Eleana Vaja studied English and Philosophy at the University of Cologne, as well as at the University of Birmingham, England. She was a doctoral scholarship holder at the University of California Berkeley (http://ies.berkeley.edu/past-visiting-scholars). From 10/2013-04/2017 she worked as a research assistant at the Institute of American Literature and Culture in Cologne; and from 04/2013-04/2016 she was part of the integrated track of the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne. In February 2017, she graduated with her dissertation on “Epilepsy Metaphors: Liminal Spaces of Individuation. American Literature 1990-2015. Selected Works by Siri Hustvedt,         Thom Jones, Dennis Mahagin, Reif Larsen, Audrey Niffenegger, Rodman Philbrick, Lauren Slater” (summa cum laude).

• Disability Studies
• Medical Humanities
• American Pragmatism
• Gilbert Simondon
• George Canguilhem
• Siri Hustvedt
• Toni Morrison

WS            2016/17   Introduction to Literary Studies (A-Sem.)

SS             2016        Introduction to Literary Studies (A-Sem.)

WS            2015/16   Dis/abilities in U.S. American Literature (Übung)

SS             2015        Blackout? Epilepsy, Hysteria and Insanity in Am. Literature (B-Sem.)

WS            2014/15   Disability Studies | Science Fiction (Hauptseminar, team-teaching with Olga Tarapata)

SS             2014        Subversive Imaginations: Reading Whitman and Dickinson (B-Sem.)

WS            2013/14   Disabilities in American Literature and Film (Übung)

Vaja, Eleana. Epilepsy Metaphors. Liminal Spaces of Individuation in American Literature 1990-2015. Bielefeld: transcript. 2017. Print. http://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-4118-9/epilepsy-metaphors

---. “Prosthetic Concretization in a Parahuman Framework” Disability – Culture – Theory. Eds. Hanjo Berressem, Moritz Ingwersen, and Anne Waldschmidt. Bielefeld: transcript, 2017, 185-192. Print.

---. Shaking as Metastability in Siri Hustvedt’s The Enchantment of Lily Dahl. Bodies | Motion – Disability in Literature, Theory and the Arts. University of Cologne, Cologne. 29 Jan. 2016. Speech.