But those ideas really reflect how recipient will be invited to Mainz to present Activism” of World War II as well as learn how the much my experience at the Institute has their dissertation project as part of the talks German tutorial system differs from helped me reconsider the programming taking place around the Obama Institute’s Previous Winners American classrooms and the Cambridge that I construct in the U.S.. The Obama annual Thanksgiving Obama Lecture. 2018 Argelia Segovia Liga supervision system. Institute’s programming and teaching Eligible for submission are dissertations (Missouri State U, Springfield) But I really loved lecturing in the inspired me to consider adding additional completed at either a German or a foreign “‘The Rupture Generation’: Nineteenth- introduction to American politics. I only public lectures at my university as well as university in transnational American Century Nahua Intellectuals in Mexico City, get to teach American politics every four the ones that I help coordinate at other Studies and related fields, such as Early 1774-1882” years in the United States so it was a lot institutions. Moreover, it has inspired me to American Studies, Indigenous Studies, Life 2017 Joost Baarssen of fun to have the opportunity outside of think about ways that I could provide visiting Writing, Ecology, Transnational History, (Leiden University | Ph.D. from TU Dortmund) a presidential year. But I never expected scholars with richer opportunities at Loyola Asian American/Pacific Studies, Material “American Dreams, European Nightmares: the students to be so enthusiastic and University Chicago, the Newberry Library, and Media Studies, Religious Studies, Anti-Europeanisms in the United States” engaged. They asked me almost 30 minutes and UCSB’s Center for the Study of Work, International Politics, and Economy. 2016 Stephan Kuhl of thoughtful, engaged, provocative Labor, and Democracy. That inspiration, Unpublished manuscripts of dissertations, (Goethe Universität Frankfurt) questions. We actually went over the along with the opportunities to teach and defended in the last two years, written in “The Novels of Crude Psychology: Richard time period allotted but none of them meet other scholars, has been and will be German or English, will be evaluated by Wright, Fredric Wertham, and the Twofold got up to leave. Some even stayed after invaluable for years to come. an international panel to select the award Truth of Literary Practice” to privately ask additional questions. I was winner. 2015 Holger Drössler happy to linger since I so rarely get such The award winner will be announced (Bard College) enthusiasm in the United States. Indeed, in September of each year. The award “Islands of Labor: Community, Conflict, and Mainz students’ engagement was on par ceremony takes place annually in Resistance in Colonial Samoa, 1889-1919” with the audiences that I had in Cambridge November (Thanksgiving Day). and Curd Benjamin Knüpfer and the University of College London’s (Freie Universität Berlin) Institute of the Americas. “Right Wing Realities? News Media As such, my only request would be that Fragmentation, Conservatism, and the future Obama fellows would have more Framing of U.S. Foreign Policy” opportunities to take advantage of what

32 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 33 The Obama Institute

educated, world-traveled, and an astute Exploring the little-known world of Winner’s Report observer of American racism both in the African American women’s transnationalism U.S. and as it followed her into encounters poses new questions to established with Americans abroad. More than any other narratives, reinforces the vast diversity in Noaquia N. Callahan | Colored Bird African American woman during this time, the American experience abroad, and leaves Institute, Long Beach, CA Terrell frequently crossed the Atlantic. She a legacy upon which the next generation studied in France, Switzerland, Germany, and can build and be inspired. Italy; delivered addresses at international In September of 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King women’s congresses; intervened in a Jr. delivered speeches in West and East German women’s campaign against French Berlin about the U.S. civil rights movement. occupation of the Rhineland following World King’s emphasis on nonviolence as the only War One; and served on the executive board means to effect long lasting social change of the first interracial transnational women’s left an indelible impression on German organization. Terrell’s involvement in U.S. student activists caught up in the turmoil interracial cooperative organizing, combined of an ideologically divided city. A glimpse with her cosmopolitanism, helped to center into each other’s worlds not only linked their African American women in national and respective struggles for peace and unity, but global politics. underlined the transnational dimensions of The emergence of transatlantic feminist the African American freedom movement. organizing at the end of the nineteenth The Obama Institute is playing a critical role out of place. I used to believe that to be century offered black women a new in continuing this tradition in the twenty-first an African American woman interested in avenue through which to advance their century. For this reason, and many more, I German history was unusual. That was until own agenda for racial justice and gender am especially honored to be the recipient I discovered the German language diaries equality. As an African American activist of the 2019 Obama Dissertation Prize. (1888 – 1890) of Mary Church Terrell – a engaged in trans-Atlantic debates, Mary Arriving in Mainz to participate in the prominent African American feminist and Church Terrell changed the way her North Obama Lecture brought my own cross- civil rights activist. The realization that my American and European feminist colleagues cultural experiences in Germany and earlier experiences in Germany were part discussed race. She taught them about the research in transnational American studies of a larger historical transatlantic exchange authority of black women and helped them full circle. My journey began two decades spurred my dissertation project that explores to understand how race impacted their ago, when I entered my high school German the internationalist activities and networks lives; and, therefore, that the world worked language classroom in Long Beach, of Mary Church Terrell during the late differently for her. California. The experience inspired me to nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. study abroad, teach English as a second Uniquely positioned as both the language, and earn a B.A. in German Studies. daughter of enslaved parents and unusually But the lack of diversity among my peers privileged when her parents became and in course curriculum made me feel successful entrepreneurs, Terrell was highly

34 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 35 The Obama Institute

Hans Galinsky Prof. Dr. Gustav Blanke Memorial Prize and Hilde Blanke Prize

Every year, the Prof. Dr. Gustav Blanke Recipients 2019 Prof. Dr. Hans Galinsky (1909–1991) was American literature, language, and culture. und Hilde Blanke-Stiftung awards cash the founder and first chair of American The money was put in a trust administered prizes to promising junior scholars in Philipp Alpermann Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University, by the Hans Galinsky Memorial Prize American Studies at JGU’s Germersheim “Political Spokespersons between Infotainment which he held from 1952 to 1977. He committee, consisting originally of Hans campus. Named after Univ.-Prof. Dr. Gustav and Information: A Comparative Analysis established the field of American Studies Galinsky’s successor, Prof. Dr. Winfried H. Blanke, who headed the American between the White House Press Secretaries in Mainz from a comprehensive and Herget, Dr. Karl Ortseifen, and Prof. Dr. Studies department in Germersheim from Sean Spicer as well as Sarah Huckabee multilingual perspective, covering the Alfred Hornung. The committee agreed 1967 to 1979, the Blanke Foundation was Sanders and the German Government literatures, languages and cultures from that all student papers and theses on any established by Blanke himself in 1999 on Spokesperson Steffen Seibert.” the colonial period to modern times in the aspect from the beginning of the colonial the occasion of his 85th birthday. Since twentieth century. His research became era to the end of the Early Republic would then, it has given out annual awards to Dr. Debora Holler the basis for his dedication to teaching, qualify for submission. In more recent years, junior scholars (M.A. and doctoral students “‘We didn’t cross the border, the border which he considered an essential part of the members of the Executive Board of as well as post-docs) whose individual crossed us’: Crossing, Trespassing, and his engagement in the subject. In close the Obama Institute have selected the research projects reflect the goals and Subverting Borders in Chicana Writing.” cooperation with the Ministry of Education awardees. the spirit of Blanke’s life work: examining and teachers of English, he implemented The Hans Galinsky Prize is awarded the beginnings, the development, and an ambitious curriculum, including the once a year to the winner and a runner-up at the global impact of the United States of use and practice of American English at the annual Karl Dietz Memorial and Obama America as well as documenting the efforts Gymnasiums in Rhineland-Palatinate. In Thanksgiving Lecture. of the U.S. to strengthen relations among addition, he used his personal relations the nations. to American and Canadian colleagues to Recipients 2019 After Blanke’s death in 2001, the name create the direct exchange program. His of his wife was added to the official name special area of interest was the colonial Franziska Ottstadt of the foundation, yet its goal has remained period, to which he also dedicated his post- “The Remediation of American History unchanged. The foundation’s board, which retirement with a planned five-volume in Red Dead Redemption 2” selects the winners of the awards, consists history of Colonial American literature, of (Graduate Seminar 512: New Media of the JGU Chancellor, the Dean of FB which four have appeared (1991-2000). and Early North America) 06, former and current members of the He decreed in his will that he did not American Studies faculty in Germersheim, wish any flowers or wreaths for his grave. Robert Udo Dückershoff as well as the former mayor of the city of Instead, the money should be collected as “Telling Amontillado from Sherry: Germersheim. the basis for a fund to be used to reward Irony and Deceit in Edgar Allan Poe’s excellent work by undergraduate or ‘The Cask of Amontillado’” graduate students in the field of Colonial (Proseminar 122: 19th Century Classics)

36 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 37 The Obama Institute

Obama Lectures Offices, Awards, and Appointments

Each year, the Obama Institute holds 4th of July Obama Lecture Offices Appointments two special lecture events, which take place around the time of two of the most In the summer, we invite a keynote speaker Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee serves as deputy Dr. habil. Florian Freitag was appointed important U.S. holidays. The guest lectures, to give a lecture on a topic related to our director of the Johannes Gutenberg W2 Professor of American Studies at the talks, and student presentations at these work in Transnational American Studies. University’s Gutenberg Research Council. University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, events demonstrate the broad scope and This year Prof. Richard King, American starting October 1, 2019 (two-year the vibrancy of our scholarly engagement Studies historian at the University of appointment). with U.S. history, literature, and culture. Nottingham spoke on “Loyalty, Patriotism, Awards and Nationalism in Times of Crisis”. Our Dr. Pia Wiegmink was appointed Professor guests spark lively discussions with Prof. Dr. Alfred Hornung was named an of American Studies at the University of students, faculty, and Obama Fellows, Honorary Chair Professor of Shandong Regensburg, Germany, starting October 1, before the 4th of July fireworks set the University in Jinan, China to pursue his work 2019 (substituting for Prof. Dr. Udo Hebel stage for further celebration. on Confucius and America. during the term of his presidency at the University of Regensburg). Thanksgving Obama Lecture Prof. Dr. Alfred Hornung received the Super Global Professorship of Keio University, Dr. Anita Wohlmann was appointed as On Thanksgiving, we also give thanks and Tokyo, December 2019. Associate Professor in the Department award the Obama Dissertation prize and of the Study of Culture at the University other awards to outstanding (graduate) As a recipient of a Fulbright Dissertation of Southern Denmark in Odense, starting students for their contributions to our field. Fellowship, Tatjana Neubauer, M.A. spent January 2020. In addition, a keynote speaker presents six months at Columbia University, New excerpts of their work and a glimpse into York City. current developments in American Studies research.

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Teaching at the OI in 2019

In our teaching at the Obama Institute, our delve into the vibrancy of American cultural goal is to involve our students in all projects of production both past and present. We invite the institute. On the undergraduate level, we our more advanced students to participate want to familiarize students with all aspects of in current research projects at the Obama American history and culture, from historical Institute through a variety of frameworks beginnings – Native American oral cultures such as student conferences or internships. and traditions as well as the beginning of Moreover, we introduce new teaching and Puritan settlement – to the present moment. learning techniques into the American studies Our courses are designed in such a way that classroom, such as video presentations and they explore multiple media and genres mock trials, writing exercises and problem- (literature, short stories, films, comics, popular based learning. culture, political rhetoric, history of ideas) to Teaching at the OI in 2019

Selected Teaching Projects

Video Series “Key Topics in Transnational American Studies”

“Slavery” (Screenshot) In 2019, the collaboration between Pia Wiegmink JGU’s Obama Institute, the Zentrum für Qualitätssicherung (ZQ), and the Zentrum für Audiovisuelle Produktion (ZAP), which started in June 2017, saw the production start of two additions to the first two videos by Florian Freitag and Pia Wiegmink. Currently, Ruth Gehrmann’s video on “Science Fiction and Postcolonialism” is in post-production, while Alfred Hornung’s contribution on “Confucius and America” “Theme Parks” (Screenshot) is about to go into production. Florian Freitag The new videos will be a welcome addition to the growing catalogue of this video series, which presents key topics in Transnational American Studies to students. In 8-15min. clips, faculty members give an introductory overview over their field of expertise. A study sheet with suggestions for further research accompanies each video so that the material – in parts or as a whole – can be incorporated into various kinds of course settings and can be used “Science Fiction and Postcolonialism” (Screenshot) Ruth Gehrmann for different purposes (e.g. in-class activity and discussion, homework, independent studying, follow-up summary, etc.).

Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 43 Teaching at the OI in 2019

Workshop “Narrative Medicine” Workshop “History of United States such as treaty-making, Indian removal, the The close reading of literature (co-taught with faculty from Columbia Indian Law and Policy” reservation system, late-nineteenth century opens a bottomless resource for University, New York) assimilation and allotment, mid-twentieth observing, thinking, and talking together century Indian reorganization, and modern about human interactions in the medical From July 15–18, 2019, twenty-five students tribal self-determination. Students read and context at a level of depth and complexity This recurring, intensive weekend “ from the Department of English and analyzed primary materials like articles that other worthy approaches (such as workshop offers rigorous skill-building in Linguistics, the Institute of Geography, and of the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court “professionalism” or communication skills narrative competence. Participants learn the law faculty met with Prof. Lindsay G. opinions, and policy statements that were training) cannot match...We have found that effective techniques for attentive listening, Robertson from the University of Oklahoma instrumental in the formation of United reading literary texts with a focus on relational adopting others’ perspectives, accurate for a four-days long interdisciplinary States Indian law and policy. Students dynamics awakens us to the social, structural, representation and reflective reasoning. workshop on Native American law, history, especially enjoyed asking questions about professional, and personal relationships in Small group seminars offer first-hand and culture. The workshop was hosted by current topics concerning Native American our working lives. experience in close-reading, reflective Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee in Mainz as part of her self-governance and listening to the

writing, and autobiographical exercises. from Rita Charon, Sayantani DasGupta, Nellie Hermann, Cultural Studies course and co-organized insightful legal interpretations of these texts Participants receive a packet of readings Craig Irvine, Eric R. Marcus, Edgar Rivera Colón, Danielle by Dr. Sonja Georgi. by Prof. Robertson, who is Faculty Director Spencer, Maura Spiegel, The Principles and Practices of prior to the weekend that include seminar Narrative Medicine (Oxford University Press 2017) The workshop traced the development of the Center for the Study of American articles in the filed of narrative medicine and political and cultural impact of British Indian Law and Policy and Chickasaw by leading educators. The target audience colonial and United States policy towards Nation Endowed Chair in Native American are health care professionals and scholars indigenous peoples in North America Law, and has been a guest lecturer at the interested in narrative medicine. from the seventeenth century through the Obama Institute for several years. . present day. Participants explored topics Participants • develop narrative competence to nourish effective patient-clinician relationships • learn narrative communication strategies for patient-centered and life- framed practice • build habits of reflective practice that nurture clinical communities • acquire pedagogic skills to teach methods of narrative medicine • replace isolation with affiliation, cultivate enduring collegial alliances, and reveal meaning in clinical practice

44 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 45 Teaching at the OI in 2019

Workshop “Academic Writing” that of others, receiving feedback, and the “Writing Fellows” greatest challenges. This is why the Obama (Schreibsommer 2019) painful task of revising their own writing. in Advanced Undergraduate Seminars Institute decided to adopt a new format for In phase two, the group broke into at the Obama Institute the American Studies tutorials during the smaller groups and began implementing winter term 2018/19. This new format was On July 22, 2019, Dr. Damien Schlarb hosted practically some of these strategies. Using The ability to communicate effectively in intended to not only help more advanced the workshop “Academic Writing in English” their own work, they saw which of the writing is a critical skill for mastering the students in mastering the mechanics of as part of a university-wide program that previously discussed strategies worked learning objectives of the undergraduate academic writing, but also to boost their aims to support students and faculty in and learned which tactics to apply when programs offered by the Obama Institute. writing competence alongside their critical developing and enhancing their writing life happens and these strategies fail. In Developing academic writing skills not only thinking skills. skills through a series of workshops, events, this phase, they talked about how to give serves as a helpful means of synthesizing In collaboration with the university’s and individual coaching. The initiative as and receive useful feedback, and how to and aggregating knowledge, but also for writing center (“Schreibwerkstatt”) and a whole is funded by the JGU’s Zentrum write to connect to an audience. developing and testing new critical ideas. the “Zentrum für Qualitätssicherung,” für Qualitätssicherung (ZQ) and their LOB Therefore, seminars and proseminars advanced students from our master’s project (Lehren – Organisieren – Beraten). usually require students to compose program were trained as “writing fellows” This particular workshop addressed compelling and innovative pieces of in order to familiarize students with the academic writing as a process: the group research-based and argumentative stages of the writing process and in order discussed how to write to connect to others, writing which usually come at the end of to give constructive feedback on a series of how to attend to generic and disciplinary a seminar. Thus students are not only given smaller writing assignment in the course of conventions, and how to give, receive the opportunity for developing general the semester. Designed by the respective and implement feedback. All students writing skills, but they are also prepared for instructors (in 2019: Dr. Sonja Georgi, and university affiliates were welcome, making significant contributions to existing Dr. Claudia Görg, Dr. Nele Sawallisch, regardless of their disciplinary background. scholarship. and Dr. Damien Schlarb), these writing However, writing was addressed from a Helping students to be successful in assignments advanced from shorter humanities perspective, focusing on forms these writing assignments, the Obama and descriptive to more reflective and such as abstracts, personal statements, Institute regularly organizes student-led argumentative forms of writing. In the and argumentative research essays. tutorials in which beginning students are end, students were required to compose The workshop was held in English and given the opportunity to practice important a preliminary plan and first draft for their participants brought their current writing writing skills, such as doing research, term papers. During the final phase of projects. First, the group discussed globally documenting sources and formatting the semester, the writing fellows offered the conventions and strategies associated their manuscripts. While students have individual consultation hours for students with academic writing. Participants talked generally profited from these additional in which they mostly helped students with about managing time, generating valid tutorials, students continued reporting problems related to developing a suitable research questions, formulating thesis difficulties with important aspects of the question or problem for their papers. statements, performing research, analyzing writing process. Students particularly More than 90 third-year students from text (detecting overt/covert meanings, identified planning the overall structure four advanced literary studies seminars explicating, historicizing), composing prose of their papers, developing focus, and participated in the project. (rhetoric, logic, avoiding verbal fallacies), finding a suitable problem or research positioning their argument in relation to question for their term papers as the

46 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 47 Teaching at the OI in 2019

Teaching at Germersheim Bachelor of Arts in American Studies (Mainz)

Teaching American Studies at JGU’s Colloquium in North American Studies to Germersheim campus draws on the various discuss their current research projects and research projects currently conducted by any concomitant issues or questions. The Bachelor’s Program of American cultural studies. In addition to expanding the faculty members and simultaneously Studies offers a wide range of courses. In six their proficiency in English, students will reflects the department’s focus on American Studies classes at JGU’s semesters, students immerse themselves explore a broad range of literary texts and educating translators and interpreters. Germersheim campus are part of the in the central fields of American literature, historical documents, as well as cultural Students learn the necessary tools to following programs: culture, history, language, and media. artifacts from all eras of American history. translate a variety of American texts from In advanced cultural studies classes (GMK different fields and sectors into German B.A. Sprache, Kultur, Translation IV-V), students will study topics related to (e.g. literary, legal, economic, and medical, (Language, Culture, Translation) The B.A. program is structured in two historical and current developments in among others) and are provided with the M.A. Translation phases of introductory (GMK) and American society, politics, culture, and crucial cultural and literary competencies M.A. Konferenzdolmetschen advanced modules (AMK): media. In the course of the first two years to transfer the culturally specific ideas and (Conference Interpreting) of their studies, students will also become concepts these texts draw on. GMK I: Language and Communication familiar with relevant methodologies for Seminars and lectures in American In 2019, the Germersheim faculty GMK II: American Studies doing American Studies. Studies cover a variety of topics and graduated 44 B.A. and 13 M.A. students. GMK III: Cultural Studies In the advanced courses of the Bachelor genres: e.g., Jutta Ernst, “Reading Magazine GMK IV: Cultural Studies and program students deepen their knowledge Readers”; Michael Lörch, “Trump’s Base? Professional Orientation of American literature and culture in topical The American Poor Whites”; Ines Veauthier, GMK V: Culture, Media, and Literature seminars and conclude their course of “The Mexican-American Mosaic: Literature studies with a B.A. thesis on a topic of their of the Americas”; Tatjana Neubauer, AMK I: Advanced Language and choice. “Introduction to Reality Television”; Klaus Communication Schmidt, “From Stereotypes to Human AMK II: Regional and Transnational In the winter term of 2018/19 and the Beings: Revisionist Takes on U.S. Blue- American Studies summer term of 2019, the Obama Institute Collar Life in Contemporary Southern AMK III: Early American Literature graduated 30 Bachelors of American Fiction and Film.” Due to our special focus and Culture: 16th–19th Century Studies as well as ten Bachelors in the on Canadian Studies, many classes take AMK IV: American Literature and joint Mainz-Dijon American Studies an explicitly comparative North American Culture from 1900 to the Present program. perspective (Jutta Ernst, “Margaret Atwood across the Media” or Sabina Matter-Seibel, The introductory modules (GMK I–III) “Writing the Unspeakable: Trauma in North will familiarize students with the basic American Fiction”). On Monday evenings, methodologies and subject matter of students are invited to join the Research American literary studies and American

48 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 49 Teaching at the OI in 2019

Master of Arts in American Studies (Mainz)

The American Studies Master’€˜s Program is long-established exchange programs Based on students’ previous B.A. experience, designed to emphasize research-oriented and international cooperation with modules 1–6 focus on cultural and literary perspectives on American language, North American, European, and Chinese studies in research-oriented courses. literature, culture, and their theories. It universities. The program also includes Students discuss methods, theories, and builds upon the B.A. program in American a special module on interdisciplinary techniques of academic research. One of Studies at Mainz University, but also studies allowing students to expand their the central aims of the M.A. program is to welcomes applications of students from research into cognate fields for a broad- introduce students to different forms of American Studies programs in Germany, based perspective on the Americas. The textual and cultural analysis and to involve Europe, and other parts of the world. M.A. program especially emphasizes the them in currect research projects. American Studies has seen a number need for students to experience the United In the second year, students engage of major changes in theory and practice States firsthand and is committed to offering in a larger guided research project that in the last decade. Its traditional emphasis students the possibility of studying at one of combines different historical, thematic, and on the language, literature, and culture of our partner universities in the United States, methodological approaches. At the same the United States has been expanded Canada, or China. time, the M.A. program enables students to both conceptually and methodologically. further develop their own professional goals Reaching beyond the continental in orientation sessions geared towards a geographical focus of the United States, The M.A. program consists of career outside or inside academia. the more recent concept of Transnational several modules: Study abroad is recommended for the American Studies includes new regions of second year and highlights the importance language and literature, branching out into Modul 1: Methodology of an international training program for Atlantic, Caribbean, and Pacific Studies. Modul 2: Early American Studies students seeking a Master’s degree in The Mainz M.A. program responds to Modul 3: Cultural Studies American Studies. these new developments and encourages Modul 4: Modern American Literature students to explore the transnational and Media In the winter term of 2018/19 and the dimensions of American Studies. The Modul 5: Advanced Research and summer term of 2019, the Obama Institute program offers a broad spectrum of courses Professional Orientation graduated 21 Masters of American and the opportunity to conduct research Modul 6: Advanced American Studies. on American literature and culture from Literature and Media Studies pre-colonial times to the 21st century with Modul 7: Advanced Interdisciplinary areas of specialization in comparative Research indigenous studies, early American studies, Modul 8: Advanced Research and and transnational life writing. It maintains Thesis Preparation

50 Obama Institute Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 51 Teaching at the OI in 2019

Ph.D. candidates can also participate Ph.D. in American Studies in the following exchange programs (10–12 months):

The institute hosts a vibrant Ph.D. program, Structured Ph.D. Program Columbia University, New York City bringing together scholars from Germany, “Life Sciences–Life Writing” (contact: Professors Banerjee and Hornung) the U.S., Canada, and China. Our Ph.D. students specialize in life writing research, In addition to individual doctoral study, University of Mississippi, Oxford indigenous studies, early American studies, candidates can also attain their doctorates (contact: Professors Banerjee and Hornung) material culture studies, and transnational in structured Ph.D. programs resembling American histories. Our Ph.D. students those in Anglo-American countries. A team University of California, Davis benefit from our partner institutions as well of supervisors is responsible for supervising (contact: Professor Scheiding) as from the international Ph.D. programs doctoral candidates. The program offers a we are associated with. curriculum of accompanying courses which are interdisciplinary in focus and promote Harvard University the acquisition of “soft skills” and additional Institute for World Literature (IWL) Individual Doctoral Studies qualifications. The systematic and intensive Summer School supervision offered in our program “Life Depending on their research interests, Sciences – Life Writing” allows candidates The Obama Institute is a member of students contact one of our program’s to complete their doctoral studies within Harvard University’s annual IWL summer professors. After admitting the candidates, three to four years. school program. This global program offers the professors serve as supervisor and three weeks of coursework led by the mentor. The duration of an individual world’s most renowned literary scholars doctorate usually ranges from three to five Binational Ph.D. Mainz–Atlanta and hosted by a different university each years. Depending on the requirements of year. Through our membership, we can the project, funding is possible for a period For individual doctoral studies we offer a offer up to two PhD students the amazing of up to three years. This is provided by dual degree in American Studies jointly opportunity to join an international group Stiftung Rheinland-Pfalz, Studienstiftung supported by Johannes Gutenberg of young scholars for a short but intensive des deutschen Volkes, DAAD or foundations University Mainz and Georgia State term abroad. such as Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Konrad University, Atlanta. The five-year program In 2019, the Obama Institute sent Adenauer Stiftung, Heinrich Böll Stiftung, includes a mutual student exchange for Natasha Anderson, Nina Heydt, Abby Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Friedrich 12 months as well as full integration in Hohenstatt, and Ahngeli Shivam to the IWL’s Naumann Stiftung, and others. course work and teaching in the academic home institution, Harvard University, and is programs of both universities. The program looking forward to giving more students the is fully funded by both departments and opportunity to participate in the program is open to all graduate students who have and study at Belgrade University, Serbia in earned a Master’s degree in American the summer of 2020. Studies.

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simple undergraduate studies with tuition • Middle Tennessee State University, Study Abroad waivers to teaching/research assistantships Murfreesboro, Tennessee for graduate-level studies—enable students • Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, to experience the United States and Canada Illinois The Obama Institute offers its students a to mid-August on its campuses of Bread firsthand. Based on years of cooperation, • Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, wide variety of ways to go abroad during Loaf in Vermont or Santa Fé in New Mexico. the Direct Exchange Program is a tailored British Columbia their studies, whether in the B.A., M.A., B.Ed., The participation of up to five students and competitive program. Currently, the or M.Ed. programs, as well as as part of is graciously sponsored by the State of institute offers direct exchanges with the our Ph.D. training. We actively promote Rhineland-Palatinate. For more information following American and Canadian partner Erasmus Exchange Program our students’ applications to national consult www.middlebury.edu/blse. universities: funding programs such as those run by the We believe that the opportunity to study The EU-funded ERASMUS program German Academic Exchange Service and abroad is crucial to a successful education in • Austin College, Sherman, Texas enables students to spend a semester the Fulbright Commission, and regularly a literature, history, and culture program, and • Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine or two at a different European university place our students in those programs, and even more so in a teaching program. It is not • Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario free of tuition, and pays a small monthly we participate in the European ERASMUS just about finding additional opportunities • California State University, Chico, California stipend. The Obama Institute’s ERASMUS scheme. But beyond that, the Obama to speak the language you are learning, • Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts partner universities for student exchanges Institute also offers a number of unique or to participate actively in the culture you • Columbia University, New York City, New York currently are: opportunities to go abroad that are based are studying: it is also about learning about • Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia on the initiative of the institute’s professors the different traditions of American Studies • Hood College, Frederick, Maryland • Universität Bern, Berne, Switzerland and teaching staff. With the Mainz Direct in other academic cultures. Therefore, our • Kansas University, Lawrence, Kansas • Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France Exchange program, which annually sends exchange programs are not limited to the • Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont • University of Brighton, Brighton, UK nearly twenty students from all levels of United States, although that remains a • Mississippi College, Clinton, Mississippi • Université de Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland our teaching program abroad to study at natural focus. ERASMUS exchanges also • Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, British • Universiteit Gent/Ghent University, Belgium selected universities in the United States lead our students to universities in Britain, Columbia • Università degli Studi di Padova, Padua, Italy and Canada, the Obama Institute offers one France, Denmark, Poland, and other • University of California, Davis, California • Uniwersytet Warszawski/University of of the most exciting exchange opportunities European countries, whose own traditions • University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland in American Studies. In addition, the annual in the studies of the humanities are capable • University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi • Universität Wien, Vienna, Austria Summer School, which takes a group of of rounding out the experience of studying • Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland students on a research trip through the American Studies in Germany. • York University, Toronto, Ontario In addition, the Institute also has lecturers’ American South as part of their Culture exchanges with several universities: Studies course work, regularly exposes Direct Exchange Program At Germersheim, exchange opportunities students to what is to most a different and exist with the following universities in the • University of Warwick, Warwick, UK less-well known America. The Direct Exchange Program, established U.S. and Canada: • University of Kent, Canterbury, UK The Middlebury College invites in 1956, is a unique opportunity for American applications of Mainz American Studies Studies students at Mainz, connecting • Kent State University, Kent, Ohio graduate students to participate in the them directly with partner universities in • Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Bread Loaf School of English for an the United States and Canada. The various Louisiana intensive six-week program from mid-June exchange opportunities we offer—from • Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont

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Summer School 2019

The American Studies Summer School has and encounter various American university been an ongoing program at the Obama campuses. The summer school is a unique Institute for seven years. Established as opportunity for students to connect their a collaboration between Prof. Dr. Alfred studies at JGU with on-site learning in the Hornung and Dr. John Richard Duke, Jr., the Southern states gain important insights into summer school takes JGU students through the subjects they are studying at home. the American South, exploring the African- This field trip also provides the opportunity American Civil Rights Movement, Southern to gather material for research papers and Literature and Culture, as well as Southern final theses. Food and Music. Participants travel through In 2019, the American Studies Summer Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, School was, for the first time, co-organized and Tennessee, before finishing up the by Nina Heydt and Julia Velten. With the program in Washington, D.C. indispensable help of Dr. Claudia Görg, they Besides providing a unique on-site selected and prepared thirteen outstanding learning experience, the American Studies students for their three-week adventure. Summer School puts students in touch This year in particular, the program would with local music, food, and people. The not have been possible without the first week, spent in Searcy, Arkansas, is extraordinary work and support of Dr. John dedicated to getting to know each other Richard Duke, Jr., Professor of American while undertaking several fun outings, history at Harding College in Arkansas, as well as studying Southern Literature who took it upon himself to not only lead in class. Through daytrips to Little Rock, the students through this program but Mountainview, Bentonville, and Fayetteville, also their first-time instructor. It is through students get a feel for American music, art, his ongoing, outstanding commitment to and the landscape of Arkansas. Following the summer school, the Obama Institute, these first few days, the summer school and our students that this program is such takes its participants on a two-week road a unique academic but also personal trip, from Memphis, Tennessee, through experience that the participants will benefit Oxford, Mississippi, New Orleans, Louisiana, from for a very long time. Montgomery, Alabama, and Nashville, Tennessee all the way to Washington, D.C. Along the way, students get to experience several Civil Rights museums and locations, different styles of (live) music,

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The Obama Institute is dedicated to as a significant actor, examines circulations, transnational research into American interactions, and connections beyond the history, literature, and culture. It builds upon nation-state. This involves the study of the the commitment of “traditional” American movement of peoples, ideas, technologies, Studies to interdisciplinarity, but extends it literatures, and institutions across national to studying the entanglements of American boundaries. Second, anchored in a postmodern histories with intercultural transfers across and postcolonial outlook, transnationalism oceans, continents, and regions. Broadly seeks to “dis-integrate” U.S. history and speaking, the transnational project has two culture. This includes exploring all forms of main dimensions. First, it offers a research diversity and inclusion implicit in American perspective that, while still regarding the state national narratives. Transnationalism’s focus 58 Obama Institut | Annual Report 2019 Annual Report 2019 | Obama Institut Research at the OI in 2019

on connections and circulations thus relationship between religion and politics, seeks to give voice to those who are not as well as religion and media. Material represented by nation-states. Based on this Culture Studies is a research initiative that understanding the Obama Institute sees connects the Institute to other disciplines, itself as a meeting place and a research such as book history, art history, and space for transnational American Studies. sociology. And the collaborative research It maintains one of the strongest American project Transnational Periodical Cultures Studies research programs in German- contributes to the bourgeoning field of speaking countries. It offers full coverage periodical studies, exploring magazines, of research into the history, literature, and newspapers, and other forms of serialized culture of the United States, from the mass media in transnational contexts. colonial period to the 21st century, including In addition, Obama Institute scholars are issues of translation and adaptation. part of the research cluster SoCuM (Social Our research areas highlight the and Cultural Studies Mainz), which facilitates Institute’s wide range of activities. Early the interdisciplinary cooperation between American Studies, which includes DFG- social sciences and culture studies via funded research projects on American research groups, conferences, international periodicals and magazine fiction, promotes guest lectures, and doctoral dissertation research projects that explore the textual grants. and material grounds on which the many The Obama Institute also cooperates cultures – both Western and Non-Western with the Medical School and American – meet in the Atlantic and Pacific worlds. Studies at Columbia University, New The Center for Comparative Native and York in Narrative Medicine programs and Indigenous Studies is designed as a platform the creation of a Medical Humanities to bring together scholars and students research platform.The Obama Institute who work on indigenous issues in a global sees itself as a node connecting scholars context. The research training group “Life in American Studies and beyond. It invites Writing/Life Sciences” explores the narrative the cooperation of scholars throughout practices that underlie explanations and the international academic community models derived from both empirical who are interested in manifestations of data and social experiences. Projects in transnationalism in a multiplicity of contexts. Political and Intellectual History focus on In 2019, the Obama Institute received a topics such as migration and social policy, research grant on the topic of “Disruption transnational social thought and politics, and Democracy in America: Challenges and and nationalism and internationalism in Potentials of Transcultural and Transnational American society. Research on Religion Formations” that will support our research and American Culture explores the global until 2023. history of American evangelicalism and the

Annual Report 2019 Obama Institute 61 Research at the OI in 2019

Conferences

Keeping the Faith: “Once Upon a Time in America”: Glaube und Journalismus Conference and Workshop on New Research on American Art, 1700-1950

January 16-18, 2019 Organized by Anja-Maria Bassimir and February 7, 2019 Oliver Scheiding Organized by Allison M. Stagg and Oliver Scheiding The conference brought together an international group of scholars, editors, In the fall of 2018 the Wallraf-Richartz and journalists working in the field of Museum in Cologne hosted an exhibition religious media. The papers held at this devoted to exploring American art. “Once conference discussed religious media as Upon a Time in America”: Three Centuries part of the knowledge production of faith of American Art was the first German communities. The presentations focused on museum exhibition in over forty years the producers, disseminators, and archivists to present a survey of American art to a of religious media and the roles they play German audience. On this occasion the for communicating and perpetuating faith Obama Institute for Transnational American traditions. The conference analyzed how Studies and the Art History Department religious journalists and others involved co-organized and hosted a conference/ in producing religious online and print workshop in February 2019. The academic media work and thus nourish and support program was focused on strengthening religious affiliation. For this purpose, the existing connections and building new conference examined three areas of networks between German academics religious journalism: content, technology, engaged in American art history topics and religious networks. and international scholars in the U.S. The emphasis of this program was on student participation: students had the occasion to informally meet with scholars working on new perspectives of American art and visual culture and to discuss career paths in both Germany and America.

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Narrative Medizin Reading in the Age of Trump: The Politics and Possibility of Literary Criticism Now March 23, 2019 Organized by Anita Wohlmann, Miriam Halstein, and Ruth Gehrmann May 16-18, 2019 Organized by Tim Lanzendörfer, and After two international workshops on Mathias Nilges (St. Francis Xavier Narrative Medicine in 2016 and 2018 in Mainz University) – organized by the Obama Institute and led by colleagues from Columbia University, Literary criticism in the twenty-first century New York – this workshop, in March 2019, has been characterized by a renewed explored the experiences of the German- Talks: interest in the discipline’s big questions, speaking workshop participants and other PD Dr. Karl Weingärtner its foundational categories, and its basic people who are interested in the field of “Ästhetik - Kernkompetenz einer methodological assumptions. Narrative Medicine. humanen Medizin?” How do we read? What counts as The workshop allowed for interpretation? What is literature? What interdisciplinary exchanges and a series Dr. Katharina Bahlmann can literature do? What are its politics? of talks presented and discussed current “Der Ort der Krankheit: Überlegungen We believe that it is time to step back and envisioned projects. Participants of this zu Körper und Raum in der bildenden and critically examine and historicize the event also explored future focuses of the Kunst” various conceptual and methodological field in Germany. Founding the “German movements that together make up develop accounts of the possibility and Network of Narrative Medicine” (“Deutsches Prof. Dr. Susanne Michl und the innovations in twenty-first century the possibilities of literary criticism today? Netzwerk für Narrative Medizin”) and Dr. Anita Wohlmann literary criticism. With a bit of cheek, we We propose to try and work through these launching a website (www.netzwerk- “Kurzgeschichten und klinische want to understand such things as the questions during an intensive conference narrativemedizin.de) aims at increasing Fälle: Überlegungen zu einer questioning of symptomatic reading as that brings together key scholars in the the visibility of Narrative Medicine in the Unterrichtseinheit” itself symptomatic of the contemporary. field in the effort to historicize the past German-speaking countries. Some of our questions then are: two decades in literary criticism in order Franca Keicher How may we historicize the discussions to examine its present politics and future The workshop received financial “Oskar und die Dame in Rosa - Narrative surrounding the category of reading? What possibility. support through the DFG project Medizin und die kindliche Perspektive” are the politics of the various positions— WO 2139/2-1 as well as the Inneruniversitäre of their underlying propositions and of Forschungsförderung. Dr. Christina Gerlach their aims? What, in turn, are their political “Das ärztliche Gespräch als Würdigung possibilities—indeed, what is the valence des Patienten” of the “political” in criticism? And in what ways may the attempt to historicize and to examine the politics of the different facets of twenty-first literary criticism allow us to

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From Confucius to Mickey Mouse: The Black Diaspora and African history of race” meant “doing intellectual U.S.-Chinese Transcultural Dynamics American Intellectual History history”. In her talk on “’Read. Reflect. Act:’ Rosetta Douglass Sprague as Intellectual, Philosopher, Editor and Orator”, Celeste- June 7, 2019 June 27-28, 2019 Marie Bernier (University of Edinburgh) Organized by Florian Freitag, Alfred Organized by Axel Schäfer gave a vivid account of Frederick Douglass’ Hornung, and Chang Liu (U Heidelberg) eldest daughter that explored the women This workshop explored the ways in which in the Douglass family and their role as During the late eighteenth century, the African American thought and culture have campaigners and reformers in their own Founding Fathers’ adaptation of Confucian pioneered and continue to shape the right. At the center of Pia Wiegmink’s ethics of conduct played a pivotal role in transnational project. It was part of an M.A. (Obama Institute Mainz) presentation the formation of the American democracy course on “Transnational Approaches to on “Harriet Jacobs, Transatlantic Public and its public life, as taken up in Ezra American Studies: The Black Diaspora and Intellectual” was the abolitionists’ links to Pound’s embracement of Confucius’ African American History”, which introduced anti-slavery crusaders across the Atlantic ideas and in his Cantos. In the twentieth students to the methods and approaches and the significance of transnational ties century, the reception of the aesthetics, of transnational research pursued at the for her ability to combine the voice of te politics, and economic strategies of Disney Obama Institute to enable them to develop enslaved women with the voice of the theme parks had a similar impact on the self-directed research projects. The public intellectual. “Disneyfication” of public space in China. workshop gave students an opportunity The morning sessions with formal These examples illustrate the longevity, the to engage with current scholarship on the papers were followed by student variety, but also the multi-directionality of “From Confucius to Mickey Mouse: U.S.- topic and to discuss their research topics presentation on their research projects, U.S.-Chinese cultural relations. Within the Chinese Transcultural Dynamics,” jointly with scholars who are experts in the field. including “Richard Wright and the Bandung various transnational networks spanning organized by Florian Freitag and Alfred In her keynote address on “Race and Anti- Conference” (Frederick Billmeier), “African the Pacific Rim, relations between the U.S. Hornung from the Obama Insitute and Imperialism in Merze Tate’s International American Women’s Transnational Thought and China have always played a special Chang Liu from the University of Heidelberg, Thought”, Barbara Savage (University of and Activism” (Katharina Weygold), role, inspiring such concepts as “Chimerica” brought together six scholars from American Pennsylvania) discussed one of the few “James Baldwin and the Black Diaspora” (Ferguson/Schularick; with an emphasis Studies, Chinese Studies, and Art History to black women academics of her generation (Filiz Touchton), and “Eve Ensler’s Vagina on economic and political aspects) and discuss the actors and networks involved who was a pioneer in the fields of diplomatic Monologues in a Transatlantic Context” “ChinAmerica” (Hornung; with a focus on in and the media sustaining U.S.-Chinese history and international relations. A prolific (Josephine Koennecke). The workshop intercultural relations). The two cannot transcultural dynamics. scholar with a wide-range of interests, Tate’s concluded with a roundtable discussion be easily separated, however, as politics research covered the fields of disarmament, on “The Challenges of Writing Transnational and the economy have provided the legal the diplomatic and political histories of the African American Intellectual and Cultural framework and the material resources Pacific, and the role of railways and mineral History” based on questions the students for cultural interactions and culture has extraction industries in the colonization of had prepared. In addition to Celeste-Marie profoundly determined the protocols Africa. Among other inspiring talks, Richard Bernier, Richard H. King, Barbara Savage, of political and economic encounters. H. King (University of Nottingham) in his and Calvin White the workshop featured presentation on “Ideas/Images of History” Elizabeth West (Georgia State University), explored the ways in which “doing the who was a guest of the Obama Institute.

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Data and Stories in Digital Healthcare technologies in medicine, the traditional methodologies used by scholars in Medical Selected Research Humanities may no longer suffice and thus Projects December 5-7, 2019 need to be rethought and reimagined so Organized by Anita Wohlmann and that Medical Humanities can continue Susanne Michl (Charité Berlin) to afford a deeper understanding of the Un/doing Differences complexities of medical care. (DFG Research Unit FOR 1939) The workshop “Data and Stories in The aim of the mixed-method workshop The Fabrication of Centenarians: Digital Healthcare” examined the mutual “Data and Stories” was thus to explore New Forms of Age Differentiation in entanglements of the humanities with and test mixed approaches to the work Autobiographies in the U.S. medicine and data science. It focused on that data and stories do in health care. In the variety of forms in which information order to facilitate productive exchanges Mita Banerjee with Julia Velten about health and illness travel between between researchers from different (BA 1974/8-1; Funding 2016-2019) different stakeholders, such as patients and disciplines and backgrounds, we proposed health care professionals. These different to foreground a selection of categories and forms are our objects of investigation: They concepts relevant to the humanities, data This project explores the cultural fabrication encompass forms traditionally studied sciences and medicine – such as scale, of a new age category by looking at in the humanities (such as narratives, uncertainty, ambiguity, space, temporality, centenarians as a case in point. Centenarians‘ metaphors, images, graphic novels) as well images, cases, series – and to use them autobiographies are strongly on the rise on as electronic forms (such as databases, as crystallization points that productively the American book market. Our project looks electronic records, medical codes, and refract how information in health care at these and other life-writing documents digital imaging procedures). The workshop travels via different forms. In doing so, the as a medium of social differentiation and play? Moreover, our project explores the wished to explore mixed methods to better workshop hoped to contribute to mapping individual identity formation. Looking at a social differentiation of age as it converges understand how these diverging forms the contours of what could be called “Digital time-frame from the 1960s to the present or coincides with other differences such as crisscross and destabilize allegedly neat Medical Humanities”. day, we analyze selected centenarians’ gender, ethnicity, class, and religion. One disciplinary boundaries and how these More than 20 international researchers autobiographies with regard to biographical of our focal points in this context is the forms communicate information by (among them Kirsten Ostherr, Fritz narratives as well as paratexts. Analyzing intersection between various differences blending, intersecting, and even replacing Breithaupt, Arthur Frank, Thomas Weitin, discursive strategies, we explore to what and their effects on the emergence of one another. Danielle Spencer) joined the workshop, extent these autobiographical narratives “centenarianess” as a category in a process The workshop explored mixed methods which took place at Schloss Blankensee redefine extreme old age not in terms of which can be understood as a form of for Medical Humanities, a field of research in Trebbin. physical decay but individual achievement. fabrication. that uses approaches from literature Moving beyond the narrative level we also studies, history, art, anthropology, and investigate the conditions under which For further information on the activities of philosophy in order to understand with these autobiographical narratives are the collaborative research group see: the help of hermeneutical, qualitative being produced in the framework of an www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/ perspectives some of the central issues “age industry”: How are the protagonists of undoingdifferences in medical practice – such as pain, identity, these narratives being “recruited” and what illness, death, grief. With the rise of digital roles do co-authors and publishing houses

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Un/doing Differences Life Sciences – Life Writing: in new approaches to explaining and (DFG Research Unit FOR 1939) Experiences at the Boundaries of understanding human life and life narratives Enterprising Evangelicalism: Distinction Human Life between Biomedical in social and cultural studies (life writing). and Inclusion in Contemporary Explanation and Lived Experience The graduate program converges American Religious Periodicals (DFG Research Training Group) the areas of life sciences and life writing and sees them as complementary Oliver Scheiding with Anja-Maria Bassimir Mita Banerjee with Norbert Paul approaches to understand, explain and act (SCHE 1616-6/2; Funding 2013–2019) (GRK 2015; Funding 2014-2023) in boundary experiences of human life. To achieve this convergence, joint concepts need to be established. The graduate The research project investigates the role From the twentieth century to the twenty- program focuses on three research areas religious periodicals play in producing first century, the conditions of human – corporeality, ability, temporality – which affiliation to Evangelicalism in the U.S. It life have changed dramatically due to function as three conceptual spaces, wants to find out how periodicals function political, socio-economic, ecological and within which biomedical explanations, in the context of different religious cultural influences. Simultaneously, the literary and cultural analyses, and human communities, how they are used to creating interpretative models and spaces of action experience interact. The interdisciplinary religious affiliations and distinctions, and in medicine have shifted from observing and approaches are linked by narrative how they help blurring religious boundaries influencing biological processes towards practices, which function as the conceptual and forge new alliances among believers. the biological and technological shaping of and methodological background against For this purpose, the research project health and disease. Examples are manifold: which boundary experiences of human has analyzed periodicals as religious assisted reproduction, prenatal diagnostics, life are studied from diverse disciplinary enterprises. In doing so, it studies the organ transplantation, longevity and dying – angles, such as medicine, neonatology, communicative infrastructure (print and in all of these boundary experiences, the role psychotherapy, pharmaceutical biology, digital formats), the magazine’s staff of medicine has changed fundamentally molecular biology, social sciences, cultural (publishers, editors, writers, etc.), and the and has influenced the ways in which we anthropology, history, philosophy, ethics, target audiences to find out how periodicals conceptualize and deal with human life. German studies and American studies. are instrumental for processes of religious These developments have also resulted differentiation and identification.

For further information on the activities of the collaborative research group see: www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/ undoingdifferences

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U.S. Settler Colonial Biopolitics and Pedagogical Writing and Indigenous Life Writing Social Practice in the Age of American Romanticism René Dietrich (DI 1881/2-3; Funding 11/2017–01/2019) Clemens Spahr (SP 1366/5-1; Funding 1/2017–12/2019)

The research project seeks to explore how acts of life writing by North American This project studies American pedagogical Indigenous authors bring to the fore the writings in the age of American Romanticism. biopolitical logic of racialization, subjugation, It proceeds from a broader understanding and regularization integral to settler of American Romanticism, which includes colonialism and constitutive to the U.S. as the various proto-Romantic pedagogues of a settler nation-state from its foundation the late eighteenth and early nineteenth to the present. The texts of life writing by centuries. Discussing how these educational Indigenous authors from William Apess texts negotiated Romantic ideals in the to Deborah Miranda render transparent context of institutionalized and habitualized the settler colonial biopolitical logic of the practices, the project seeks to contribute to U.S, and show how it constructs Indigenous the field of the sociology of literature. The bodies and lives as objects to be variously genres discussed in the monograph will to the writings produced in the context removed, discarded, contained, infantilized, include spelling dictionaries, programmatic of the Brook Farm community, these fetishized, or pathologized. In their acts of The project thus seeks to probe how North and philosophical writings, and illustrated writings always sketch alternative spaces life writing these Indigenous intellectuals American Indigenous life writing contains school records. These writings emerge of education that are supposed to change offer a powerful means of intervention into a crucial activist impulse in the movement in the context of particular educational the field of education in a way that also the biopolitical logic of settler colonialism, toward a politics of decolonizing life and experiments. These include Susanna affects social structures more generally. as they expose the foundational element of life writing. Rowson’s academies for women, Margaret This connection between positioning in elimination and disavowal in settler colonial Fuller’s and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody’s the intellectual field and social reform is biopolitics, refuse to be contained within conversational circles, as well as Amos most clearly evident in Frederick Douglass’s the depoliticized category of “Indianness,” Bronson Alcott’s Temple School and Lydia literacy narratives, which continue this and attain a position of agency from which Maria Child’s engagement for women’s tradition by translating the idea of education to not only offer a severe critique of the rights and abolitionism. The writings into a political claim for freedom. politics of the settler state, but also to circulate in an established intellectual denaturalize settler colonial rule. Their field, within which educational norms are writing amounts to an exhibition of a lived negotiated with regard to habitualized sovereignty that defies the limitations of norms and practices. At the same time, the settler state, its biopolitical order, and these writings also aim at a larger political its lived colonial logics. reform project. From Rowson’s spelling dictionary to Alcott’s pedagogical writings

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Body and Metaphor: Key Concepts in Theme Park Studies Narrative-Based Metaphor Analysis (DFG Research Network) in Medical Humanities Florian Freitag Anita Wohlmann with Filippo Carlà-Uhink (U of Potsdam) (WO 2139/2-1; Funding 2017-2020) and Jan-Erik Steinkrüger (U of Bonn) (STE 2471/2-1; Funding: 04/2018-03/2020)

The research project is situated at the intersection of the humanities and Since the opening of Disneyland (Anaheim, medicine and focuses on metaphors in CA) in 1955 the theme park has become their capacities as potent epistemological an industry, a cultural institution, and a and experiential devices. Metaphors, medium of global economic relevance like narratives, are relevant in science and of broad social impact. Research on and health contexts as they help explain theme parks has recognized their multi- complex and abstract information. In level significance for some time already addition, metaphors enable individuals defamiliarize, contest, and reimagine and has examined specific aspects of to voice disruptive, personal experiences reductionist or allegedly set connotations. theme parks, their antecedents, and similar that are difficult to describe otherwise, for This research project asks: How can the spaces from a large variety of disciplinary example through a coherent narrative. plurisignifying potential of metaphors perspectives. At the same time, however, history, geography, anthropology as well While narrative has been successfully be activated and conceptualized so that theme park scholars have rarely looked as tourism, performance, and museum implemented within interdisciplinary limiting and harmful metaphors become beyond the borders of their own disciplines studies will join forces to collaboratively approaches, such as Medical Humanities liberating and productive? and genuinely transdisciplinary discussions write a transdisciplinary introduction to “Key and Narrative Medicine, research on The project departs from the hypothesis have not yet been established, let alone Concepts in Theme Park Studies,” geared at the relation between metaphors and that the relationship between metaphor an independent field of research with an international scholarly audience. narratives has remained unsystematic. and narrative is crucial to the meaning its own theories and methods, scholarly Moreover, studies on metaphors in of metaphors, as metaphors are usually associations, and publication organs. Medical Humanities tend to emphasize embedded in narratives and can project Moreover, specific aspects of theme parks, the problematic side of metaphors: mini-narratives of their own. The aim is such as their temporality, have only just Metaphors can indeed be stigmatizing, to develop an approach to metaphors, in begun to be analyzed by scholars, while essentializing, or dehumanizing when which – on a theoretical and a practical others, such as the depiction of theme parks the meaning of the source domain is too level – metaphor analysis and narrative in other media and in the arts, have not yet readily substituted with that of the target analysis are joined in order to investigate been discussed at all. The goal of the project (e.g., body as machine). What has been the plurisignifying potential of metaphors is therefore to foster collaboration on theme deemphasized, however, is that metaphors and to develop a concept that hones parks across disciplinary borders. From 2018 can also be pluripotent and empowering metaphorical competence. to 2020, fifteen scholars from Germany, tools of the imagination, inviting ambiguity Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, the and complexity. Metaphors can thus UK, and the U.S. and from American studies,

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Global Faith and Worldly Power: Transnational Periodical Cultures TPC has organized the following Evangelical Encounters with U.S. (Interdisciplinary Research Unit) workshops in 2019: Empire Oliver Scheiding and Jutta Ernst Zeitschriften, Gestaltung und Design Axel Schäfer (supported by the Henry Mainz. January 2019 Luce Foundation) The research group on Transnational Periodicals and Globalization Periodical Cultures (TPC), led by Jutta Ernst Germersheim. May 2019 This project explores the ways in which and Oliver Scheiding, contributes to the theologically conservative Protestants bourgeoning field of periodical studies, Translation and Transnational in the United States have encountered exploring magazines, newspapers, and Periodical Cultures the world and positioned themselves in other forms of serialized mass media in Germersheim. June 2019; international crises. It makes two central transnational contexts. TPC is intent on contributions to the study of globalizing clarifying what role periodicals play not Independent Magazines religion. First, it shows that, for American only as sites of affection, identification, and Mainz. October 2019 evangelicals, becoming more embroiled social differentiation, but also as aesthetic with the world outside of the United States sources for the arts and literature, given re-defined the content and boundaries of the changing expectations of global media the movement. As evangelical voices from markets and their audiences since the Africa, Asia, and Latin America became investigates the complex relationship of eighteenth century. more vocal and assertive, conservative evangelicalism with decolonization and TPC serves as an interdisciplinary forum Protestantism emerged as a more the politics of race. Finally, it explores for organizing workshops, conferences pluralistic, multi-directional enterprise. capitalism and the evangelical exploitation as well as graduate and postgraduate Second, it reveals that evangelical global of commercial/business practice, including research, bringing together students and missionary and humanitarian activism organizational schemes, marketing, international scholars from literary studies, cannot be understood in isolation from exchange, and investment. Within media studies, book studies, journalism the movement’s engagement with foreign these foci, the project traces several studies, sociology, translation studies, policy and international relations. ongoing themes: the rising importance of text design, archival studies, and digital In particular, the project addresses humanitarianism as a form of international humanities. The research group consists four key frameworks for evangelical engagement; the racial and ethnic diversity of senior and junior faculty members, PhD global agendas. First, it examines the role of a movement in which race remains a candidates, and graduate students working of evangelicals in the construction of U.S. central tension; the role of media; and in the field of periodical studies. foreign policy, exploring key moments the ways in which the globalization of the across the twentieth and twenty-first faith – long a goal of the missionary For more information on TPC’s centuries. Second, it studies the cultivation imperative – also has a boomerang impact activities see: of affect and the circulation of emotion reshaping U.S. evangelical life and politics. www.transnationalperiodicalcultures.net as a means of forming communities and extending power. Third, the project

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Indigenous Modernity and Non-Fiction Writing: Native American Periodicals Habilitation 1890-1920

Frank E. Newton Florian Freitag Popular New Orleans: The Crescent City in Periodicals, This research project explores Native Theme Parks, and Opera, 1875-2015 American periodicals and their particular material and cultural history between 1890 and the 1920s. It examines their material New Orleans is a unique city – which is print arrangements (i.e. language, design, precisely why there are so many New pictures, photographs, etc.) and how Orleanses all over the world: for almost they function as vehicles to express an 150 years, writers, artists, and cultural indigenous modernity. Current research brokers and entrepreneurs have drawn understands periodicals as serialised and on and simultaneously contributed to aesthetic artefacts serving both as means the Crescent City’s fame and popularity of socialisation and for establishing textual by recreating the city in popular media communities. Moreover, communication from literature, photographs, and plays and media studies focus primarily on project understands Native American to movies, television shows, and theme content, topic and the overall subject matter periodicals as a highly influential middle parks. Popular New Orleans examines of periodicals. However, scholarship tends ground to mediate different types of three pivotal moments in the history of to overlook the indigenous periodicals’ indigenous modernity. The project seeks the depiction of New Orleans in popular aesthetic and material dimensions to to demonstrate how Native American culture: the creation of the popular image studies, Popular New Orleans argues that address questions of sovereignty and periodicals—heavily saturated in language of the Crescent City during the late following Hurricane Katrina, popular media modernity. Despite the central role of and images—use aesthetic styles to create nineteenth century in Scribner’s Monthly: no longer portrayed New Orleans as an periodicals as public institutions that an indigenous print media that is part of the An Illustrated Magazine for the People/The exotic and exceptional, but rather as an fulfil social functions, innovations in print global modernities. Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, one of exemplary, quintessentially American city. and public communication specific to the leading nineteenth-century American While some of Scribner’s/The Century’s indigenous periodicals have yet to be The author received university funding illustrated literary magazines; the translation more well-known texts about New Orleans empirically and theoretically integrated from April 2019-2020 (Inneruniversitäre of this image into three-dimensional have been thoroughly analyzed by scholars, into the fields of periodicals studies and Forschungsförderung 1) and conducted immersive spaces during the second half Popular New Orleans for the first time Native American studies. The project archival research during May/June 2019 of the twentieth century in Disney’s theme considers all of the magazine’s New aims at differentiating Native American in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and Little Rock, parks and resorts in California, Florida, Orleans-related textual and pictorial content periodicals as aesthetic products to address Arkansas. and Japan; and the reconfiguration of this in its original periodical context, examining questions of collaborations, interaction, and image following Hurricane Katrina in public how the individual features relate to each ethnic differentiation in a period of social performances such as Mardi Gras parades other and to other features published in the and technological transition. As such, the and operas. Based on these three case magazine. At the same time, the manuscript

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contributes to the theoretical debate about Covering visions of the Crescent City from periodical networks. Similarly, “Popular New George W. Cable’s “Jean-Ah Poquelin” Selected Dissertations Orleans” innovates on previous discussions (1875) to Rosalyn Story’s Wading Home about (Disney) theme parks in general (2015), Popular New Orleans traces both and Disneyland’s “New Orleans Square” in the evolution of popular images of New Thomas Breideband particular by comparing all of Disney’s New Orleans as well as their impact on the Programmed ‘Treasuries of Eloquence’: Orleans-themed spaces and tracing their city itself. Based on field, archival, and A Rhetorical Take on Productivity Aids development over time, thus also stressing literature research conducted in New in Audio Engineering Software the need for a historical approach to theme York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Orlando, Tokyo, park studies. Finally, the manuscript and New Orleans, Popular New Orleans contributes to the rich scholarship about discusses both well-known, canonical texts Advised by George Pullman (Georgia State artistic responses to Hurricane Katrina by and artifacts (albeit from new, innovative University) and Alfred Hornung (Johannes focusing on opera and simultaneously perspectives) as well as material that has Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) re-examining opera as a popular medium. never been examined by scholars. More than two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle posited that the success of any rhetorical, i.e., speech act lies in a speaker’s ability to discover in each case the so-called available means of persuasion. For Aristotle and other classical scholars of rhetoric, these available means fell into three types of statements: (1) appeals that elevate the based on the knowledge of how any character and credibility of the speaker, given appeal might best be leveraged to (2) appeals that satisfy the desires and persuade an audience. expectations of an attending audience, Aristotle’s writings are still meaningful and (3) appeals that are grounded in logic today because of their universal appeal. and proper reasoning. These three types In fact, today’s creative professionals provided public speaking professionals with have similar sets of means available to a set of comprehensive and constructive elicit sympathetic audience reactions. guidelines and prescriptions that would However, today’s artists, who now widely aid their craft—both in a technical and an use digital software for their craft, also aesthetic sense. Aristotle’s theory of rhetoric have access to additional sets of available presents a method to speech crafting, a means, and these means do not seem to skill to be developed through practice and necessarily require the same amount of study. Thus, the success of rhetoric is the study and practice anymore. These means learned understanding to pick appropriate consist of smart algorithms and machine appeals in each communication context learning tools that are built into today’s

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digital software applications. The ‘auto- In this work, I provide a lens through Vanessa Keiper correct’ feature in word processing tools which we may investigate professional The Role of the Horse in Cormac comes to mind, for example. Tools such as communities and the extent to which they McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses: ‘auto-correct’ offer tempting productivity reconcile the inclusion of the latest digital “as if some part of the horse were shortcuts. Whether these tools put into tools into their workflow while maintaining within him breathing” question the importance and significance a level of control and independence over of professional practice and study is the the production of content. The study central concern of this dissertation. culminates in a larger argument about Advised by Winfried Herget To better understand these dynamics the potentially detrimental effects of brought about by technological change, automation on creative practice and This study focuses on the horses in Cormac this dissertation highlights the influence promotes an appreciation of memory McCarthy’s prize-winning narrative All the of productivity aids on concepts such as and recollection strategies that inform a Pretty Horses (1992). Much more amenable professional expertise, user experience, pedagogy of critical reflection and active than his earlier works, the novel offers none and workflow by way of examining the engagement. of the traumatized characters of Outer Dark field of audio production as a representative (1968) or the apocalyptic setting of Blood case. The research is based on close Meridian (1985). Yet its mostly adolescent content analyses of the most widely characters are emotionally orphaned and used software solutions for music mixing yearn for familial bonds and a domesticity as well as the public reflections of 25 that is absent from their world. Horses leading audio engineers. Their reflections in All the Pretty Horses fill an emotional illuminate the state of a craft during a time void and provide transportation as well when the industry has been rocked by as insight for the displaced characters. the simultaneous disappearance of large The connection between horses and versions of themselves after crossing back parts of the recording studio sector and humans plays an important role in my into their sociocultural space. the rapid influx of digital productivity aids study, and I examine other contemporary Furthermore, my study considers the programmed into software. literature to determine in how far readers and how their pre-existing affinity By way of returning to classical rhetorical McCarthy’s horses are being ascribed for horses shapes their response to the theories of memory and the practical human characteristics (and vice versa). narrative. Their individual degree of horse- strategies of recollection, I argue that Furthermore, this study aims to exemplify interest incentivizes readers to roam the outsourcing labor into software may come how the horse’s embodiment of both spaces of the narrative, and this recognition at a price. When today’s digital aids are motion and space entices suceptible of a subjective component influences my becoming capable of disrupting established characters to cross into the equine grouping of characters into footmen, riders, knowledge development and practice space of the narrative. In this space, such and horsemen to mark their closeness to conventions, then this convenience has the characters are portrayed as more fully- the narrative’s horses. I examine other horse potential of turning into complacency that developed versions of themselves, but narratives to compare their depiction of significantly hampers personal motivations the transgressive nature of entering the the protagonists’ closeness to horses, to develop mastery. equine space becomes evident when the and expand this to consider the influence characters are unable to the sustain these of gender on protagonists of horse-

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narratives. While females often have an Ashley Cheyemi McNeil inherent connection with horses, only Empathetic Humanism and male protagonists that are horsemen are Multiethnic Narratives depicted as tapping into a preternatural connection with the equine, which then separates them from human society. The Advised by Alfred Hornung and almost mythical closeness to horses of Elizabeth West (Georgia State University) the protagonist of All the Pretty Horses is seldom rivaled in other horse narratives. This dissertation uncovers how select Yet the transgressive nature of crossing multiethnic American literatures imagine the boundary into the equine realm is best minoritarian subjectivity that is not evidenced by the protagonist’s gradual loss premised on categories of nationalism or of connection to the physical world as a American mythos of agency, but rather social space, resulting in further alienation. privilege non-Western humanist subject- violence heralds guardianship amongst In addition to the principal novel of formation processes. Given their outlying its victims, not reactive hatred. Ultimately, my study, I also analyze the later parts of position in the American literary canon, this narrative methodology works to McCarthy’s border trilogy, The Crossing multiethnic, interracial texts have the undermine mechanisms of agency that (1994) and Cities of the Plain (1998). I capacity to engage not only alternative create subjects only to control, condition, expand my textual analysis to include frameworks of subject formation, but also and constrain them. other examples of contemporary American specifically humanist frames – meaning, Exploring how American multiethnic narratives, for example Annie Proulx’ encounters of inclusion that occur because literature expresses underexamined “Brokeback Mountain” (1997) or Edward of a reciprocal recognition of a shared humanist encounters between minoritized abbey’s Fire on the Mountain (1962). A condition of being. Investigating narratives peoples, this dissertation demonstrates comparison of All the Pretty Horses and of interethnic reception, this project the potential to destabilize the exclusionist McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Road illuminates how some modes of being, nationalism that first marginalized them, (2006) concludes my study. such as suffering and joy, illustrate a new without engaging or relying on said national humanism predicated on radical empathy. codes of subjectivity. To that end, this Employing an archive of narrative works project concludes by exploring how a that range from Barack Obama’s Dreams methodology of empathetic humanism from My Father (1995) to Monique Truong’s can be put into praxis. Providing examples Bitter in the Mouth (2010), alongside texts of partnerships with local disenfranchised such as Karen Tei Yamashita’s Through the groups to co-create public-facing projects Arc of the Rainforest (1990), this dissertation that expand the frame of “who counts” as shows how minority subjectivities can a viable subject, this dissertation closes by be cultivated beyond the domain of demonstrating how empathetic humanism settler agendas: how, for example, ethnic as a theory and methodology can be difference incites cross-cultural dignity, employed to benefit the public, common not racial subjugation; or how militaristic good.

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Britta Muszeika paper unfolds the necessity of rereading the chance of entering in a reconciliation Approaching Whiteness: native literary works proving their central process, which officially recognizes them as Acknowledging Native Americans as role in shaping America’s national identity. what they are: by no means vanishing but Scholars of Reversal in 19th-Century Presenting themselves as ethnographers central in shaping America’s past, present, Autobiographical Writings of whiteness, they do not only provide a and hopefully its future. framework to reverse and complete our understanding of white identity encouraging Advised by Mita Banerjee a “white consciousness” but as a result, a Rebecca Schäfer framework to reimagine native culture. Time(s) of Lives: In the light of the Canadian Truth and They create an alternative image of the (Non-)Normative Temporalities, Reconciliation Commission (2015), the stereotypical “inferior Indian” who proves Age(ing), and Kinship urgent and inevitable question arises himself capable of critically and objectively Narratives in Contemporary why the United StatWWes has not yet analyzing both cultures. By applying U.S. American Culture committed itself to a similar process. thoughts and principles used in modern Although Native Americans already studies on race (Critical Race Theory and started challenging their missing cultural, Critical Whiteness Studies) in order to Advised by Mita Banerjee literary and political representation at develop a differentiated counterimage of the beginning of the nineteenth century, “the Indian’s White Man,” the three chosen This dissertation looks at how, within a today they still remain in the lowest rank native writers prove their scholarly mindset. neoliberal, late-capitalist 21st century U.S. of society in all areas of life and continue One hundred years before we engaged in American socio-cultural context, concepts to fight their persistent invisibility. The ethnic studies, Charles A. Eastman, Sarah of time, age(ing), and kinship are intricately corresponding unawareness of past and Winnemucca and Zitkala-Ša emerge as intertwined, depend on each other for their present inequalities results in perpetuated scholars of reversal avant la lettre creating meaning, and thus produce each other. stereotypical biases, which partly prevent their own study of “races”: one which calls Located at the intersection of American them from being accepted and recognized for a rereading of literature, a rewriting Studies, queer theory, critical age(ing) as equal members of American society, of history, and ultimately a reversal of studies, and studies on belonging and and to some extent still deny them their conceptual categories of the Self and kinship, my project analyzes contemporary right to self-determination. Countering the Other. Their depiction of white culture U.S. American cultural productions from misconceptions of “the inferior vanishing in all its complexity qualifies them as across cultural contexts, independent as Indian” thus evolves to an inevitable scholars of native and white culture and well as mainstream, in four case studies. step towards a possible reconciliation. It in consequence, as Eastman remarks as Via close readings of said source material, urges us to shift our focus to the native “agents of reconciliation” who actively I discuss their (non-)normative potential perspective, questioning the imposed provide a platform for a cross-cultural in regard to the temporality, age(ing), and and long-accepted white supremacy and dialogue. The autobiographical accounts kinship concepts and narratives that they corresponding privileges which served chosen may thus be read as testimonies articulate. A central question informing this and still serve as a justification for ignoring of native contributions which may initiate study is thus whether going mainstream and avoiding indigenous contributions. a process of rethinking: one in which both and being anti-hegemonic is necessarily The “study of reversal” presented in this natives and whites realize the necessity and and always mutually exclusive.

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Elena Scherzer-Sawal undertaken in other cities of the U.S. and Living Anthologies: Authors’ Carnivals made their carnival a paradigmatic event. Selected Book in Nineteenth-Century America Based on the description, the focus of the Publications dissertation lies on the meaningful aspects of female agency and the consumption Advised by Oliver Scheiding of literature in the late nineteenth Jutta Ernst and Oliver Scheiding (eds.) century. With the organization of Authors’ Studies in Periodical Cultures (SPC) Authors’ Carnivals were a kind of literary Carnivals women of society were given the fair or spectacle, consisting of a number of extraordinary opportunities to be active Leiden/Boston: Brill various program points and performative participants within a public realm where elements. Their common feature was that men and women worked together for a they were all based on well-known literary benevolent cause. Remarkably, women Studies in Periodical Cultures (SPC) texts, or related to the lives of famous were the driving forces and female contributes to the bourgeoning field of authors. The most common feature was participation was not only accepted but periodical studies, exploring magazines, the so-called tableau vivant, i.e. the real- also appreciated. Thus, through Authors’ newspapers, and other forms of serialized life recreation of a scene from a literary Carnivals women actively introduced a new media in (trans)national contexts. Research text. Being highly entertaining events the way of consuming literature in a morally into periodicals is of high interest to many Authors’ Carnivals attracted many visitors accepted context outside privacy. because of the medium’s pervasiveness and played a major role in the popular and its enmeshment with the formation of interpretation of national and foreign cultural identities. This book series considers literature, as well as, the establishment of periodicals as important artifacts, seeking a national canon in the last three decades to assess their role for processes of cultural of the nineteenth century in the U.S.. Today transfer and translation. SPC looks at how For more information see: Authors’ Carnivals are a forgotten type of periodicals evolve in and through networks www.brill.com/page/spc/forthcoming- entertainment although they have many of people, material infrastructures, media series-studies-in-periodical-cultures parallel structures with modern types of markets, and changing technologies. entertainments, e.g. cosplay or Comic Con. Likewise, the community-building potential The aim of this dissertation, however, is not of periodicals will be considered. SPC wants to show in how far Authors’ Carnivals are to determine what function periodicals have related to today’s entertainment, or may as sites of affection, but also as aesthetic have even influenced them, but rather to and material sources for the arts and investigate the role the carnivals played literature. The book series produces a much- during their own era. To provide the reader needed bridge between historical/archival with elementary knowledge on the events’ approaches and present work in the field of structure a detailed description of the media studies by highlighting the legacies Authors’ Carnival in San Francisco in 1879 and trajectories of the periodical business is given. San Francisco’s organizers took from eighteenth-century print to the digital advantage of earlier Authors’ Carnivals age.

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Winfried Herget (ed.) Nina Morgan, Alfred Hornung, and Revisiting Walt Whitman: Takayuki Tatsumi (eds.) On the Occasion of his 200th Birthday The Routledge Companion to Transnational American Studies Berlin: Peter Lang Verlag, 2019 London, New York: Routledge, 2019

The collection of essays explores the transnational and intermedial (music, visual The Routledge Companion to Transnational arts, digital media) legacy of Walt Whitman. It American Studies provides scholars provides examples of his influence as well as and students of American Studies with suggestive parallels in contemporary poetry theoretical and applied essays that help to and thought. One common concern is the define Transnational American Studies as a question of Whit- man’s understanding of discipline and practice. democracy and its consequences for poetry In more than 30 essays, the volume offers and art. Revisiting Whitman has no revisionist a history of the concept of the “transnational” agenda. Nor is it nearly celebratory: it also and takes readers from the Barbary frontier shows tensions and ambivalences in the to Guam, from Mexico’s border crossings to oeuvre of “The Good Gray Poet.” the intifada’s contested zones. Together, the essays develop new ways for Americanists to read events, images, sound, literature, identity, film, politics, or performance transnationally through the work of diverse figures, such as Confucius, Edward Said, Pauline Hopkins, Poe, Faulkner, Michael Jackson, Onoto Watanna, and others. This timely volume also addresses presidential politics and interpictorial U.S. history from Lincoln in Africa, to Obama and Mandela, to Trump. The essays, written by prominent global Americanists, as well as the emerging scholars shaping the field, seek to provide foundational resources as well as experimental and forward-leaning approaches to Transnational American Studies.

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Isabell Klaiber, Oliver Scheiding, and Jan Stievermann (eds.) List of Other Publications Simplify, simplify! Brevity, Plainness and Their Complications in American Literature and Culture. Festschrift for Banerjee, Mita “Indigenous, Diasporic and Postcolonial Authorship.” The Bernd Engler on the Occasion of His Cambridge Handbook to Literary Authorship. Ed. Ingo Berensmeyer et al. 65th Birthday Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2019, pp. 305-23. ---. Dahm, Ralf, and Mita Banerjee. “How we forgot who discovered DNA: Why Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2019 it matters how you communicate your results.” Bioessays, 28 March 2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.201900029. ---. “Towards a Science of the Self: Autism, Autobiography and Animal Behavior This volume explores the varieties of in Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation.” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und the short form in American literature, art, Amerikanistik 67 2018, pp. 2-20. and culture as well as different ideas and ---. “A Kaleidoscope of Color or the Agony of Race? Barack Obama’s Dreams from aesthetics of simplicity, plainness, and My Father.” Developing Transnational American Studies. Ed. Nadja Gernalzick brevity from the nineteenth century to and Heike Spickermann. Heidelberg: Winter, 2019, pp. 161-176. the present. The contributors discuss how ---. “Literature, Simulation and the Path towards Deeper Learning.” Frontiers these ideas were translated into widely and Advances in Positive Learning in the Age of Information (PLATO). Ed. Olga diverging practices, serving an equally Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia. Springer, 2019, pp. 41-55. broad spectrum of cultural and political Freitag, Florian. “Theme Park Metatexts: An Aesthetics of Inclusion and functions. The essays survey a range of Exclusion.” Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures 3.1 2019, pp. 1-10. media and genres, including short fiction, ---. Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Sabrina Mittermeier, and Ariane Schwarz. “‘Here plays, popular rhetoric, songs, photography, You Leave Today’: Ästhetische Eigenzeiten im Themenpark.” Ästhetische film, and Twitter. Eigenzeiten: Bilanz der ersten Projektphase. Ed. Michael Bies and Michael Gamper. Hanover: Wehrhahn, 2019, pp. 133-54. Herget, Winfried. Revisiting Walt Whitman, On the Occasion of his 200th Birthday. Peter Lang Verlag, Berlin. 2019. ---. “Visions of a Democratic Poetry: Tocqueville - Emerson - Whitman”. In: Revisiting Walt Whitman, On the Occasion of his 200th Birthday. Peter Lang Verlag, 2019, pp. 121-138. Hornung, Alfred. The Routledge Companion to Transnational American Studies. New York: Routledge, 2019 (with Nina Morgan, Takayuki Tatsumi). ---. “North America.” Handbook Autobiography/Autofiction. Ed. Martina Wagner- Egelhaaf, 3 vols., Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019, vol. 2., pp. 1205-1259.

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---. “Confucius and America: The Moral Constitution of Statecraft.” China and ---. “Story Power: John Edgar Wideman’s Micro Stories.” Simplify, simplify! the World: Observation, Analysis, Prospect. Ed. Zhang Longxi. Beijing, 2019 [in Brevity, Plainness and Their Complications in American Literature and Culture. Chinese]. Festschrift for Bernd Engler on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Eds. Isabell ---. “Confucius and America: The Moral Constitution of Statecraft.” The Routledge Klaiber, Oliver Scheiding, Jan Stievermann. Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh Companion to Transnational American Studies. London and New York: Verlag, 2019, pp. 137-149. Routledge, 2019, pp. 148-63. ---. “Brown and Classicism.” The Oxford Handbook of Charles Brockden Brown. ---. “Introduction: Recognizing Transnational American Studies.” The Routledge Eds. Philip Barnard, Hilary Emmett, Stephen Shapiro. Oxford: Oxford University Companion to Transnational American Studies. London and New York: Press, 2019, pp. 455-468. Routledge, 2019, pp. 1-8 (with Nina Morgan). ---. “Worlding America and Transnational American Studies.” The Routledge ---. “The Shaking Woman (2010): Or, A History of My Nerves. Siri Hustvedt.” Disability Companion to Transnational American Studies. Eds. Nina Morgan, Alfred Experiences: Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Other Personal Narratives. Ed. G. Hornung, Takayuki Tatsumi. New York, London: Routledge 2019, pp. 41-51. Thomas Couser, Susannah B. Mintz. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference Schlarb, Damien B. “William Cullen Bryant’s ‘The Prairies’ and Ralph Waldo USA, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company, 2019, Emerson’s ‘The Rhodora.’” Poetry Criticism. Ed. Lawrence Trudeau. Gale pp. 674-678. Research, 2019. ---. “Ecocriticism and Life Narrative.” Research Methodologies for Auto/Biography ---. “Narrative Glitches: Action Adventure Games and Metaleptic Convergence.” Studies. Ed. Kate Douglas and Ashley Barnell. London and New York: Playing the Field: Video Games and American Studies. Ed. Sascha Pöhlmann. Routledge, 2019. pp. 236-43. De Gruyter, 2019, pp. 195-210. ---. “Life Writing and Diversity: Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself.” Revisiting Walt Schmidt, Klaus H. “Teaching American Realism in Germany.” The Oxford Whitman on the Occasion of his 200th Birthday. Ed. Winfried Herget. Berlin: Handbook of American Literary Realism. Ed. Keith Newlin. New York: Oxford Peter Lang, 2019. pp. 111-120. University Press, 2019, pp. 621-47. [for electronic version, see Oxford Obenland, Frank, Nele Sawallisch, and Elizabeth West. “Introduction: Handbooks Online]. Transnational Black Politics and Resistance: From Enslavement to Obama ---. “Teaching American Realism in Germany: Supplement – Additional Notes and Through the Prism of 1619.” Journal of Transnational American Studies 10.1 Materials.” Mainz: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, 2019. https://publications. (2019): n.p. [223-35]. ub.uni-mainz.de/opus/volltexte/2019/59280/pdf/59280.pdf. [13 pp.]. Sawallisch, Nele. Fugitive Borders: Black Canadian Cross-Border Literature at Mid- Spahr, Clemens. Review of “Scott Henkel, Direct Democracy: Collective Power, Nineteenth Century. Bielefeld: transcript, 2019. the Swarm, and the Literatures of the Americas.” American Literary History ---, Elizabeth West, Frank Obenland. “Introduction: Transnational Black Politics Online Review, Oct. 2019. and Resistance: From Enslavement to Obama: Through the Prism of 1619.” ---. “Precarious Romanticism: Nineteenth-Century American Literary Studies Special Forum Transnational Black Politics and Resistance: From Enslavement in Germany.” J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists 7 2019, to Obama. JTAS 10.1 (Summer 2019), guest editors Elizabeth West, Pia pp. 357-62. Wiegmink, Nele Sawallisch, Johanna Seibert, Frank Obenland. ---. “The Consumption of Life: Consumerist Capitalism and the Commodification Scheiding, Oliver. “‘This is Just to Say’: Introduction and Laudation for Bernd of the Self in Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt (2006) and Gary Engler.” Simplify, simplify! Brevity, Plainness and Their Complications in American Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story (2010).” The American Novel in the Literature and Culture. Festschrift for Bernd Engler on the Occasion of His 65th 21st Century: Cultural Contexts – Literary Developments – Critical Analyses. Ed. Birthday. Eds. Isabell Klaiber, Oliver Scheiding, Jan Stievermann. Paderborn: Michael Basseler and Ansgar Nünning. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, 2019, pp. 1-9. 2019, pp. 247-61.

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Veauthier, Ines. “Culture and Intertextuality: Challenges in Teaching Translation ---. with Anders Juhl Rasmussen. ”Brugen af litteratur i narrativ medicin”. Brug af Skills.” Estudios sobre Traducción e Interpretación: Especialización, Didáctica litteratur. Ed. Anne-Marie Mai. Hellerup: Forlaget Spring, 2019, pp. 258-282. y Nuevas Lineas de Investigación. Ed. Ingrid Cobos López. Valencia: Tirant ---. “Perpetual Adolescence in Literature and Film.” Encyclopedia of Gerontology Humanidades, 2019, pp. 453-68. and Population Aging. Eds. Danan Gu and Matthew E. Dupre. Springer, 2019. ---. “You never talk alone: Community and Communication in the Americas.” (online publication) Towards New Interpretations of Latinidad in the 21st Century/Hacia Nuevas ---. “Television Series on Aging: Aging and Serial Narration.” Encyclopedia of Interpretaciones de la Latinidad en el Siglo XXI. Ed. José Antonio Gurpegui Gerontology and Population Aging. Eds. Danan Gu and Matthew E. Dupre. Palacios. Madrid: Instituto Benjamin Franklin, 2019, pp. 123-31. Springer, 2019. (online publication) Wiegmink, Pia. “The Serial Character of Abolition: Charting Transatlantic and Gendered Critiques of Slavery in The Liberty Bell” Popular Culture – Serial Culture: Nineteenth-Century Serial Fictions in Transnational Perspective, 1830s-1860s. Eds. Daniel Stein und Lisanna Wiele. London: Palgrave, 2019, pp. 145-159. ---. With Birgit Bauridl. “Cultural Performance and Transnational American Studies.” Routledge Companion to Transnational American Studies. Ed. Nina Morgan, Alfred Hornung, and Takayuki Tatsumi. London: Routledge, 2019, pp. 85–95. Wohlmann, Anita, ed. Narrating Disability in Literature and Visual Media. Special issue for ZAA/Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 67.1, 2019. ---. with Madaline Harrison. “To Be Continued: Serial Narration, Chronic Disease, and Disability.” Literature and Medicine 37.1 2019, pp. 67-95. ---. with Susanne Michl. “’Hooked up to that damn machine:’ Working with Metaphors in Clinical Ethics Cases.” Clinical Ethics 14.2, 2019, pp. 80-86. ---. with Janine Naß and Thomas Efferth. “Interviews and Personal Stories: A Humanities Approach in Pharmaceutical Education.” Pharmacy Education 19.1, 2019, pp. 155-161. ---. “Symbol or Simile? Sylvia Plath’s Poem ‘Tulips’ and the Role of Language in Medicine.” Lyrik und Medizin. Jahrbuch Literatur und Medizin 11. Eds. Florian Steger and Katharina Fürholzer. Heidelberg: Winter, 2019, pp. 179–197. ---. “Analyzing Metaphors.” Research Methods in Health Humanities. Eds. Erin Gentry Lamb and Craig Klugman. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2019, pp. 25-38. ---. “Metaphor as Art – A Thought Experiment on Metaphors in Health Care.” Handbook for the Medical Humanities. Ed. Alan Bleakley. London, New York: Routledge, 2019.

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Hornung, Alfred. “The Other Jack London.” Vortrag und Mentoring für List of Presentations Given by Members DoktorandInnen, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, January 2019. ---. Partnerschaftstreffen, Center for Life Writing, King’s College, London, February 2019. Banerjee, Mita. “Narrative Medicine and the Black Maternal Mortality Crisis.” ---. “Poetic Knowledge and Narrative Medicine: Creating the Transnational Self” Narrative Medicine. June 20 – 23 2019, Johannes-Gutenberg Universität, (Keynote, IABA-Europe, June 2019, Madrid. Mainz. ---. Organization of the Narrative Medicine Workshop with Mita Banerjee and ---. “Narrative Medicine and Narrative Economics.” PLATO Conference, Colleagues from Columbia University, June 2019, Mainz. June 5-6 2019, Johannes-Gutenberg Universität, Mainz. ---. “Confucius and Benjamin Franklin” Keynote, Chinese Comparative Literature ---. “Narratives in Higher Education: Medicine and Economics.” PLATO Association, Shenzhen und Macao, July 2019. International Conference, September 13-14 2019, Johannes-Gutenberg ---. “Confucius and Benjamin Franklin: Chinese Ideas in the Foundation of the Universität, Mainz. USA” Keynote, 23rd Southeast Early China Roundtable, Milledgeville, Georgia, ---. “German National Identity, Coal Extraction, and the Ruhrgebiet.” German November 2019. Studies Association Annual Conference, October 3-6 2019, Portland, Oregon, ---. “The Routledge Companion to Transnational American Studies” Panel, OR. American Studies Association, November 2019, Honolulu, HI. Ernst, Jutta. “Language Shift as Dissent: The Use of French and German in ---. On Site Evaluation des Department of English, 11.-14. November 2019, Modernist American Magazines” Conference Protestare in Lingua Straniera: La Universität Zürich. Stampa Allofona e il Dissenso, May 2019, Rome, Italy. ---. “Chinese Ideas in the Foundation of the United States of America” December ---. “Transnationale Zeitschriftenkulturen: Übersetzung und Mehrsprachigkeit in 2019, Shandong University. modernistischen Magazinen.” December 2019, Bielefeld, Guest Lecture. ---. “Life Writing and Diversity: Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself”, December 2019. Freitag, Florian. “Historical Reality TV.” Guest Lecture, Potsdam, January 2019. Shandong University. ---. “Ancient Bodies TODAY: Grecian Guild Pictorial.” Annual Conference of the ---. “Living Transnational American Studies” Conference “Trans-Pacific, Trans- American Literature Association, May 2019, Boston, MA. Atlantic, Trans-Chronological”, Keio University, Tokio, December 2019. ---. “Ancient Bodies TODAY: Bromans (2017).” Annual Conference of the Society for ---. Global Guest Professor, Graduate School of Letters, 9.-15. December 2019, Cultural History, June 2019, Tallinn. Keio University, Tokio. ---. “The Theme Park in China.” International Conference From Confucius to Mickey Lörch, Michael. “Literary Canon Formation in the GDR: Scholarly Journal Mouse: U.S.-Chinese Transcultural Dynamics, June 2019, Mainz. Publishing and Academia.” Annual Conference of the American Literature ---. “Lands of Tomorrow: An Archaeology of the Future in Disney Theme Parks.” Association, May 2019, Boston, MA. Annual Conference of the German Association of American Studies, Hamburg, ---. “Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik: Herangehensweisen an eine June 2019. Fachzeitschrift der DDR.” Doktorandenworkshop Mainz, May 2019, Mainz. Herget, Winfried. “Revisiting Walt Whitman”, May 2019, Rathaus Dortmund. ---. “Mobilities and Immobilities in Academic Journal Publishing during the Cold ---. “Kirche und Staat in den USA “ Frankfurt Evang. Akademie am Römerberg, War.” 4th Transatlantic Graduate Student Conference on Literary and Cultural July 2019. Discourses of Mobility, 16-18 October 2019, Göttingen. ---. “James Fenimore Cooper- The Wept of Wish-tonWish”, Verein RUK Rumpenheim Kultur e.V, Offenbach, September 2019, Offenbach.

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Neubauer, Tatjana. “The O.J. Simpson Case: Between Stasis and Movement.” 4th ---.“The Contemporary American Short Story and Print Culture” Symposium der Transatlantic Graduate Student Conference on Literary and Cultural Discourses Society for the Study of the American Short Story and the American Literature of Mobility, 16-18 October 2019, Göttingen. Association – SSASS, The American Short Story – New Considerations, Newton, Frank. “Native American Periodicals in the Progressive Era: A Reading of September 2019, New Orleans, LA. the Standard Sentinel (1898-1928),” May 2019. ---.“Further Issues for the Study of the American Short Story: On Reading the Obenland, Frank. “‘Nature Made Us Equal:’ Anti-Slavery Discourse on the Early Short Story” Symposium der Society for the Study of the American Short Story American Stage.” Staging Slavery Around 18oo: Performances of Slavery and and the American Literature Association – SSASS, The American Short Story – Race from an International Perspective. International Conference. University of New Considerations, September 2019, New Orleans, LA. Gent, Belgium, September 20, 2019. ---. ”Visuality and Materiality in Contemporary Independent Magazine” Eighth Sawallisch, Nele. “Issues in Contemporary Black Canadian Literature.” Guest Annual ESPRit Conference, Periodicals and Visual Culture, September 2019, lecture. Master Seminar Canadian Studies: Key concepts and Debates (PD Dr. Athens, Greece, Panel Organization. Stefanie Schäfer), January 2019, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. ---. “Analytic Approaches to Reading Magazines” Eighth Annual ESPRit ---. “The (Im-)Possible Families of Henry Bibb: Black Families between Slavery Conference, Periodicals and Visual Culture, September 2019, Athens, Greece, and Freedom.” Guest Lecture. Otto-Friedrich-University, May 2019, Bamberg. Roundtable Presentation. ---. “Insult & Injury: American Comedy as a Platform of Social Critique.” Annual ---. “The Kinfolk Experience: Independent Magazines and the Politics of the Page” Meeting of the German Association for American Studies, June 2019, Eighth Annual ESPRit Conference, Periodicals and Visual Culture, September Hamburg. 2019, Athens, Greece, Panel Presentation. ---. “Ricky Gervais’ Distorted Men.” Anglistentag 2019. Section “Funny Men” Schlarb, Damien B. “Filling out the Map: Traversal, Colonizing, and Conquest in organized by Stefanie Schäfer and Wieland Schwanebeck, September 2019, 3rd-Person AARPGs.” Playing the Field II: Video Games, American Studies, and Leipzig. Space. Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Essen (KWI) and the University of ---. “Worldmaking, Disrupted. Black Community Building in the Early Nineteenth Duisburg-Essen, May 2019, Essen. Century.” Symposium African American Worldmaking in the Long Nineteenth ---. “Video Games and Colonial / Revolutionary America.” Seminar: Early Century. Organized by Nicole Waller, Hannah Spahn, Verena Adamik, October American Media. May 2019, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz. 2019, Potsdam ---. “Melville’s ‘Second Naivete’: Biblical Hermeneutics and Aesthetics.” 12 Schäfer, Axel. “The ‘Evangelical International’: U.S. Empire and Transnational International Melville Society Conference. Session 6: Melville’s Secular and Religion”, Keynote Address at the Religion in American Life Conference, 23-24 Religious Origins (Expert Roundtable), June 2019, NYU, New York City, NY. July 2019. University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. ---. “Melville, the Wisdom Books, and the Alternative Origins of Postcritique.” 12 ---. “W. E. B. Du Bois and the Writing of Transnational History”, Workshop “Black International Melville Society Conference. Session 9: Melville and the Bible, Diaspora and African American Intellectual History”, June 27–28, 2019, June 2019, New York City, NY. Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz. ---. “Nothing Is True, Everything Is Playable: History and Travel in Video Games.” ---.“High on Jesus: American Evangelicals and the 1960s“ Gastvortrag in der Lecture Series: Transdisziplinäre und interkulturelle Perspektiven auf Abteilung für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Anglophonie Germersheim, January Tourismus: Reisen in die/der Geschichte. June 2019, Johannes Gutenberg- 2019. University, Germersheim. Scheiding, Oliver. “Transnational Agency and Periodical Cultures: Building Schmidt, Klaus H. “In Search of Neonaturalism; or, Lost in Translation: Tracing an Sustainable Networks” American Literature Association (ALA), May 2019, Elusive Meme in American Literary Criticism and Contemporary U.S. Film.” Boston, MA. Plenary Lecture at the International Conference American Literary Naturalism ---.“Toward a Material History of the American Short Story” American Literature and Its Descendants. November 2019, University of Iceland, Reykjavik. Association (ALA), May 2019, Boston, MA.

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Spahr, Clemens. “Pre-Philosophical Moments: American Transcendentalism, Wohlmann, Anita. “Take Back Aging: Power, Critique, Imagination” ENAS/NANAS Education, and the Social Reproduction of Privilege.” October 2019, Newberry Conference at Trent University, Canada; panel organization on “Dementia Library, Chicago, Illinois, IL. and Creativity” with a paper on “Relational Creativity: Caregiving and Artistic ---. “The Problems of Popularity: Teaching Contemporary Rap Lyrics.” Formation” (with Cindie Aaen Maagaard). May 2019, Trent University, Canada. Jahrestagung der DGfA, June 2019, Hamburg. ---. “Age Narratives, Alter/Erzählen: An der Schnittstelle von Age Studies & ---. “Political Modernism: American Theater in the 1930s.” Fremdsprachentag, May Kinder- und Jugendliteraturforschung;” paper on: “Mismatch! Age Markes and 2019, Pädagogisches Landesinstitut Rheinland-Pfalz, Speyer. the Troubles of Feeling Too Old”, October 2019, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt. ---. “Literature and Commitment in the Age of Trump.” Conference “Reading in the ---. PathoGraphics workshop, “Comics put to practice: Illness narratives as tools Age of Trump.” May 2019, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz. of empowerment in the medical sphere” presentation on “Narrative Medicine ---. “Diaries of the Age: American Transcendentalism, Scribal Culture, and Social and the Usability of Text and Image”, October 2019, Freie Universität, Berlin. Reform.” 30th Annual Conference of the American Literature Association, May ---. Schönlein Symposium, “Narrative Medizin: Zuhören, Wiedergeben, Verbinden” 2019, Boston, MA. presentation on “Narrative Medizin: über die Rolle von literarischen Texten in ---. “American Transcendentalism: Literature, Reform, and the Institutions of der ärztlichen Ausbildung”, November 2019, Bamberg. Education in Antebellum America.” March 2019, University of Basel. ---. “Pre-Philosophical Moments: American Transcendentalism and the Professionalization of Education.” May 2019, University of Düsseldorf. Veauthier, Ines. “Anchors: Narrative Power in Motion.” VI Congress of Literature, Language and Translation LILETRAD, 3-5 July 2019, University of Almería, Spain. ---. “The Other Human: Exploring Identities.” International Conference Representation in the Time of the Posthuman: Transhuman Enhancement in 21st Century Storytelling, 29-31 May 2019, University of Zaragoza, Spain. Wiegmink, Pia. “Travelling Beyond the Slave Narrative: The Transnational Autobiographies of Nancy Prince and Eliza Potter,” July 2019, Universität Bayreuth. ---. “Friends of Freedom: Female Editorship and Transatlantic Communities of Affection inThe Liberty Bell”, June 2019, Universität Wien. ---. “Black on White? Reassessing ‘Tactical Anonymity’ and ‘Double Veiling’ in Eliza Potter’s A Hairdresser’s Experience in High Life” In/Visibility and Opacity: Cultural Productions by African and African Diasporic Women, Volkswagen Stiftung, July 2019, Schloss Herrnhausen, Hannover. ---. “Harriet Jacobs, Transatlantic Public Intellectual” The Black Diaspora and African American Intellectual History, June 2019, Johannes-Gutenberg Universität, Mainz. ---. “Frauen und Fotografie”Denkanstösse , Interdisziplinäre Lunch Lecture, May 2019, Johannes-Gutenberg Universität, Mainz.

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April List of Presentations at Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera (U of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez) the Obama Institute “After American Studies: Rethinking the Legacies of Transnational Exceptionalism”

May January Mario Bisiada (Barcelona) Natasha Anderson “‘Do your homework on Brexit!’ Transnational Education Metaphors in “Ottilie Assing: Navigating Transnational Networks in the Nineteenth Century” Newspaper Discourse” Sophia L. Bamert (U of California) Wolfgang Görtschacher (Salzburg) “Urban Patterns: The Textual Making of Race and Space in Chicago” “Poetry Publishing: From Periodical Research to Poetry Salzburg Review” Alfred Bendixen (Princeton U) Hsuan L. Hsu (U of California) “Language and Domestic Space in Mary Wilkins Freeman” “Making a Stink: Racial Capitalism and Speculative Atmospherics“ Vivian Colbert (Mainz) Susann Liebich (Heidelberg) “Geschichtsrezeption in der Suffragettenbewegung: Eine Analyse der “Constructing and Representing a Globalising World: Geographical Zeitschriften Votes for Women und The Suffragette/Britannia” Imaginaries in Australian Magazines of the 1920s and 1930s” Louisa Fabry Walter Benn Michaels (U of Illinois) “Multisensorik bei Printzeitschriften” “Neoliberal Identity” Abby Hohenstatt “Pluralism and Populism: The Legacy of May 68” “Corporeality and the Dancing Body in A Dance Mag” Sasha Pimentel (U of Texas at El Paso) Scott Obernesser (U of Mississippi) “The Harlem Renaissance as Root and Flower: Poets of the Time and “Road Trippin’: Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives” Contemporary Poets Sing” Patrick Rössler (Erfurt) Jennifer Reimer (U of Graz) “Die Forschung zu illustrierten Zeitschriften – Erkenntnisstand, Desiderate und “Border Encounters: Theorizing the US-Mexico Border as Transa“ Forschungslücken” Bertrand van Ruymbeke (U Paris 8) Danielle Spencer (Columbia U) “The Image of America in pre-revolutionary France (1763-1789)” “Discovering Difference: A Narrative Medicine Investigation” Ute Schneider (Mainz) “Urban, dynamisch, erfolgreich – Kultur und Strategien des Ullstein-Konzerns in den 1920er Jahren” February Elizabeth Tandy Shermer (Loyola U) Denise Uyehara (Performance Artist) “Why Do 45 Million Americans Owe $ 1.5 Trillion in Student Loans?” “Radical Time Travel: Denise Uyehara’s ‘Shooting Columbus’” David Thomson (Sacred Heart U) “Pomo Feminist: Serious, Funny and Unhinged Performances” “Reorienting Atlantic World Financial Capitalism: America and the German States” Frank Wagner (München) “nomad – Ein globales Zeitschriftenunternehmen”

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June October Ian Afflerbach (U of North Georgia) Lars Harmsen (FH Dortmund) “Strong or Weak Theory? Reading Modern Magazines” “Independent Publishing: Painless Birth – Stressful Life” Richard King (U of Nottingham) Madeleine Morley (Berlin) “‘Thinking against the Grain’: Challenging the (Emerging) Liberal Consensus“ “Print Design in Digital Times” Madleen Podewski (FU Berlin) Urs Spindler (Hamburg) “Sehen, Blättern, Lesen, Zählen: Wie sich Zeitschriftenordnungen erschließen “What is Indie? An insight into the Independent Publishing Practice” lassen“ Frank Wagner (München) Brendan Rensink (Brigham Young U) “Nomad Magazine – A Magazine for the Global Creative Community” “Transnational Indigenous Histories in the North American Borderlands“ Christian Schmidt (U Leipzig) Barbara D. Savage (U of Pennsylvania) “Wie Zeitschriften, nur anders! Eine Einführung in die Geschichte und Kultur “Race and Anti-Imperialism in Merze Tate’s International Thought” des Mediums ‘Zine’” Laura M. Stevens (U of Tulsa) “Early America through the Lens of Science Fiction” Elizabeth J. West (Georgia State U) November “Heinrich the Shoemaker and the S/Cistrunks that Followed: A Narrative of Heike Paul (U of Erlangen-Nürnberg) Black and White in the U.S. South” “Civil Sentimentalism in Contemporary Political and Popular Culture”

July December Gregory Betts (U College Dublin/ Brock U) Jochen Achilles (U of Würzburg) “Decolonizing the Garde: Avant-Garde Canadian Writing and the Indigenous “Winesburg, Ohio” – Community, Regionalism, and Cultural Mobility in Renaissance” Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919) and Donald Ray Pollock’s Brennan Collins (Georgia State U) Knockemstiff (2008)“ “Developing a Local University Ecosystem: Transdisciplinary, Collaborative Local Scholarship” Richard King (U of Nottingham) “Loyalty, Patriotism, and Nationalism in Times of Crisis”

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List of Faculty and Staff Members

Professors Höttges, Dr. Bärbel Banerjee, Prof. Dr. Mita Kathke, Dr. Torsten Ernst, Prof. Dr. Jutta Lörch, Michael, M.A. Schäfer, Prof. Dr. Axel Matter-Seibel, apl. Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Sabina Scheiding, Prof. Dr. Oliver Neubauer, Tatjana, M.A. Newton, Frank E., M.Ed. Research Professors Obenland, Dr. Frank Hornung, Prof. Dr. Alfred Obernesser, Scott, Ph.D. Raatz, Volker, Dipl.-Dolm. Emeriti Sawallisch, Dr. Nele Herget, Prof. Dr. Winfried Schäfer, Dr. Rebecca Schlarb, Damien, Ph.D. Staff Schmidt, Dr. Klaus H. Heiser, Pia Siebald, apl. Prof. Dr. Manfred Plicht, Christine, M.A. Spahr, Dr. habil. Clemens Vollrath, Anette Türk, Dr. Claudia Veauthier, Dr. Ines Faculty Velten, Julia, M.A. Bassimir, Dr. Anja-Maria Wiegmink, Dr. Pia Dietrich, Dr. René Wohlmann, Dr. Anita Dingfelder Stone, Dr. Maren Evans, Vanessa, M.Litt. Adjunct Faculty Fazli, Sabina, M.A. Achilles, Jochen Prof. Dr. Fellows, Ralph J. D. Gernalzick, PD Dr. Nadja Feyerabend, Dr. Britta Kohl, Dr. Martina Gehrmann, Ruth, M.A. Kortenbruck, Anke Georgi, Dr. Sonja Smyth, Thomas Ph.D. Görg, Dr. Claudia Temmen, Jens, M.A. Hanselman Gray, Jessica, M.A. Wacker, Petra M.A. Heiß, Stephanie Wetzel-Sahm, Dr. Birgit Heydt, Nina, M.A. Holt, Daniel, M.A.

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