2013

Ridvan Askin

Publications:

“Fantastic Aesthetics: A Report on the International Conference ‘Aesthetics in the 21st 
Century’.” Dichtung Digital: Journal für Kunst und Kultur digitaler Medien 
(2013) n. pag. Web.

Interview by Pascal Jurt. “Grand dehors? Ein Gespräch mit dem Amerikanisten Ridvan 
Askin über Spekulativen Realismus und objekt-orientierte Philosophie.” 
Springerin: Hefte für Gegenwartskunst 1 (2013): 26-31. Print.

Interview by Marion Regenscheit. “Aesthetics in the 21st Century.” Dichtung Digital: 
Journal für Kunst und Kultur digitaler Medien (2013) n. pag. Web. 
[republication of “Vom Eigenleben der Dinge,” 2012].

Invited Talk:

“Sweet Dreams Are Made of This: Speculation.” International Conference Weaponising 
Speculation. Dublin Unit for Speculative Thought (DUST), Independent 
Colleges Dublin, 2-3 March 2013.

Conference Talks:

“The Politics of Depersonalization in Ana Castillo’s The Mixquiahuala Letters.” Extra-
Subjectivity: New Concepts in Post-Identitarian Thought. University of Bern, 1-
2 December 2013.

Organisation:

English and American Rhenish Scholars (EARS) Meeting. Plenary Talk by Jan Alber 
(Freiburg). University of Basel, 7 June 2013.

Thomas Austenfeld

Article published:

Austenfeld, Thomas. “Playing the Prodigal: Walcott’s Variations on a Biblical Parable.” Proceedings of the Second Edition of ELLE International Conference, Oradea, 14-15 September 2012. Cluj-Napoca: Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă, 2013. 135-142.

Conference talks and invited lectures:

“Memoir, not Autobiography: Lowell’s Self-Articulation Reexamined.” Editorial Institute, Boston University, invited by Christopher Ricks. October 30, 2013.

“Catholicism in the United States: History, religious practice, social place.” Guest Lecture in the Dept. of Sociology, University of Fribourg, October 17, 2013.

“The Drama of Staging a Lyrical Moment: An Introduction to the Work of Dana Gioia.” Presented at the 2013 Triennial Conference of IAUPE, The International Association of Professors of English, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, July 16-20, 2013.

“Occasional Poets: Kay Boyle and Katherine Anne Porter.” Alternative Modernisms Conference, Cardiff University, May 16-17, 2013.

“Transposing the Key: Tracking the Confessional Voice from Poetry to Memoir and Beyond.” The Poetics and Politics of Crossing in the U.S.: 11th Conference of the Spanish Association of American Studies, University of La Laguna, Tenerife, March 20-22, 2013.

Invited Keynote Lecture: “Fleeing, Flying, Staying, Leaving: Escape and Ecology in American Literature.” Conference In Fuga, Catholic University of Milano, Italy, March 1, 2013. 
“Library and Database Research Using Remote Catalogues.” Presentation to Faculty and graduate students. University of Salamanca, February 20-22, 2013.

American Studies activities

• Fribourg, October 8, 2013: Guest lecture by Prof. Kathy Lou Schultz, University of Memphis, “The Harlem Renaissance.”

• Fribourg, April 27-30, 2013: Visit by American poet Dana Gioia to the University of Fribourg. Guest lecture, “California Poetry”; workshop with graduate students.

• Host Mentor for a SCIEX project on Jewish American writer Gary Shteyngart, conducted by Dr. Enikö Maior (Partium University, Oradea, Romania) at the University of Fribourg, January 15-July 15, 2013

Arnaud Barras

Conference Presentation:

Barras, Arnaud. “Ecosystem of Transformation: Migration, Borders and Environmentalism in 
Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Changing nature: migrations, energies, limits 
(ASLE 10th Biennial Conference). Kansas University, Lawrence, KS. 30 May 2013.

Received a 12-month Doc.Mobility Fellowship (FNS) to study Environmental History at the 
Australian National University (ANU), Canberra. September 2013-August 2014.

Claudia Franziska Brühwiler

Book:

Political Initiation in the Novels of Philip Roth. London/NY: Continuum Publishing. Print.

Conference Papers:

“From a Society of Second Handers to Galt’s Gulch: Ayn Rand’s Counter-Worlds.” American Utopias, 40th Conference of the Austrian Association of American Studies, Salzburg, November 9, 2013.

“The Allure of Anna Granite or Mirroring Ayn Rand’s Persuasive Power.” Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), Chicago, August 31, 2013.

“Verschwiegen, verspottet: Ayn Rands libertäre Einstiegsdroge und libertäre Vergnügungsliteratur.” LebensLust. Vom élan vital in den Künsten und Wissenschaften, L’arc, Romainmôtier (Switzerland), June 8, 2013.

“A Human Being Lives Here: Philip Roth on Scandals and the Presidency.” Roth@80, Conference by the Philip Roth Society, New Jersey, March 18, 2013.

Magazine Article:

“Wer hat Angst vor Ayn Rand?” Schweizer Monat no. 1004, 87-90: Print.

Translation:

Merino, Ana. Liebe: sehr zerbrechlich. Drama in four acts. Translated from Spanish. Presented at Keller62, Zurich.

Ursula Caci

Scholarship:

June 2012 – May 2013 Research Scholar at the State University of New York (SUNY) at 
Buffalo, funded by a fellowship for prospective researchers from the Swiss National 
Science Foundation (SNSF).

Joanne Chassot

Defence of dissertation:

Joanne Chassot. Ghosts in Contemporary African Diasporic Literature: Re-visioning History, 
Memory and Identity. Diss. Université de Lausanne, 2013.

Conference:

Agnieszka Soltysik-Monnet and Joanne Chassot organized a CUSO doctoral workshop on 
“Gothic/Fantasy Figures of Race, Queer and Postcoloniality,” with Prof. Linnie Blake 
(Manchester Metropolitan University) and Prof. Gina Wisker (University of Brighton) 
as guest speakers, February 14-15, Université de Lausanne.

Thomas Claviez

Books:

Claviez, Thomas (ed.). The Conditions of Hospitality: Ethics, Politics, and Aesthetics on the Threshold of the Possible. New York: Fordham UP, 2013.


Essays:

Claviez, Thomas. “Done and Over With –Finally? Otherness, Metonymy, and the Ethics of Comparison.” PMLA 128. 3 (May 2013): 608–614.

Claviez, Thomas. “Introduction: ‘Taking Place’ – Conditional/Unconditional Hospitality.” T. Claviez (ed.), The Conditions of Hospitality. New York: Fordham, 2013. 1-11.

Claviez, Thomas. “Transcendifferance, or: Limping Toward a Radical Hospitality,” in T. Claviez (ed.), The Conditions of Hospitality. New York: Fordham, 2013. 24-41.

Claviez, Thomas. “Jamming What Exactly? Some Notes on the ‘Anthropological Machine’ and Ethics in Derrida, Agamben, Calaro and Latour.” Timo Müller and Michael Sauter, eds. Literature, Ecology, Ethics. Recent Tends in Ecocriticism. Heidelberg: Winter, 2013. 69-80.

Claviez, Thomas. “Rancière, Schiller, and ‘Free Play’: Politicizing the Game.” Colloquium Helveticum 43 (2012). 147-159.

Talks:

“Post-Subjectivity, Contingency, and Community” (Conference, ‘Extra-Subjectivity: New 
Concepts in Post-Identitarian Thought,’ Bern, 1-2 Dec. 2013).

“The Limits of Recognition” (Conference “Philosophy and Sociology,” Prague, 2-4 May 2013)

Awards:

Member of the Academia Europaea

Distinguished Lecture Series 2013 (Center for Cultural Studies, Bern):

Prof. Dr. Mireille Rosello (University of Amsterdam, Oct. 2013): “Hybrid Train to 
Contingency: Pascal Mercier’s Transnational Stories”

Prof. Dr. Judith Butler (University of California, Berkley, Nov. 2013): “Freedom of Assembly, or We, the People”

Prof. Dr. Roberto Esposito (Istituto italiano di Scienze Umane, Dec. 2013): “Community, 
Immunity and Biopolitics”

Other talks:

Pease (Oct. 2013): “The Anti-Slave from Emerson to Obama”

Lukas Etter

Publications:

Etter, Lukas. “Autobiographische Graphic Novels: Das Beispiel von Alison Bechdels Fun Home.” Autobiographie: Eine interdisziplinäre Gattung zwischen klassischer Tradition und (post-)moderner Variation. Ed. Uwe Baumann and Karl August Neuhausen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013. 532-45. Print.

Etter, Lukas. “On the Drawing Board: The Many Autobiographical ‘Wedges’ of Alison Bechdel.” American Lives. Ed. Alfred Hornung. Heidelberg: Winter Universitätsverlag, 2013. 313-26. Print.

Rippl, Gabriele, and Lukas Etter. “Intermediality, Transmediality, and Graphic Narrative.” From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative. Ed. Daniel Stein and Jan-Noël Thon. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2013. 191-217. Print.

Etter, Lukas. “The ‘Big Picture’ as a Multitude of Fragments: Jason Lutes’s Depiction of Weimar Republic Berlin.” Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives: Comics at the Crossroads. Ed. Shane Denson, Christina Meyer, and Daniel Stein. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. 229-41. Print.

Etter, Lukas, and Gabriele Rippl. “’Don’t laugh – this ain’t the funny pages’: Comics und Bildende Kunst (Alain Séchas, Raymond Pettibon).” Interpiktorialität: Theorie und Geschichte der Bild-Bild-Bezüge. Ed. Guido Isekenmeier. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2013. 261-78. Print.

Stipends:

‘Intra-European Travel Grant’ by the European Association for American Studies (EAAS).

Talks:

“Aesthetic Aspects of Serial Recognition in Alternative Graphic Narratives.” Interdisziplinärer Studientag. Schweizerische Studienstiftung. Université de Fribourg. October 2013. Workshop Presentation.

“Seria(s)lly Episodic: Gradual Formal Variations in Alison Bechdel’s Feminist Comic Strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983-2008).” Illustration, Comics, and Animation Conference. Dartmouth College. April 2013. Conference Presentation.


Franziska Gygax

Publications:

Gygax, F. (2013). “Theoretically Ill: Autobiographer, Patient, Theorist” In A. Lembert-Heidenreich & J. Mildorf (Eds.), The Writing Cure: Literature and Medicine in Context, Kultur- und Naturwissenschaften im Dialog/Natural Sciences and Humanities in Dialogue. Volume 2. Münster: Lit Verlag, 173-190.

Gygax, F. (in press). “Sitwell Edith Sitwell: Stein and Sitwell in Echo.” In S. Posman & L. Schulz (Eds.), Gertrude Stein and Europe: Talking and Listening. Penn State UP.

Gygax, F., Koenig, R., Locher, M. A., Tischler, V. (2013), Interdisziplinäres Forschungsprojekt: “Life (Beyond) Writing: Illness Narratives”. Bulletin SAGW, 2013, 3, 60-61.

Lectures:

Gygax, F. (2013). “Woundable, around the bounds”: Life (beyond) writing and terminal illness. Paper presented at the Narrative Matters in Literature, Linguistics, Psychology and Medicine, English Department, University of Basel. April 15.

Gygax, F. (2013). “Illness Autographics of the 21st Century.” Paper presented at the IABA 
Europe 2013 conference: Beyond the Subject. New Developments in Life Writing. Vienna, Austria. Oct 31-Nov 3.

Awards/ project funded by SNF:
Jan –April: SNF grant (extension) for interdisciplinary project on “Life (Beyond) Writing: Illness Narratives”

Stipend from the Freie Akademische Gesellschaft (FAG) for the planned book Narrative 
Matters in Medical Contexts across Disciplines. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

• Cooperation with Prof. Dr. Victoria Tischler, University of Nottingham on Medical Humanities
• International symposium “Narrative Matters in Literature, Linguistics, Psychology and Medicine”, 15 April 2013 in Basel (organized together with Miriam Locher and Regula Koenig)
• Lecture by Professor Jared Gardner form Ohio State University to give a talk on “Graphic Autobiography and Illness,” May 23 (sponsored by the American Embassy).

Sarah Henzi

Interviews:

Henzi, Sarah. “Écrire dans la langue du colonisateur, un problème ou une manière d’y faire face?” Interviewed by Caroline Nepton-Hotte. Boréal hebdo – CBC North. November 25, 2013.

Invited Presentations :


“Du roman à la bande-dessinée : souveraineté littéraire et espaces de décolonisation.” Academic Roundtable, “Souveraineté et décolonisation à travers les œuvres des écrivains autochtones,” Salon du Livre des Premières Nations, Wendake, QC. Invited by Prof. Natacha Gagné, Department of Anthropology, Université Laval, QC, November 29, 2013.

“‘La langue du nutshimit’: Aboriginal Literature in Quebec.” Invited by Prof. Shelley King, Department of English Language & Literature, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, September 10, 2013.

“‘En français, s’il vous plaît’: Aboriginal Literature in Quebec.” Invited by Prof. Ute Lischke, Department of English and Film Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, April 11, 2013.

“Translating Bâtons à messages: Raising Awareness for Quebec’s Aboriginal Literature.” Annual Colloquium “First Persons, First Texts.” Invited by Dr. Warren Cariou, Department of English & Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, February 1-3, 2013.

“Inventing Interventions: New Media, Language Reappropriation, and Aboriginal Studies.” Invited by Prof. Alan Bewell, Department of English, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, January 9, 2013.

Conference Presentations (with Peer Review):

“Comics of the 8th Fire Generation: Alternative Forms for Aboriginal Storytelling.” Paper presented at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association 5th Annual Conference, Saskatoon, SK, June 13-15, 2013.

“Aboriginal Writers and the Graphic Novel: Alternative Forms of Storytelling.” Paper presented at the 2013 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (CACLALS Session), “@ the edge: Revisiting/Contesting Marginality,” University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, June 1-3, 2013.

“‘A Necessary Antidote’: Richard Van Camp and the Graphic Novel.” Paper presented at the 2013 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (CALA/CACLALS Session), “Richard Van Camp @ the Edge of Media and Genres,” University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, June 1-3, 2013.

“Concatenation, Reconciliation, and Kinship: Legacies of the Residential School System in Aboriginal Writing and Film.” Paper presented at the “Native Residential Schools in Qc: Legacies for Research” Workshop, Concordia and Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, April 18-19, 2013.

“Aboriginal New Media: Alternative Forms of Storytelling.” Paper presented at the 128th Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention (“Image, Voice, Text: Canadian Literature” Session), Boston, MA (USA), January 3-6, 2013.

Co-organizer of and Lecturer for the first Graduate Summer School “Aboriginal Literature in Canada and Quebec: Reflections on Politics and Culture,” Center for International Research and Studies (CÉRIUM), Université de Montréal, 2013 (will be repeated in July 2014)


Abstract:
From the siege of Wounded Knee in 1973 to the Oka crisis in 1990, to the current Idle No More movement, Aboriginal political struggles and protests have often been accompanied by acts of speaking out and of artistic expression that transform the public space. Such interventions are raising more and more questions about contemporary Aboriginal cultures, which are in no way disappearing; rather, they are vibrant and growing, as evidenced by the burgeoning of Aboriginal literature in Canada and Quebec.
It is within this context that we will elaborate our Summer School “Aboriginal Literature in Canada and Quebec: Reflections on Politics and Culture.” By way of seminars, lectures, discussions and debates, we will examine how literature enables us to better understand the political, historical and social issues that Aboriginal peoples are faced with, and how these issues, in turn, inform their literary and artistic creations.
www.cerium.ca/Aboriginal-Literature-in-Canada

Hartwig Isernhagen

Hartwig Isernhagen presented a paper entitled “‘Modernism/Postmodernism’: Primitivismus und Innovation” at the joint conference of SGAVL (Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft), NFS “eikones – Bildkritik” and DGAVL (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft) on “Primitivismus intermedial / Primitivisme et intermédialité” at the University of Basle, 3 - 5 Oct., 2013.

Nidesh Lawtoo

Books:

The Phantom of the Ego: Modernism and the Mimetic Unconscious. East Lansing: Michigan 
State University Press, 2013.

Articles:

“A Picture of Africa: Frenzy, Counter-Narrative, Mimesis.” Modern Fiction Studies 59.1 
(2013): 26-52.

Papers:

“Conrad’s Neuroplasticity” 
MLA, Chicago, January 2014

“The End of the Duel: Conrad, Clausewitz, Girard.”
Joseph Conrad Society UK, Roma, July 2013

“The Avatar E-Motion: Techne, Trance, Transformation”
SAUTE, Lausanne, April 2013

Awards:

2013-2015 Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowship for Advanced Researcher (Johns 
Hopkins University)

Christina Ljungberg

Published:

Elleström, L., Fischer, O., and Ljungberg, C. Iconic Investigations. Amsterdam: John 
Benjamins, 2013.

Ljungberg, C., and Klarer, M. Cultures in Conflict / Conflicting Cultures. Swiss Papers in 
English Language and Literature.Tübingen: Narr, 2013.

“Intermedial narration i den fotolyriska bildboken.” Opponentrescension. Samlaren: Tidskrift 
för litteraturvetenskaplig forskning (2013): 366-369.

Organisation of conference:

Ninth International Symposium on Iconicity in Language and Literature at Rikkyo University, 
Tokyo, 3-5 May, together with Masako Hiraga and Olga Fischer.

Conference talks:

“Mapping European travel in literature: Identifying geographies of change,” talk given at 
EUGEO 2013 at University of La Sapienza, Rome. Rome, 5 September 2013.

“Mapping Utopia.” Talk given at conference Travelling Narratives, University of Zurich 29 
November -1 December 2013, 30 November 2013.

Scott Loren

Book:

Loren, Scott and Jörg Metelmann. Irritation of Life: The Subversive Melodrama of Michael 
Haneke, David Lynch and Lars von Trier. (Marburger Schriften zur Medienforschung, 
43). Marburg: Schüren, 2013.

Lectures:

Loren, Scott. “Can Disaster Films be Feminine? Lars von Trier’s challenge to the male gaze.”
Keynote lecture
Melancholia: Imaging the End of the World
Philipps University, Marburg; Central Connecticut State University, June 2013
Marburg, Germany

Loren, Scott. “Migration, hybrid media and educational practices – an ‘other’ perspective.”
Poster Session
Pädagogische Professionalität in der Migrationsgesellschaft
Tagung an der Universität Bremen in Kooperation mit dem CMC der Universität Oldenburg, April 2013
Bremen, Germany

Loren, Scott. “Bewegende Bilder, bewegte Menschen – Visuelle Ontologien am Beispiel von 
Lars von Trier.”
Ringvorlesung: Menschen – Bilder: Wie Bilder uns verändern
Focusreihe an der Pädagogischen Hochschule St. Gallen, 2013
St. Gallen, Switzerland



Sämi Ludwig

Conference paper:

“William Faulkner’s Geometrics of Redemption: Circles, Rectangles, Triangles.” East-West Cultural Passage Conference: The International Faulkner. Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania. May 2013.

Memberships:

since 2013 Member advisory/scientific board of Philological Research and Studies—English Language and Literature Series (Studii și cercetări filologice. Seria limba și literatura engleză) University of Pitești (Romania)
2013 conferred honorary membership by the Academic Anglophone Society, Romania

Michael Prusse

Gave the following talks:

“Superheroes, the Media and Hybrid Narratives: The Blending of Genres in Philip Pullman’s 
Spring-Heeled Jack and in Kevin Brooks’ iBoy.” (IRSCL 2013: Children’s Literature 
and Media Cultures. Maastricht University, 11 August 2013)

“‘Every Story Tells a Story That Has Already Been Told’: Intertextuality and Transmediality in Literature for Children and Young Adults.” (Tell Me a Story, Show Me the World Conference, Zurich University of Teacher Education, 13 September 2013)

“Rites of Initiation in the Short Story.” (Pedagogical University of Cracow, 22 November 
2013)

“The Origins of Drama: From the Greeks to Shakespeare.” (Pedagogical University of Cracow, 25 November 2013)

Gabriele Rippl

Publications:

Rippl, Gabriele, et al., eds. Anglia. Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 131.1 and 131.4 (2013)

Rippl, Gabriele, ed. Towards a New Monumentalism? Spec. issue of Anglia. 
Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 131.2 + 3 (2013)

Rippl, Gabriele. Introduction. Towards a New Monumentalism? Spec. issue of Anglia. 
Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 131.2 + 3 (2013): 207-217.

Rippl, Gabriele, and Lukas Etter. “‘Don’t laugh – this ain’t the funny pages’: Comics und Bildende Kunst (Alain Séchas, Raymond Pettibon).” Interpiktorialität: Theorie und Geschichte der Bild-Bild-Bezüge. Ed. Guido Isekenmeier. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2013. 261-279.

Rippl, Gabriele, Tiina Kirss, Philipp Schweighauser, Therese Steffen, and Margit 
Sutrop, eds. Haunted Narratives: Life Writing in an Age of Trauma. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2013.

Rippl, Gabriele, and Lukas Etter. “Intermediality, Transmediality, and Graphic 
Narrative.” From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative. Ed. Daniel Stein and Jan-Noël Thon. Narratologia. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013. 191-217.

Rippl, Gabriele. Introduction. Handbuch Kanon und Wertung. Ed. Gabriele Rippl and 
Simone Winko. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013. 1-5.

Rippl, Gabriele, et al. Introduction. Haunted Narratives: Life Writing in an Age of Trauma. Ed. Gabriele Rippl, Tiina Kirss, Philipp Schweighauser, Therese Steffen, and Margit Sutrop. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2013. 3-18.

Rippl, Gabriele. “John Updikes Seek My Face (2002) zwischen kunstgeschichtlicher 
Anekdote und fiktionaler (Meta-)Biographie.” Anekdote – Biographie – Nakon: Zur Geschichtsschreibung der schönen Künste. Köln-Weimar-Wien: Böhlau, 2013. 293-314.

Rippl, Gabriele, and Simone Winko, eds. Metzler Handbuch Kanon und Wertung. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013.

Rippl, Gabriele. Rev. of Under the Hood: Die Verweisstruktur der Watchmen, Hans-
Joachim Backe. European Comic Art 6.1 (2013).

Rippl, Gabriele. “‘Why hath this Lady writ Her own Life’ – Frühneuzeitliche 
Lebensbeschreibungen englischer Frauen zwischen klassischer (männlicher) lettere e virtù-Tradition und neuen Formen autobiographischen Schreibens.” Autobiographie: Eine interdisziplinäre Gattung zwischen klassischer Tradition & (post-)moderner Variation. Göttingen: V & R Unipress and Bonn: Bonn UP, 2013. 151-174.

Rippl, Gabriele, and Julia Straub. “Zentrum und Peripherie: Kanon und Macht (Gender, Race, Postcolonialism).” Handbuch Kanon und Wertung. Ed. Gabriele Rippl and Simone Winko. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013. 110-118.

Guest lectures:

“Description & the Production of Presence: Literary Debates in Eighteenth-Century England 
and Germany” (DFG-Conference “Präsenz und Evidenz fremder Dinge an der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel,” September 2013); “Intermedialität: Text-Bild-Verhältnisse” (Institut für Populäre Kulturen, University of Zurich, March 2013).

Organisation of guest lectures:

Johanna Hartmann, M.A. (University of Augsburg); Prof. Dr. Laura Marcus (University of 
Oxford); Prof. Dr. Renate Bosch and Dr. Guido Isekenmeier (University of Stuttgart); Prof. Dr. Susanne Bach (University of Kassel); Prof. Dr. Ina Habermann (University of Basel); Prof. Dr. Barbara Korte (University of Freiburg i. Br.); Prof. Dr. Jared Gardner (Ohio State University, together with the American Embassy in Bern); Prof. Dr. Sieglinde Lemke (University of Freiburg i. Br.); Dr. Elbert Ransom (together with the American Embassy in Bern).

Conferences:

Münchenwiler Seminar of the Collegium Generale of the University of Bern „Nachhaltiges 
Lernen“ (April 2013)

Workshops:

Intermediality Workshop with Prof. Dr. Laura Marcus (University of Oxford) and Swiss PhD 
students (October 2013); Intermediality Workshop (IASH), together with Prof. Dr. 
Renate Brosch and Dr. Guido Isekenmeier (University of Stuttgart) and Prof. Dr. Peter 
Schneemann (University of Berne), December 2014

Johannes Riquet

Conference papers:

Flooded by History: Accumulating the Past on the Shores of the Island. Conference paper, 
“Island Dynamics”, Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, 17 May 2013.

Navigation into Paradise: Cecil B. DeMille’s Male and Female, Ellis Island and the American 
Insular Imaginary. Conference paper, “Islands and Continents: (Re)construtions of 
Identity”, Funchal, 26 September 2013.

Spectral Island Topographies: Negotiating Relations between East and West in Letters from 
Iwo Jima (2006) and Skyfall (2012). Conference paper, “Topographies of Popular 
Culture”, Tampere, 26.10.13.

Conference paper, “Insularity. Representations and Constructions of Small Worlds”, Valletta, 
23 November 2013. 

The Island as Territory: Darwin’s Legacy in Island Myths from H. G. Wells to Amitav Ghosh. 
Conference paper, “Insularity. Representations and Constructions of Small Worlds”, 
Valletta, 23 November 2013.

Eye-Land on the Horizon: Eroding the Image and the Island Paradise in White Shadows of the 
South Seas (1928). Conference paper, “Travelling Narratives: Modernity and the 
Spatial Imaginary”, Zurich, 29 November 2013.

Activities in American Studies:

US-American Foundational Myths and/in Popular Culture: Doctoral Workshop with Prof. 
Heike Paul (Erlangen-Nürnberg), 18-19 April 2013.

Theorising The Wire: Crime, Culture, Seriality. Doctoral Workshop with Prof. Griselda 
Pollock (Leeds), Prof. Elisabeth Paefgen (Berlin) and Daniel Eschkötter (Weimar), 1-2 
November 2013.

Travelling Narratives: Modernity and the Spatial Imaginary. International Symposium at the 
University of Zurich, 29 November – 1 December 2013.

Manuela Rossini

Published:

“Imagineure möglicher Zukünfte: Science/Fiction und die Posthumanisierung von 
Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft.” Future Reloaded: Zukunftsvisionen in Wissenschaft 
und Science Fiction. Ed. Rainer Egloff. (Collegium Helveticum Heft 14, 2013).

“Submarine Spielformen menschlicher Ex-sistenz von Christoph Ransmayr – ein 
Wassermann erzählt.” Metamorphosen. Ed. Antonia Ulrich und Jessica Ullrich. 
(Tierstudien 04, Herbst 2013).

Lectures:

University of Bern, 1-2 December 2013: Paper (co-authored with Ivan Callus and Stefan 
Herbrechter): “Posthuman(ist) Subjectivities” at the international conference “Extra-Subjectivities: New Concepts of Post-Identitarian Thought”. | selected

University of Aarhus, 14-15 November 2013: Contribution to the panel debate “Post-human 
humanities for the global era” at the international conference Negotiating the Humanities (2nd conference of The Humanities Towards a New Agenda). | invited

London, Goldsmiths College, Department of Visual Cultures, 25 April 2013: Public lecture on “Critical Posthumanism – for Life’s Sake!” | invited

University of Malta, 22-23 March 2013: Keynote Speaker at the postgraduate symposium 
Writing Life: “Re-stitching Lives: Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl and Jean-Luc 
Nancy’s L’intrus”. | invited

University of Bochum, 16-19 January 2013: Contribution to the panel “Posthuman(ist) 
Ecology: New Perspectives for the Critical Humanities” at the international 
symposium The Ecological Paradigm: Issues and Perspectives of a General Ecology of Media and Technology. | invited

Philipp Schweighauser

• was promoted to Associate Professor
• got funding for a three-year SNSF Project entitled “Of Cultural, Poetic, and Medial Alterity: The Scholarship, Poetry, Photographs, and Films of Edward Sapir, Ruth Fulton Benedict, and Margaret Mead”" (with Gabriele Rippl and Walter Leimgruber)

Published the following essays:

“Trauma and Utopia: Benjamin, Adorno, and Elie Wiesel’s Night.” Haunted 
Narratives: Life Writing in an Age of Trauma. Ed. Gabriele Rippl, 
Schweighauser, Tiina Kirss, Margit Sutrop, and Therese Steffen. Toronto: 
University of Toronto Press, 2013. 45-81.

(with Gabriele Rippl and Therese Steffen) “Introduction: Life Writing in the Age of 
Trauma.” Haunted Narratives: Life Writing in an Age of Trauma. Ed. Rippl, 
Schweighauser, Tiina Kirss, Margit Sutrop, and Steffen. Toronto: University of 
Toronto Press, 2013. 3-18.

“Sympathy Control: Sentimental Politics and Early European Aesthetics.” Anglia 131.1 
(2013): 35-51.

(with Marion Regenscheit and Jelscha Schmid) “Vom Close Reading zum Social 
Reading: Lesetechniken im Zeitalter des digitalen Texts. ” Dichtung Digital 
(Forthcoming)

(with Ridvan Askin and Andreas Hägler) “Introduction: Aesthetics after the 
Speculative Turn.” Aesthetics in the 21st Century. Ed. Askin, Hägler, and 
Schweighauser. Spec. issue of Speculations (Forthcoming)

“Early American Studies Now: A Polemic from Literary Studies.” 
Amerikastudien/American Studies (Forthcoming)

“Early American Studies Now: A Response to the Respondents.” 
Amerikastudien/American Studies (Forthcoming)


Published the following special issue:

Askin, Ridvan, Andreas Hägler, and Philipp Schweighauser, eds. Aesthetics in the 21st 
Century. Spec. issue of Speculations (Forthcoming)


Published the following reviews:

Rev. of Empowering Words: Outsiders & Authorship in Early America by Karen A. 
Weyler. Amerikastudien/American Studies (Forthcoming)

Rev. of Truth’s Ragged Edge: The Rise of the American Novel by Philip F. Gura. 
Amerikastudien/American Studies (Forthcoming)

Rev. of Liberty of the Imagination: Aesthetic Theory, Literary Form, and Politics in the 
Early United States by Edward Cahill. Amerikastudien/American Studies 
(Forthcoming)


Gave the following talks:

“Frictions between Aesthetic and Political Approaches to Literature: An American 
Studies Perspective.” Université de Strasbourg, 8 November 2013.

“Evangelikalismus & Sendungsbewusstsein in den USA: Einige historische 
Hintergründe ” Was ist Religion?: Ein Überblick zur Religionsgeschichte und 
religiösen Zeitgeschichte. Lecture Course by Jürgen Mohn. 13 November 2013.

“Vom Close Reading zum Social Reading: Lesetechniken im Zeitalter des digitalen 
Texts.” With Marion Regenscheit and Jelscha Schmid. Digital Media Studies in 
der Praxis. Lecture Cycle by Roberto Simanowski. University of Basel, 15 
October 2013.

Bryn Skibo-Birney

Published:

“Revolutionary Writing: The Symbiosis of Social and Literary Conflict and Aesthetic Production in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” Christina Ljungberg and Mario Klarer, eds. Cultures in Conflict / Conflicting Cultures. (Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature - SPELL 29). Tübingen: Narr Verlag, 2013. 123-139.

Conference:

The University of Geneva’s English Department hosted the SANAS AGM with visiting 
speaker, Professor Don Pease on 26 October 2013.

Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet

Publications:

“They Are Legend: The Popular American Gothic of Ambrose Bierce and Richard Matheson,” The Blackwell-Wiley Companion to the American Gothic, ed. Charles Crow. Blackwell-Wiley, 2013.

“Black Like Me: Tropes of Racial Transformation in Contemporary Cinema.” Screening 
Cultural Diversity in the English-Speaking World and Beyond. Eds. Renée Dickason 
and Rüdiger Ahrens. Collection: “Anglo-amerikanische Studien / Anglo-American 
Studies” Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2013.

“Transnational War Gothic from the Civil War to World War One.” Transnational Gothic: 
Literary and Social Exchanges in the Long Nineteenth Century. Eds. Bridget Marshall & Monika Elbert. Ashgate, 2013.

Conference presentations:

“Lincoln and War: The Gettysburg Address in American Culture” Inaugural Address to the 
Faculty of Arts, University of Lausanne

“Monstrous Invasions, Contaminations and Cross-Fertilizations: American Horror and 
European Cinema,” American Media-European Cultures: Negotations of Transnational Exchange, Munich

“Seeing Green: Night Vision Optics in the Contemporary Horror Film,” International Gothic 
Association Biennial Conference, Surrey, UK

“Gothic and Fantastic: What’s the Difference?” Keynote at the X Coloquio Internacional de 
Literatura Fantastica: Paisajes goticos, Lausanne, June 2013

“Blood Brothers: Nation, Combat and the Fraternal Metaphor,” Journée d’étude à l’Université 
de Bourgogne (Dijon): Time Heals all Wounds, Resisting the Authority of History in 
the Concepts of Nation and Nationalism, May 2013

“Political Emotions: Civil Religion and Melodrama in Spielberg’s Lincoln,” SAUTE: Emotion, Affect and Sentiment, UNIL, April 2013

“Maxine Hong Kingston as Counterculture Writer,” Journée d’études: Revolution and 
Utopias: Counter-Cultural Narratives in the U.S. 1960s, Université Paris-Est Marne-la-
Vallée, Paris
• May 2013: Annual African American history study trip to Paris was attended by 15 students and 3 staff members.
• Lectures organized by the American domain at UNIL:

Judith Butler: “Is Gender Untranslatable?”
Maisha Wester, “Beloved and the African American Gothic”
Will Kaufman: “The Long Road to Peekskill: Woody Guthrie’s Anti Jim Crow Songs” (concert and lecture)
Teresa Goddu, “Slave Narratives and the American Gothic”
Don Pease: “Between the Camp and the Commons: Biopolitical Passages in Whitman and Douglass”
Jared Gardner: “Seriality in the Graphic Novel: From the Gumps to the Walking Dead”

Julia Straub

• Finished and submitted her Habilitationsschrift with the title The American Memory of Literature, 1750-1850: Transatlantic Discourse, Media and Practices

• Obtained the venia docendi from the University of Berne for English Literature and American Literature in December

Published:

“The Stigma of the Autobiographical: Response to Aija Sakova’s “Fighting Fear with Writing: 
Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster and Ene Mihkelson’s The Sleep of Ahasuerus.” Haunted 
Narratives: The Politics and Poetics of Identity Formation and Twentieth-Century Life-Writing. Ed. Gabriele Rippl, Philipp Schweighauser, Margit Sutrop, Therese Steffen and Tiina Kirss. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2013. 225-29.

“Richard Wollheim’s Germs: Life-Writing as Therapy, Despite Theory.” Haunted Narratives: 
The Politics and Poetics of Identity Formation and Twentieth-Century Life-Writing. Ed. Gabriele Rippl, Philipp Schweighauser, Margit Sutrop, Therese Steffen and Tiina Kirss. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2013. 85-100.

“Transmediality and Myths: Dante’s Beatrice in Victorian Britain.” Transmediality and 
Transculturality. Ed. Nadja Gernalzick and Gabriele Pisarz-Ramirez. Heidelberg: Winter, 
2013. 93-105.

Review of Jared Gardner. The Rise and Fall of the American Magazine. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2012, in Anglia 131.2-3 (2013).

(with Gabriele Rippl). “Kanon und Macht (Gender, Race, Postcolonialism).” Handbuch 
Kanon und Wertung. Ed. Gabriele Rippl and Simone Winko. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013. 
110-19.

“Englischsprachiges Rezensionswesen: Geschichte und Gegenwart.” Handbuch Kanon und 
Wertung. Ed. Gabriele Rippl and Simone Winko. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013. 153-59.

• Organized and hosted a guest lecture by Jared Gardner on “Periodical and Visual Culture in Colonial and Post-Colonial Early America” on 21 May at the University of Berne.

• Co-ordinated “Integration of Minorities” lecture and roundtable with Dr. Elbert Ransom, at the University of Berne 05 March 2013

• Organized and hosted an Early American Literature workshop with Jared Gardner on 24 May at the University of Berne.

• Hosted a guest lecture by Don Pease on 23 October 2013, “The Anti-Slave from Emerson to Obama”

Conference talks and lectures:

“Virtual Museums in Early America: The Magazine and Transatlantic Cultural Memory.” 
Roots, Routes and Routs: American and British Literature in the Long Eighteenth 
Century. Plymouth University, July 2013.

“The Magazine as a Museum Project in Eighteenth-Century America.” Präsenz und Evidenz 
fremder Dinge im Europa des 18. Jahrhunderts. Herzog August Bibliothek 
Wolfenbüttel, September 2013 (by invitation).

“Exploring the Melodramatic Imagination.” Guest lecture at the University of Bamberg, 13 
December 2013.

Barbara Straumann

Barbara Straumann has been pursuing her Habilitation thesis “Embodied Voices: Female Performers in British and American Narrative Fiction, 1845-1934.”


She published:

“Kleopatra im Doppelporträt mit Elizabeth I.: Die Inszenierung der zwei Körper der Königin”. 
Kleopatra: Die ewige Diva. Ed. Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik 
Deutschland Bonn. München: Hirmer, 2013, 68-77.

“Instanzen der Wertung von Literatur: Medien im englischsprachigen Bereich”. Handbuch 
Kanon und Wertung. Ed. Gabriele Rippl and Simone Winko. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 
2013, 140-146.

“The Conflict of Voice in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance”. Cultures in 
Conflict, Conflicting Cultures. Ed. Christina Ljungberg and Mario Klarer. Swiss Papers 
in English Language and Literature, 29. Tübingen: Narr, 2013, 173-186.

She gave the following invited talks:

“Königin Elizabeth I.: Das Charisma der ersten Medien-Diva”, Ringvorlesung “Charisma”, 
Forum Philosophie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, University of Zurich, invited by Professor Peter-Ulrich Merz-Benz, Zurich, April 24, 2013. (Together with Professor Elisabeth Bronfen.)

“Elizabeth I: The First Political Diva”, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural 
Studies/Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History, University of Leeds, invited by 
Professor Griselda Pollock, October 30, 2013. (Together with Professor Elisabeth 
Bronfen.)

“Elizabeth I: The First Political Diva”, “Late Shift”/“In Conversation”, National Portrait 
Gallery London, October 31, 2013. (Together with Professor Elisabeth Bronfen.)

She taught the following guest seminar:

“Einführung in die kulturwissenschaftliche Filmanalyse anhand von Alfred Hitchcocks 
Strangers on a Train.” Kulturwissenschaftliches Methodenseminar, University of 
Lucerne, invited by Professor Marianne Sommer, April 29, 2013.

She gave the following paper:

“Elizabeth I: The First Political Diva”, doctoral workshop on “Queenship”, English 
Department, University of Zurich, June 8, 2013. (Together with Professor Elisabeth 
Bronfen.)


She co-organized a doctoral workshop on:

“Queenship”, English Department, University of Zurich, June 7.8, 2013, with Professor 
Mandy Merck (Royal Holloway, University of London), Professor Sylvia Mieszkowski (American University Paris), Professor Susanne Scholz (Frankfurt), Professor Sabine Schülting (FU Berlin).

She organized the following guest lecture:

lic, phil. Mischa Suter (Historisches Seminar, University of Basel): “Subjectivities of Debt in 
Liberal Capitalism”, English Department, University of Zurich, December 5, 2013 (as 
part of her Bachelor Seminar on “IOU: Debt in the British Victorian Novel”).

She gave the following interview:

“Ein eklatantes Missverständnis: Zu Vladimir Nabokovs Lolita.” Tagesanzeiger, February 1, 
2013. Interviewer: Linus Schöpfer. <http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/kultur/buecher/Ein-
eklatantes-Missverstaendnis/story/12180405>

Alexa Weik von Mossner

• was appointed International Curatorial Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at the University of Munich
• became a member of the DFG Network “Ethics and Aesthetics in Literary Representations of Ecological Transformations / Ethik und Ästhetik in literarischen Repräsentationen ökologischer Transformationen” 
• initiated and coordinated the European branch of the Ecomedia Studies Network (ASLE/EASLCE)
• received an AAU Research Council Grant for “The ‘Affective Work’ of Climate Change Documentaries: An Explorative Study on the Social Relevance of Films with Sustainability Themes” (together with Brigitte Hipfl)

published the following articles and essays:

“Encountering the Sahara. Embodiment, Emotion, and Material Agency in Paul Bowles’s The 
Sheltering Sky.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 20.2 
(Spring 2013): 219-238.

“Confronting The Stone Face: The Critical Cosmopolitanism of William Gardner Smith.” 
African American Review 45.1-2 (Spring/Summer 2012): 167-182. (published in 2013)

“Troubling Spaces: Ecological Risk, Narrative Framing, and Emotional Engagement in Franny Armstrong’s The Age of Stupid.” Ecology and Emotion. Ed. Mick Smith. Special Issue of Emotion, Space and Society 6.1 (2013): 108-116.

“Hope in Dark Times: Climate Change and the World Risk Society in Saci Lloyd’s The Carbon Diaries 2015 and 2017.” Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults: Brave New Teenagers. Eds. Carrie Hintz, Balaka Basu, and Katherine A. Broad. London: Routledge, 2013. 69-83.

Review of Ecocritical Theory: New European Approaches. Eds. Axel Goodbody and Kate Rigby (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2011). Anglia: Journal of English Philology 131.2-3 (2013): 457-462.

gave the following invited talks:

“Affective Ecologies: Cognitive Ecocriticism and the Emotional Brain.” Invited lecture. University of Würzburg, Germany, December 16, 2013.

“Eco-Cosmopolitan Visions.” 2nd Conference of the DFG Network “Ethics and Aesthetics in Literary Representations of Ecological Transformations / Ethik und Ästhetik in literarischen Repräsentationen ökologischer Transformationen.” University of Siegen, Germany, November 20-23, 2013.

“Response: Narrative and the Environmental Imagination.” Invited commentator on the panel “Narrative and the Environmental Imagination: Conceptualizing Human/Nature Connections from the 19th Century to the Present” at the Annual Meeting of the European Society of Environmental History (ESEH) in Munich, Germany, August 23, 2013.

“Shooting Back: The Revisionist Western and Its Representation of the Native American Experience.” Keynote talk at the student symposium “The Western: Visions and Revisions” at the University of Würzburg, Germany, July 12, 2013.

“Die Vorstellung der Zukunft: Klima-Szenarien in Literatur und Film.” Invited talk as part of the lecture series “Ecology and the Arts” (Ökologie und die Künste) at the FU Berlin, Germany, June 13, 2013.

“Ecocriticism and Film Studies.” Opening Conference of the DFG Network “Network “Ethics and Aesthetics in Literary Representations of Ecological Transformations / Ethik und Ästhetik in literarischen Repräsentationen ökologischer Transformationen.” University of Freiburg, Germany, March 11-13, 2013.

“Natural Feelings: Cognitive Ecocriticism and the Emotional Brain.” Opening Conference of the DFG Network “Network “Ethics and Aesthetics in Literary Representations of Ecological Transformations / Ethik und Ästhetik in literarischen Repräsentationen ökologischer Transformationen.” University of Freiburg, Germany, March 11-13, 2013.

“Umweltrisiko und Utopie in der Populärkultur.” Invited talk as part of the lecture series “Societal Innovation” (Ringvorlesung Gesellschaftliche Innovation) at the Munich University of Applied Sciences (HM), January 15, 2013.

gave conference talks on:

“American Eco(dys)topias and the Future of Ecological Citizenship.” Annual conference of 
the Austrian Association of American Studies (AAAS). Schloss Leopoldskron, 
Salzburg, Austria, November 10-13, 2013.

“A Cognitive Approach to Emotion and Cinematic Environment.” Annual conference of the 
Society for the Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image (SCSMI). Berlin University of 
the Arts, Germany, June 12-15, 2013.

“The Prettiest Place on Earth: Understanding Eco-Cinematic Space in Beasts of the Southern 
Wild.” 10th Biennial Conference of ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and 
Environment) at Kansas University, Lawrence, KA, USA, May 29-June 01, 2013.

“Speculative American Fiction and the Future of Ecological Citizenship.” ASLE-sponsored 
panel “Narrative Ecologies: Contemporary American Fiction and the Environment” at the 24th Annual Conference of the American Literature Association (ALA). Boston, USA, May 22-26, 2013.

“Strategic Empathy and the Literary Imagination: Kay Boyle’s Cosmopolitan Strategies.” 
Biennial Conference of the Swiss Association of University Teachers of English (SAUTE) on the topic of “Emotion, Affect, Sentiment: The Language and Aesthetics of Feeling.” University of Lausanne, Switzerland, April 19-20, 2013.

• taught a seminar on “Screening Resistance: Film and Postcolonial Ecological Conflict” at the GNEL/ASNEL Summer School “Just Politics? Postcolonial Ecocriticism between Imagination & Occupation,” University of Potsdam, Germany, Sept 2-6, 2013.
• acted as curator of the Rachel Carson Center’s environmental film series, Green Visions, at the Gasteig Cultural Center in Munich.