Doctoral Researcher, Lecturer of American Literature and Culture, and Collegiate of the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne
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: Ecocrime in New Golden Age TV
In my project, I investigate American crime TV series, ecocritically, with regards to their conscious and unconscious depictions of environmental harm, crime, and in/justice. In conceptualizing the interdependences of seriality and Anthropocene ecology, I discuss media-ecological and econarratological metaphors and conceptions in relation to popular seriality, with special attention to the iconicity of place, and the non-linear temporalities of New Golden Age TV series from 2000-present. In bringing together Anthropocenology and Environmental Criminology with serial motifs and character tropes, such as the figure of the antihero, I conceptualize the Anthropocene as a Crime-cene. In developing the analytical perspective of an eco-detective, I look specifically at Waste Lands, Toxic Waters, and (Petro-)Extraction in TV series such as Twin Peaks, The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, True Detective, Stranger Things, Too Old to Die Young, and Outer Range. As these series do not necessarily deal with environmental issues on their narrative surface, my approach 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, arguing that the depicted crimes in the TV series entail various ecocrimes, ranging from unnarrated, unvisualized, and uncriminalized instances of ecosystem harm, to visually and narratively overt forms of long-term and large-scale environmental destruction.
Supervisor: JProf. Dr. Judith Rauscher
Teaching
Summer Semester 2024
"Food and Body Politics", Proseminar, English Seminar I, University of Cologne
Summer Semester 2024
"American Cultural Studies", Mid-level seminar, English Seminar I, University of Cologne
Winter Semester 2023/24
"Black Theater USA", Proseminar, English Seminar I, University of Cologne
Winter Semester 2023/24
"Modernist Literature", Proseminar, English Seminar I, University of Cologne
Winter Semester 2022/23
"New Golden Age TV: Crimes and Other Disasters", Proseminar, English Seminar I, University of Cologne
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
Publications
Wurth, Verena. “Pains, Planes, and Automobiles: Extractivist Nostalgia in Mad Men.” To the Last Drop: Affective Economies of Extraction and Sentimentality, edited by Axelle Germanaz et al., transcript, 2023, pp. 111–36.
Rust, Stephen, and Verena Wurth. “Blue Media Ecologies Swimming Through the Mediascape with Sir David Attenborough.” The Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies, edited by Antonio Lopez et al., Routledge, 2023, pp. 51–58. Routledge Environment and Sustainability Handbooks.
Academic Career
Since 2023/09
Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer of American Literature and Culture at the Chair for American Literature and Culture, University of Cologne, and Collegiate at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne
2021/04-2023/08
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
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
2023/03
Workshop “Energy and Popular Culture”, with JProf. Dr. Judith Rauscher (University of Cologne) and Dr. Victoria Herche (University of Cologne), as part of the workshop series "Local Practices - Transatlantic Conversations" between the University of Cologne and the University of Oregon
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
2024/04
“Crime-cene: Ecocrime in New Golden Age Television,” (Poster) Zweites Forum Nachhaltigkeit, University of Cologne.
2024/03
“Between a Spill and a Leakage - Narrative Complexity and Ecocriminality in Breaking Bad (2008-2013),” Leakages, TU Dresden.
2023/06
"Time, Territory, and Eco-TV: Extracting the Pasture in Outer Range,” America and Ownership: Territory, Slavery, Jubilee, DGfA 69th Annual Meeting, University of Rostock.
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.
