Research Interests
- Ecocriticism and Critical Environmental Education
- Television and Film Studies
- Gender Studies and Feminist Criticism
- African American Studies
- Modernist Fiction
PhD Project
Crime-cene: Environmental Crime in New Golden Age TV
In my project, I investigate New Golden Age crime dramas with regards to their (unconscious) depictions of environmental harm, crime, and in/justice in the Anthropocene. In conceptualizing the interdependences of seriality and Anthropocene ecology, I include an ecocritical reading of the formal aspects of popular (crime) series as serial environments, with special attention to the iconicity of place, and the non-linear temporality of New Golden Age TV series, as well as common motifs and character tropes, such as the figure of the antihero, and their significance in the Crime-cene. The TV shows that I deal with are Twin Peaks, The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, True Detective, Stranger Things, Too Old to Die Young. As these series do not necessarily deal with environmental issues on their narrative surface, my approach to these texts is informed by different versions of the Anthropocene, such as Heather Anne Swanson’s Banal Anthropocene, and Julia Leyda’s notion of the Climate Unconscious. I am particularly interested in depictions of waste, toxicity, extractivism, and the historical negotiations of environmental degradation, arguing that the violent crimes in the series have an ecological dimension and find their expression through environmental destruction.
Supervisor: JProf. Dr. Judith Rauscher
Teaching
Winter Semester 2022/23 | "New Golden Age TV: Crimes and Other Disasters" |
Summer Semester 2021 | “Black Feminist Texts”, Proseminar, English Seminar I, University of Cologne |
Winter Semester 2020/21 | “American Popular Culture and the Environment”, Tutorial for North American Literature and Culture, North American Studies M.A. program, English Seminar I, University of Cologne |
Summer Semester 2020 | “Celluloid America”, Tutorial for North American Literature and Culture, North American Studies M.A. program, English Seminar I, University of Cologne |
Winter Semester 2019/20 | “American Modernism: 'Around' Nathanael West and F. Scott Fitzgerald”, Tutorial for North American Literature and Culture, North American Studies M.A. program, English Seminar I, University of Cologne |
Summer Term 2019 | German as a Foreign Language, Department for Modern Languages and Cultures der University of Rochester, NY, USA |
Winter Term 2018 | German as a Foreign Language, Department for Modern Languages and Cultures der University of Rochester, NY, USA |
Summer Semester 2018 | “America. Fact and Fiction”, Tutorial for North American Literature and Culture, North American Studies M.A. program, English Seminar I, University of Cologne |
Winter Semester 2017/18 | “American Ecologies”, Tutorial for North American Literature and Culture, North American Studies M.A. program, English Seminar I, University of Cologne |
Summer Semester 2017 | “’Real Estate’ in American Literature, Film and Music”, Tutorial for North American Literature and Culture, North American Studies M.A. program, English Seminar I, University of Cologne |
Winter Semester 2016/17 | “American Objects: An ‘Objective’ History of American Literature”, Tutorial for North American Literature and Culture, North American Studies M.A. program, English Seminar I, University of Cologne |
Academic Career
Since 2021/04 | PhD Student and Scholarship Holder at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne, serving as elected graduate student representative in the academic year of 2021/22 |
2020/11-2021/03 | Research Assistant and Lecturer at the Chair for American Literature and Culture, University of Cologne |
2019/11-2020/11 | Student Assistant at the a.r.t.e.s. Research Lab, Centre for Early Career Researchers, University of Cologne |
2019/09-2020/11 | Student Assistant and Tutor at the Chair for American Literature and Culture, University of Cologne |
2018/08-2019/05 | Language Instructor for German at the University of Rochester, NY, USA |
2016/09-2018/07 | Student Assistant and Tutor at the Chair for American Literature and Culture, University of Cologne |
2016/03-2018/02 | Student Assistant at the Vice-rectorate for International Affairs, University of Cologne |
2015/10-2016/08 | Student Assistant at the Chair for Early Modern History, Historical Institute, University of Cologne |
2014/10-2015/05 | Foreign Language Assistant for German at Colfe's School, London (PAD) |
Education
2018-2020 | Graduate Studies in English and History, Teacher Training Program, University of Cologne, Degree: M.Ed. (1,2) |
2018-2019 | Graduate Studies in Comparative Literature, University of Rochester, Degree: M.A. (1,0) |
2016-2018 | Graduate Studies in English and History, University of Cologne |
2011-2016 | Undergraduate Studies in English and History, Teacher Training Program, University Passau and University of Cologne, Degree: B.A. (1,4) |
2011 | Abitur (university entrance diploma, 1,9) Gymnasium zum Altenforst, Troisdorf |
2006-2007 | Study abroad, Earl Marriott Secondary School, White Rock, Canada |
Memberships
Since 2021 | Member of the Anti-Discrimination and Equal Opportunities Working Group at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne |
Since 2021 | Interdisciplinary a.r.t.e.s. reading group for the Environmental Humanities |
Since 2020 | DGfA/GAAS: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien/ German Association for American Studies |
Since 2020 | EASLCE: European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture, and Environment |
Scholarships and Grants
2022 | Grant from the "Funding Line Cooperation", Competence Area IV: Cultures and Societies in Transition, Global South Studies Center (GSSC), University of Cologne, to finance a visit and guest lecture with Prof. Dr. Julia Leyda, NTNU Trondheim, at the University of Cologne (December 2022) |
2022 | Grant from the "Funding Line Workshops", Competence Area IV: Cultures and Societies in Transition, Global South Studies Center (GSSC), University of Cologne, to finance the workshop "Eco-temporalities and Geo-politics", October 13-14, 2022 |
2021 | Grant from the “Finanzfonds zur Umsetzung des gesetzlichen Gleichstellungsauftrages der Universität zu Köln”, to finance a guest lecture by Dr. Natasha A. Kelly entitled “Schwarzer Feminismus, Rassismus und Intersektionalität“ (7/7/2021) |
2019 | Research Grant, Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, for conducting research at the New York Public Library Archives |
2018 | Fulbright Travel Grant, German-American Fulbright Commission, for studying at the University of Rochester |
2018 | PROMOS Stipend of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), financed by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), for studying at the University of Rochester |
Organizational Activities
2022/10 | Workshop "Eco-temporalities and Geo-politics", October 13-14, 2022, with the Environmental Humanities Reading Group, a.r.t.e.s., University of Cologne |
2021/12 | "Ecomedia Writing Workshop" with Dr. Stephen Rust (University of Oregon), as part of the workshop series "Local Practices - Transatlantic Conversations" between the University of Cologne and the University of Oregon |
2021/07 | Guest lecture „Schwarzer Feminismus, Rassismus und Intersektionalität“ by Dr. Natasha A. Kelly |
Talks
2022/10 | “True Detectives: Connecting the dots of the Anthropocene”, Narrative, Environment, Social Justice. 49th Annual Conference of the Austrian Association of American Studies, Paris Lodron University Salzburg |
2021/10 | "Missing Persons, Vanishing Places: Crime, Environmental Catastrophe, and Seriality in True Detective," (Narrating) Environmental Displacements: Virtual Workshop, University of Augsburg. |
2021/09 | “Pains, Planes, and Automobiles: Disguising Extractivism through Nostalgic Aesthetics in Mad Men (2007-2015),” Sentimental Extraction: Virtual Workshop on Fossil Fuel Extraction, Gender, and Sentimentality, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Chair of American Studies: Culture and Literature. |
2021/03 | “Serial Ecologies of New Golden Age Television: Conceptualizing Seriality, Ecology, and Eco-Pedagogy”, Workshop on Critical Environmental Education and American Popular Culture, University of Cologne, English Seminar I. |
2019/06 | “Écriture Meditation: Meditation and Mindfulness in the Works of Virginia Woolf”, The 29th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, Mount St. Joseph University, Cincinnati, Ohio. |
2019/03 | “Environmental Abjection: Kristeva and Natural Disasters“, Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference Representations of Disaster, University of Pittsburgh, Department of French and Italian. |