Dr. Victoria Herche

since 2021

Adjunct Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University, School of Arts and Humanities

2020

GASt dissertation prize for her PhD thesis "The Adolescent Country: Re-Imagining Youth and Coming of Age in Contemporary Australian Film” (Englisches Seminar, Universität zu Köln 2018)

since 2020
Research Assistant for Prof. Dr. Heinz Antor, University of Cologne & Assistant Editor of Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies

2018
PhD in English Literature (summa cum laude): The Adolescent Nation: Re-Imagining Youth and Coming of Age in Contemporary Australian Film

2014
DAAD Visiting Scholar, Monash University, Melbourne

2012-2020
Research Assistant for Prof. Dr. Beate Neumeier, University of Cologne

2012
M.A., Magister Artium in Theatre-, Film- and Television Studies, English Studies and German Studies, University of Cologne

Books:

The Adolescent Nation: Re-Imagining Youth and Coming of Age in Contemporary Australian Film. Anglistische Forschungen. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2021.
- Review: Xu, Daozhi. Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies vol. 33, no .2, 2022, pp. 276-277.
- Review: Johnson, Benjamin T. Australian Studies Journal | Zeitschrift für Australienstudien, vol. 36, 2022, pp. 73-75.
- Review: Morgan, Stephen. Journal of Australian, Canadian, and Aotearoa New Zealand Studies vol. 3, 2023, pp. 215-216.
Nature and Environment in Australia (eds. with Boris Braun and Beate Neumeier). Trier: WVT, 2018.

Journal Articles / Articles in Edited Books:

Reviews:

Jennifer Debenham. Celluloid Subjects to Digital Directors: Changing Aboriginalities and Australian Documentary Film, 1901-2017. Oxford and New York: Peter Lang, 2020. Australian Studies Journal | Zeitschrift für Australienstudien, no. 33/34, 2019/20, pp. 167-171. DOI: 10.35515/zfa/asj.3334/201920.12.

Miscellaneous:

“Von der Klimakatastrophe erzählen. Zum Verhältnis von Energie und Klima anhand von Nathaniel Richs Roman Odds against Tomorrow,” mit David Kern und Antonia Villinger. KWI-BLOG Klima, 18.03. 2024. DOI: 10.37189/kwi-blog/20240318-0830.
“Australian Studies in Conversation – An Interview with Bill Ashcroft.” Centre for Australian Studies, Australian Studies in Conversation Series, interviewed by Victoria Herche and David Kern, 2019, URL: http://centreforaustralianstudies.org/australian-studies-in-conversation-indigenous-voices/conversation/
“Australian Studies in Conversation – An Interview with Jamal Barnes.” Centre for Australian Studies, Australian Studies in Conversation Series, interviewed by Victoria Herche and David Kern, 2019, URL: https://vimeo.com/354636343/088ead26f2?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=73179353.
“‘There’s lots of food in the bush’: Food and Self-Determination in Indigenous Australian Films.” Blog Food, Fatness and Fitness. Critical Perspectives, edited by Jürgen Martschukat and Nina Mackert, 01.07.2017, URL: http://foodfatnessfitness.com/2017/07/01/food-self-determination-indigenous-australian-films/.

Habilitation project: The Material Agency of the Migrant Boat

This study engages with the literary representation of migrant boats as carriers and agents of history, memory and meaning. Departing from insights in the environmental humanities and material ecocriticism this study engages with boats and their non-human material agency and material narrativity, thereby providing a transfer from theories predominantly discussed in the context of the Anthropocene to the study of migration, mobility and memory studies. In the study of migration in the Anglophone world, boats as heterotopia provide a framework to discuss human and non-human relationality in connection to colonisation, economic and ecological consequences, identity and alterity, crises and conflict, trauma and memory.

DFG-Research Network 'Energy and Literature'

(Dr. Victoria Herche, David Kern and Dr. Antonia Villinger, FAU Erlangen)

The central premise of the research network Energy and Literature, which is based in cultural studies and comparative literature, is that energy and literature are productively interrelated in ways that are, however, insufficiently theorized. Based on their respective fields of study (English Studies, American Studies, German Studies, Romance Studies, Scandinavian Studies), the members examine, in their projects, literary representations of energy in their cultural-historical contexts. They focus primarily on non-renewable resources such as gas, oil, coal, and uranium without neglecting, however, historical developments in energy production. For the theoretical and methodological orientation of the network the so-called Energy Humanities (a field of research that is dominantly shaped by work from the anglophone world) are foundational. However, our aim is not a mere import of the Energy Humanities into central European philologies. Rather, it is the network’s aim to strive for a methodological and theoretical expansion of this field of research. The network approaches this analytical goal through four thematic focal points, which particularly characterize the current engagement with energy in literary and cultural studies. 1. The network explores theories and histories of the concept of energy in order to discuss energy in a larger context of sustainability, climate, ecology, diversity, and identity following, but also distinguishing itself from contributions from Environmental, Postcolonial, and Material Studies. In order to adequately examine the various sources of energy from a literary studies perspective, it requires 2. research on different sites of energy, such as coal mines, pipelines, solar fields, nuclear power plants, and oil rigs, among others. 3. The network further considers energy in the context of Future Studies and analyzes how literature imagines non-extractive futures. 4. Finally, the network considers energy in the context of environmental ethics and climate justice.

Network Website: https://energyandliterature.wordpress.com/

International workshop organized by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Judith Rauscher (U of Cologne), Dr. Victoria Herche (U of Cologne), Verena Wurth (U of Cologne) in collaboration with the University of Oregon: “Energy and Popular Culture”, March 21, 2023 5-7 pm CET / 9-11 am PST, via Zoom.

Workshop "Extractive Zones", 16-17 May 2024, University of Cologne.

Workshop “Energy and Gender”, 22 November 2024, via Zoom.

Workshop “Environmental Ethics and Climate Justice”, 25-27 March 2025, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg.

Publication: Herche, Victoria, Antonia Villinger, and David Kern. “Von der Klimakatastrophe erzählen. Zum Verhältnis von Energie und Klima anhand von Nathaniel Richs Roman Odds against Tomorrow.” KWI-BLOG Klima, 18.03.2024. DOI: 10.37189/kwi-blog/20240318-0830.

Commemoration of War and Migration

(Dr. Victoria Herche and Prof. Dr. Noah Riseman, ACU Melbourne)

This project explores how war and immigration, which are often read independently, are remembered through narratives and cultural artefacts, and how such narratives have the power to include/exclude certain groups. It further explores how marginalised groups – LGBTIQ+ people, Muslims, Indigenous people, forced migrants, refugees – have used cultural products to challenge their exclusion from dominant narratives of national history.

International workshop organized by Dr. Victoria Herche and David Kern, together with Prof. Noah Riseman (ACU Melbourne) and Dr. Meggie Hutchison (ACU Brisbane): “Whom Do We Remember? Narratives of War and Migration”, 6 July 2022, University of Cologne.

Funding: DAAD exchange grant ‘PPP Australien’ 2020/21: “Whom do we remember? Exploring Cultural Narratives of War and Migration”, Prof. Beate Neumeier, Dr. Victoria Herche, David Kern (University of Cologne) & Prof. Noah Riseman, Dr. Margaret Hutchison (Australian Catholic University).

Edited volume: Victoria Herche and Noah Riseman, eds. Whom do we remember? Australian Cultural Narratives of War and Migration. Australian Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Peter Lang, forthcoming.

Narratives of Migration and the Digital Format

International collaboration with Prof. Paul Longley Arthur, Dr. Jamal Barnes, Isabel Smith (ECU Perth)

This research project focuses on perceptions and representations of migration and asylum seekers in Europe and Australia. The comparative study explores these issues from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives in the humanities and social sciences, including responses to migration and constructions of ‘migrant identities’ in social media, film, literature and more broadly in public discourse. The project’s aim is to explore how immigration provokes transnational reconsiderations of socio-cultural meanings and practices, including cultural resources and expressive practices that are used by individuals and groups to understand themselves and their place in the world, to structure social relations, to shape identities, and to develop actions.

Funding: DAAD exchange grant ‘PPP Australien’ 2018/19: “Migrant and transnational identity-formation: German and Australian responses to migration and asylum seekers in the media and public discourse”. http://centreforaustralianstudies.org/migrant-and-transnational-identity-formation-german-and-australian-responses-to-migration-and-asylum-seekers-in-the-media-and-public-discourse/

Workshop Series: Human Journeys in the Global Era, August 2018:

part 1: Human Journeys in the Global Era: Migrant Cultural Heritage, Sydney, 13-14 August 2018

part 2: Human Journeys in the Global Era II – Roundtable on International Engagement, ANU Canberra, 16 August 2018

part 3: Human Journeys in the Global Era III – Border Crossings, ECU Perth, 22 August 2018

Ted Chiang’s Speculative Short Fiction

(Dr. Victoria Herche and David Kern, University of Cologne)

This ongoing research project examines the work of American speculative fiction writer Ted Chiang from a variety of critical angles. Applying, for example, postcolonial theory to Chiang's work, we examine how his short fiction engages empire, power, and its 21st century manifestations. Furthermore, working at the intersection of postcolonial theory and environmental criticism, we study how Chiang's fiction refracts pressing contemporary issues like anthropogenic climate change, geophysical transformation, the ethics and politics of intervention, as well as the limits of human ingenuity. We also argue that recent developments in artificial intelligence and heated debates about what it means to be human in an unprecedented technological revolution call for in-depth readings of Chiang's oftentimes anticipatory and cautionary futurisms, interrogating the very role of science and discovery, human cognition and selfhood, as well as human-technology relations at a time where AI threatens to destabilize familiar economic, social, as well as intellectual orders. So far, two publications have come out of this project:

Victoria Herche and David Kern. “Scientists and their Discoveries: A Postcolonial Reading of Ted Chiang’s Science Fiction.” Science, Culture, and Postcolonial Narratives, edited by Karsten Levihn-Kutzler and Anton Kirchhofer. Heidelberg University Publishing, 2025, forthcoming.

Victoria Herche and David Kern. “Fatal Equilibrium: Air and the End of a Universe in Ted Chiang’s “Exhalation”.” Venti: Air, Experience, and Aesthetics, vol. 2, no. 1, Summer 2021, n.p. https://www.venti-journal.com/herche-and-kern.

Conference Paper: Victoria Herche, “Reading Ted Chiang’s “Tower of Babylon” as Alternative Energy History”, Post/Colonial Environments, GAPS (Gesellschaft für Anglophone Postkoloniale Studien) conference, Zürich, Switzerland, 9 May 2024.

Currently, I am available for appointments exclusively through Zoom. Please contact me via email.

Memberships:

On the Editorial Board of Peter Lang Series: Australian Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (editor: Anne Brewster)
On the Executive Board of InASA - International Australian Studies Association
Public Relations Coordinator at the Centre for Australian Studies
EACLALS - The European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies
Deutscher Anglistikverband
GAPS - Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies
GASt - Gesellschaft für Australienstudien / Australian Studies Association