2015

Ridvan Askin

Publications:
Askin, Ridvan and Philipp Schweighauser, eds. Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives. SPELL: Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature 32. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2015.
Schweighauser, Philipp and Ridvan Askin. “Introduction.” Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives. Ed. Ridvan Askin and Philipp Schweighauser. SPELL: Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature 32. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2015. 11-22.
Askin, Ridvan. “Prolegomenon to a Differential Theory of Narrative.” SubStance 44.3 (2015): 155-70.

Talks:
“Emerson’s System,” International Workshop: Literature and Philosophy, University of St. Gallen, 16-17 October 2015
“The Literary Object and the Object of Literature,” International Workshop on Fictionality, Narrativity, Literariness: Speculative Approximations, University of Basel, 11-12 June 2015
“‘PLURALISM = MONISM’”: Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘Magic Formula’ and the Disfiguration of Narrative,” International Conference on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari: Refrains of Freedom, Panteion University Athens, 24-26 April 2015

Awards:
Amerbach Prize for PhD thesis on “Narrative and Becoming: Differential Narratology”
EARS Prize 2015, honorable mention, for PhD thesis on “Narrative and Becoming: Differential Narratology”

Activities in American Studies organized for my institution in 2015:

“Fictionality, Narrativity, Literariness: Speculative Approximations,” International Workshop (with A. Elisabeth Reichel), University of Basel, 11-12 June 2015

Lecture Series: New Developments in Theory
Patricia MacCormack (Anglia Ruskin), “Art, Nature, Ethics: Nohuman Queerings” (lecture) & “Queering Posthumanism” (workshop), University of Basel, 30 Nov-1 Dec 2015 (with Christian Hänggi, Daniela Keller, and A. Elisabeth Reichel)

Benjamin Noys (Chichester), “Matter Against Materialism? Bruno Latour and the Problem of Abstraction,” University of Basel, 26 May 2015 (with

Research project:

Transcendental Poetics and the Futures of American Romanticism (habilitation project)


Thomas Austenfeld

Publications:

Edited book published in 2015

Austenfeld, Thomas (ed.). Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools: New Interpretations and Transatlantic Contexts. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2015. ISBN 978-1-57441-593-3.


Articles published in 2015

Austenfeld, Thomas. “Lowell's Dolphin: Shame, Guilt, and the Fate of Confessional Poetry.” Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives, ed. Ridvan Askin and Philipp Schweighauser. Tübingen: Narr, Francke, Attempto, 2015. 59-72. ISBN 978-3-8233-6967-7.

Austenfeld, Thomas. “Confess--Disclose--Proclaim: The Trope of Self-Revelation in American Poetry Since the Sixties.” New Perspectives on American Poetry: From Walt Whitman to the Present, eds. Jiri Flajsar and Pavlina Flajsarova. Olomouc: Universita Palackeho v Olomouci, 2015. 53-70. ISBN 978-80-244-4762-9.

Austenfeld, Thomas. “The Drama of Shaping a Lyrical Moment: An Approach to the Poetry of Dana Gioia." New Pilgrimages: Selected Papers from the IAUPE Beijing Conference in 2013, eds. Li Cao and Li Jin. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2015. 244-258. ISBN 978-7-302-38569-1.


Lectures and conference presentations outside of my normal obligations at Fribourg:

“Reassessing the Age of Lowell.” American Studies Colloquium Series at the American Studies Center, University of Warsaw, Poland, November 12, 2015.

“Giving ‘The Age of Lowell’ its Due.” Presented at the American Literature Association Conference, Boston, May 23, 2015.

“Robert Lowell and the History of Poetic Self-Revelation.” Distinguished Professors’Lecture Series, Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, March 27, 2015.

“Katherine Anne Porter and the Problem of Europe.” Guest lecture as part of the SEFOC program, Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic, March 19, 2015.

“American Poetry: History, Developments, How and Why to Teach it.” Continuing Education Workshop to the English Teachers of the Kantonsschule Baden, March 5, 2015.


Information on activities in American Studies organized for my institution in 2015:


Coordinator, guest lecture by Prof. Mita Banerjee, Mainz University, December 2015. “Naturalism and Naturalization.”

Host and organizer (with Patrizia Zanella) of SANAS Mini-Conference, “American Earth: Ecocriticism and American Studies,” November 2015, Fribourg. Keynote speakers: Prof. Scott Slovic, University of Idaho and Prof. Alexa Weik von Mossner, University of Klagenfurt.

Sponsor, Three-months’ research visit by Ieva Stoncikaite, doctoral student from the Universitat de Lleida, Fall 2015. “Erica Jong and Aging.”

Coordinator, guest lecture by Prof. Jiri Flajsar, Palacky University, Olomouc, May 2015. “Suburbia from Novel to Film.”

Coordinator, weekend seminar visit by Prof. Hans Bak, Radboud University Nijmegen, April 2015. “Malcolm Cowley’s Exile’s Return.”

Sponsor, Three-months’ research visit to the English department by Dr. Federico Bellini, Università Cattolica, Milano, Spring 2015. “Melville’s Novels.”

Coordinator, guest lecture by Prof. Larry Howe, Roosevelt University Chicago and Distinguished Fulbright Scholar at Syddansk U., Denmark, March 3, 10215. “Power and Primitivism in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones.”

Supervision of PhD projects:

Dissertation completed and defended:

Ola Madhour. “Knowledge of Necessity”: Maternal Origins in Elizabeth Bishop’s Epistemological Quest. (June 2015)


New dissertation project started:

Patrizia Zanella. “The Border-Crossing Fiction of Louise Erdrich and Other North American Indian Writers.”

Arnaud Barras

Publications:

Barras, Arnaud. “The Law of Storytelling: The Hermeneutics of Relationality in Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book.” Ed. Brigid Rooney and Brigitta Olubas. JASAL: Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature 15.3 (2015): 1-12. Web.
---. “Ecopoetic Encounters: Amnesia and Nostalgia in Alexis Wright’s Environmental Fiction.” Australasian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. Australian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology 5 (2015): 54-67. Web.
---. “From a Poetics of Collision to a Hermeneutics of Discovery: Rethinking Knowledge, Ecology, and History in Rudy Wiebe’s A Discovery of Strangers.” Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives. Ed. Ridvan Askin and Philipp Schweighauser. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 2015. 195-214. Print. SPELL: Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature 32.


Claudia Franziska Brühwiler
Publications:

Edited book
With Yvette Sánchez, Transculturalism and Business in the BRIC States. A Handbook. Farnham: Ashgate/Gower, 2015.

Journal articles
“Across Cultures, across Disciplines—or from Newark to St. Gallen: An Introduction to this Special Issue.” Philip Roth Studies 11.1 (2015), 7-13.

“Prospector and Jeweler: Ayn Rand on the Relationship between Politics and Literature.“ Journal of American Studies 49.1 (2015), 143-158.

Book chapters
With Yvette Sánchez, “BRIC Relations: Brazil—Russia.” Transculturalism and Business in the BRIC States. Eds. Yvette Sánchez and Claudia Franziska Brühwiler. Farnham: Ashgate/Gower, 2015, 309-316.

“Introduction” and “Transcultural Studies in the BRIC States: Introduction.” Transculturalism and Business in the BRIC States. Eds. Yvette Sánchez and Claudia Franziska Brühwiler. Farnham: Ashgate/Gower, 2015, 1-10 & 85.

Conference paper
“Between Philosophy, Literature, and Social Science: Political Theory as the Disciplinary ‘Other’.” Literature and Philosophy, joint conference of the Swiss Association of North-American Studies (SANAS) and the Swiss Philosophical Society, University of St.Gallen, Switzerland, October 17, 2015.

Book review
“International Politics and Film: Space. Vision. Power by Sean Carter and Klaus Dodds.” Political Studies Review 13.4 (2015), 593–594.

Courses taught at the University of St. Gallen
“The Presidency and American Imagination,” Bachelor level, in English, 4 ECTS.

Public lecture series “Now He Belongs to the Ages” (five lectures on Abraham Lincoln’s legacy; in German).

Grants:
Writer’s retreat at Casa Zia Lina on Elba, Italy, June 1024, 2015.

Travel grant by the Ayn Rand Institute Europe to attend its launch in Copenhagen, April 28, 2015.

Grant by the University of St.G allen for a Visiting Fellowship at the University College Dublin (January 2015).

Information on activities in American Studies organized for my institution in 2015:
Guest lecture by Dr. Yaron Brook, Ayn Rand Institute, on “Capitalism without Guilt,” University of St. Gallen, November 19.

Joanne Chassot

Atlantic Studies Early-Career Essay Prize awarded to this article :
Chassot, Joanne. “‘Voyage through death/to life upon these shores’: The Living Dead of the Middle Passage.” Atlantic Studies 12.1 (2015): 90-108. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QnuiQdDuFPIYAv3nTXkd/full

Lukas Etter

Publications:

Etter, Lukas, and Daniel Stein. “Comic-Theorie(n) und Forschungspositionen.” Comics und Graphic Novels: Eine Einführung. Ed. Christian Klein and Julia Abel. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2015. 107-26.

Awards:

2014/2015 Best Doctoral Dissertation Prize (ex aequo), Faculty of Humanities, University of Bern

Papers and Talks:

11/2015. “Numerology and Algebra in a Fictional Poem Analysis by H. W. Longfellow.” Conference The Poetics of Knowledge, University of Bern
10/2015. “‘Neunte Kunst’: Klischees und Fakten zu Comics/Graphic Novels.” Thuner Kulturnacht, Thalia Thun
06/2015. (with Christina Maria Koch) “Graphic Illness Narratives: Traversing the Body as Landscape.” Conference Voyages (6th International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference / 9th International Bande Dessinée Society Conference), University of London (Paris Institute)
04/2015. “Materiality and Style in Alternative Comics.” Workshop Mediality and Materiality of Contemporary Comics (AG Comicforschung, Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft), Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
03/2015. “Auteurgraphy: Distinctiveness of Styles in Alternative Graphic Narratives.” Comics Studies Roundtable of the Project Narrative Research Network, Ohio State University


Research projects:

‘Word Problems’ and Science Education in Early Nineteenth-Century American Literature (working title; postdoctoral research project)

Nicole Frey Büchel

Conference Paper:
International Symposium Images of Identity, Zurich, 30.-31. 1. 2015: “Jane or Jasmine? – From Self-Alienation to Narrative Identity”


Franziska Gygax

Publications:

Books

Narrative Matters in Medical Contexts across Disciplines. Ed. Franziska Gygax and Miriam A. Locher. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2015.

Book chapters

“Woundable, around the bounds: Life (beyond) writing and terminal illness.” In Narrative Matters in Medical Contexts across Disciplines. Ed. Franziska Gygax and Miriam A. Locher. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2015. Pp. 33-45.


“Edith Sitwell: Stein and Sitwell in Echo. In Gertrude Stein in Europe: Reconfigurations Across Media, Disciplines, and Traditions. Ed. Sarah Posman and Laura Luise Schultz. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. Pp. 71-84.


Presentations:

What’s in a portrait? Gertrude Stein and Portraying Lives. IABA Europe conference Dialogical Dimensions in Narrating Lives and Life Writing in Funchal, Madeira, 27-30 May 2015

Narrating Illness: Literature and Medicine. Keynote zum Workshop Was ist Medizin? Perspektiven aus den Humanities, Universität Zürich, 5 November 2015


Christina Ljungberg

She was invited 
- to give a keynote address, “Seeing the textual, reading the visual: Iconic strategies in texts and maps”, at the symposium on “Humanities and the Cartographic Turn: influences and connections between Geography and Literary Studies” at the University of Extremadura at Caceres, Spain, 19 November
She also gave talk on 
- “The Body on Edge – Technology, Environment and Post-human Nature” at the conference on Approaching Posthumanism at the University of Geneva, 4 June 
She published the following articles:
“Intermediality and Performance Art.” Handbook of Intermediality. Ed. Gabriele Rippl. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. 547-561. 
“Iconicity.” Bloomsbury Companion to Stylistics. Ed. V. Sotirova. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. 476-489. 
“Cartosemiotics.” International Handbook of Research in Semiotics. Ed. Peter Trifonas. New York: Springer, 2015. 759-770. 
Research projects: 
Iconicity Research Project (together with Prof. Dr. Olga Fischer, University of Amsterdam), www.iconicity.ch


Viola Marchi

Publication:
Marchi, Viola. “Ethics, Interrupted: Community and Impersonality in Levinas.” Eds. Philipp Schweighauser and Ridvan Askin. Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives. SPELL. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2015. 143-158.

A. Elisabeth Reichel

Publications:

Articles in Journals (Peer-Reviewed)
“Musical Macrostructures in The Gold Bug Variations and Orfeo by Richard Powers; or, Toward a Media-Conscious Audionarratology.” Partial Answers 14.2 (2016). Forthcoming.

“Fictionalising Music / Musicalising Fiction: The Integrative Function of Music in Richard Powersʼ The Time of Our Singing.” SoundEffects 4.1 (2014): 144-60.

Articles in books
“Once More with Feeling: The Emotional and Integrative Functions of Music in John Carney’s Film Once.” Movies and Music: National and Transnational Approaches. Eds. Frank Mehring and Melvyn Stokes. In preparation.

“Sonophilia / Sonophobia: Sonic Others in the Poetry of Edward Sapir.” Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives. Eds. Ridvan Askin and Philipp Schweighauser. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2015. 215-229.

Encyclopedia and handbook entries

“Vijay Seshadri: 3 Sections.” Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2016. Forthcoming.

Glossary of Handbuch Literatur und Musik. Eds. Nicola Gess and Alexander Honold. Berlin: De Gruyter. In preparation:

“Ekphrasis.”

“Intermedialität.”

“Sound Studies.”

Talks:

Invited talks

“The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers: The Politics of Music and the Musicalization of the Novel.” Université de Fribourg, 3 November 2015.

“Literarisierte Musik und musikalisierte Literatur: Die integrative Funktion von Musik in Richard Powers’ Roman The Time of Our Singing.” Artes Liberales, University of Mannheim, 19 February 2015.

Conference talks

“An Anthropologist’s Paragonal Project: Cultural and Artistic Alterity in the Poetic and Critical Writing of Edward Sapir.” 21st World Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, University of Vienna, Austria, 21-27 July 2016. Planned.

“On the Poetry of an Early Cultural Anthropologist: Ruth Benedict’s Palimpsestuous Writing.” Cultural Palimpsests: Ethnic Watermarks, Surfacing Histories. Tenth Biennial MESEA Conference, University of Warsaw, Poland, 22-24 June 2016. Planned.

“Toward Unnerving the Us: Apollonian and Dionysian Others in the Ethnography and Poetry of Ruth Benedict.” European Association for American Studies Conference 2016, Constanta, Romania, 22-25 April 2016. Planned.

“‘For you have given me speech!’—Gifted Speakers, Inarticulate Others, and Media Epistemologies in Margaret Mead’s Writing.” Postcolonial Knowledges. Third Bremen Conference on Language and Literature in Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts, Bremen, Germany, 15-18 March 2016. Planned.

“Sonic Others in Early Soundscape Studies and the Poetry of Edward Sapir: A Salvage Operation.” Soundscapes and Sonic Cultures in America. 42nd Austrian Association for American Studies Conference, University of Graz, Austria, 6-8 November 2015.

“Words against Words: Cultural and Medial Alterity in the Writing of Margaret Mead.” 10th Annual EUCOR English Trinational Ph.D. Conference, Université de Haute-Alsace, France, 10 April 2015.

External Funding:


CHF 5’000 International workshop Fictionality, Narrativity, Literariness: Speculative Approximations (with Ridvan Askin); external sponsor: Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft, 11-12 June 2015.


Awards, Grants, Fellowships:

Research grant for the year 2015, Doctoral Program for Literary Studies, University of Basel, to cover archival costs at the American Philosophical Society (CHF 855)

Grant from the Ressort Nachwuchsförderung (with Ridvan Askin), University of Basel, to organize the workshop Fictionality, Narrativity, Literariness: Speculative Approximations and the lecture series New Developments in Theory (CHF 8’700)


Information on activities in American Studies organized for my institution in 2015:


Anthropology, Literature, and the Senses: Questions of Cultural, Poetic, and Medial Alterity. International workshop (with Silvy Chakkalakal), University of Basel, 25-26 November 2016. Planned.

Lecture series New Developments in Theory (with Ridvan Askin, Christian Hänggi and Daniela Keller):

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (Washington, D.C.): “Noah’s Arkive” (lecture), University of Basel, 14 March 2016. Planned.

Patricia MacCormack (Cambridge, U.K.): “Art, Nature, Ethics: Nonhuman Queerings” (lecture) and “Queering Posthumanism” (workshop), University of Basel, 30 November - 1 December 2015.

Fictionality, Narrativity, Literariness: Speculative Approximations. International Workshop (with Ridvan Askin), University of Basel, 11-12 June 2015.

Gabriele Rippl

Publications:

Rippl, Gabriele. Handbook of Intermediality. Handbooks of English and American Studies: Text and Theory, Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter, 2015 (also available as ebook).
Rippl, Gabriele. “Introduction.” Handbook of Intermediality. Ed. Gabriele Rippl. Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter, 2015. 1-31.
Rippl, Gabriele. “Postcolonial Ekphrasis in the Contemporary Anglophone Indian Novel.” Handbook of Intermediality. Ed. Gabriele Rippl. Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter, 2015. 128-155.
Rippl, Gabriele. “Description and the Production of Presence: Literary Debates in Eighteenth-Century England and Germany.” Präsenz und Evidenz fremder Dinge im Europa des 18. Jahrhunderts. Ed. Birgit Neumann. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2015. 458-474.

In preparation or in the press:
Rippl, Gabriele and Birgit Neumann. Anglia, special issue Anglophone World Literatures, Anglia 135.1 (2017).
Rippl, Gabriele. “Anais Nin: The Diary of Anais Nin.” Handbook Autobiography / Autofiction. Ed. Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf. Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter, 2016.
Rippl, Gabriele. “Autobiography in the Globalized World.” Handbook Autobiography / Autofiction. Ed. Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf. Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter, 2016.
Rippl, Gabriele. “Life and Work.” Handbook Autobiography / Autofiction. Ed. Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf. Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter, 2016.
Rippl, Gabriele. “each art may be observed to pass into the condition of some other art” – Intermediale Verflechtungen in Walter Paters ‘imaginary portraits’.” Malerei in der Literatur des Fin de Siècle, Wiener Beiträge zu Komparatistik und Romanistik. Ed. Christine Hoffmann. Peter Lang 2016.
Rippl, Gabriele. “Hamlet’s Mobility: The Reception of Shakespeare’s Tragedy in US-American and Canadian Narrative Fiction.” Shakespearean Dimensions. Ed. Ina Habermann. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Rippl, Gabriele. “Mythenbildung und Kanonisierung: Walter Paters Mona Lisa als Mythos der Moderne – transkulturell, intertextuell und intermedial.” Moderne Mythen. Ed. Stephanie Wodianka. Paderborn: transcript, 2016.
Rippl, Gabriele. “The Rich Zones of Genre Borderlands – Siri Hustvedt’s Art of Mingling.” Siri Hustvedt. Ed. Johanna Hartmann, Hubert Zapf, and Christine Marks. Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter, 2016. 
Rippl, Gabriele, Sara Bloch, and Martina Dubach, eds. Am Limit? Grenzen in den Wissenschaften heute, Berner Universitätsschriften, vol. 60. Bern: Haupt, 2016.

Grant: 
October-December 2015: Visiting Scholarship at UCLA, Los Angeles, USA (supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation/SNF).


Workshops/Lecture Series:

Co-organization of the DFG-Workshop “Ekphrasis in the Digital Age III”, with Prof. Dr. Renate Brosch (University of Stuttgart) and Prof. Dr. Danuta Fjellestad (University of Uppsala), August 2015.

Co-organization of the DFG-workshop “Ekphrasis in the Digital Age II”, with Prof. Dr. Renate Brosch (University of Stuttgart) and Prof. Dr. Danuta Fjellestad (University of Uppsala), June 2015.

Co-organization of the workshop “Kanonbildung: Wertungsfragen im historischen Kontext”, with Prof. Joseph Imorde (Art History, University of Siegen), at the Graduate School of the Arts, University of Bern, March 2015.

Collegium generale lecture series “Am Limit? Grenzen in den Wissenschaften heute”, University of Bern, Spring Semester 2015.


Talks:

“Ekphrasis: Discourses of Evidence”, DFG Workshop at the GBZ, Humboldt University of Berlin, August 2015.

“Ekphrasis: Descriptive Ethics”, DFG Workshop, University of Stuttgart, June 2015.

May 2015: “Narrative Ethics and Cultural Sustainability” with Prof. Dr. Torsten Meireis, University of Helsinki, Finland, May 2015.

“‘each art may be observed to pass into the condition of some other art’ – Intermediale Verflechtungen in Walter Paters ‘imaginary portraits’”, University of Vienna/Austrian Academy of Sciences, April 2015.

“Vom Kanon zu Kanones: Kanonbildung und Wertung als dynamische Prozesse”, Graduate School of the Arts, University of Bern, March 2015.

“‘each art may be observed to pass into the condition of some other art’ – Walter Pater’s Ekphrases”, University of Graz, Austria, March 2015.

Poster-Presentation “Cultural Sustainability”, SAGW Conference Sustainable Use of Resources, University of Basel, January 2015.


Information on activities in American Studies organized for my institution in 2015:

Workshop with Prof. Joseph Imorde (Art History, University of Siegen): “Kanonbildung: Wertungsfragen im historischen Kontext”, Graduate School of the Arts, University of Bern, March 2015.

DFG Workshop “Ekphrasis: Descriptive Ethics”, University of Stuttgart, June 2015.

“Narrative Ethics and Cultural Sustainability” with Prof. Dr. Torsten Meireis, University of Helsinki, Finland, May 2015.

Poster-Presentation “Cultural Sustainability”, SAGW Conference Sustainable Use of Resources, University of Basel, January 2015.


Supervision of PhD projects:

Hoffmann, Agnes. Selective Affinities: Landscape Around 1900 between Text and Image (Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Henry James). Co-supervision, University of Basel.

Elisabeth, Reichel. Cultural Relativism, ‘Primitivism,’ and the Valuation of Cultures in the Writings of Edward Sapir, Ruth Fulton Benedict, and Margaret Mead, Co-supervision. University of Basel.

Mayer, Uwe. Mythos als Fremdheitstopos: Zur Produktivität einer Denkgewohnheit in der englischsprachigen Literatur seit der Romantik. Co-supervision, GCSC Giessen.

Reber, Simon. Intermedial Strategies in the Poetry of Sapir.

Steffen, Samuel. Representation of Gulf Wars.

Gasser, Selina. Female Standup Comedy.


Research projects:

Contemporary Narratives, Handbook Project with Prof. Dr. Laura Marcus (University of Oxford).

Of Cultural and Medial Alterity, SNF-funded research project with Prof. Dr. Philipp Schweighauser and Prof. Dr. Walter Leimgruber (University of Basel).

Ekphrasis in the Digital Age, with Prof. Dr. Renate Brosch (University of Stuttgart), and Prof. Dr. Danuta Fjellestad (University of Uppsala).

Cultural Sustainability, with Prof. Dr. Torsten Meireis, Theology Department (University of Bern).

Postcolonial Ekphrasis, with Professor Birgit Neumann, (University of Düsseldorf).

Cultural Memory: The Construction of Classical Antiquity in American and British Literature: William Shakespeare to Hilda Doolittle and Derek Walcott


Manuela Rossini

Keynote:
University of Uppsala, 25 September 2015: Keynote at the workshop
“Posthumanism: Challenges for the Humanities”, organized by the Mind and Nature node in collaboration with the HumAnimal Group at the Centre for Gender Research| invited

Panel contribution:
University of Malta, 15-18 June 2015: Contribution to the roundtable “Critical Posthumanism Network” at the 9th Meeting of the European Society for Science, Literature and the Arts: “Scale” | invited

Reviewing activity:
Reviewer for the European Research Council ECR

Information on activities in American Studies organized in 2015:

Related to SLSAeu (see section “research projects”):
Member of the organization committee of “Scale”, the 9th Conference of the European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts, Malta, 15-18 June 2015

For the University of Bern:
CUSO workshop English:
Co-organization of the international conference “Approaching Posthumanism and the Posthuman”, Geneva, 4-6 June 2015


Research projects:

European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts SLSAeu:
engsem.unibas.ch/research/research-projects/slsaeu/


Martin Schaefer

Publication:
Martin Schäfer, “Bob Dylan in Switzerland: a classic case of ‘love & theft’”, in: Refractions of Bob Dylan. Cultural Appropriations of an American Icon, edited by Eugen Banauch (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2015), 19-35.

Philipp Schweighauser

Publications:

Askin, Ridvan and Philipp Schweighauser, eds. Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2015.
Schweighauser, Philipp and Ridvan Askin. “Introduction.” Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives. Ed. Askin and Schweighauser. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2015. 11-22.
Schweighauser, Philipp. “Literary Acoustics.” Handbook of Intermediality: Literature – Image – Sound – Music. Ed. Gabriele Rippl. Tübingen: De Gruyter, 2015. 475-93.
Schweighauser, Philipp. “The Early American Novel and Sentimentalism.” Handbook of Transatlantic North American Studies. Ed. Julia Straub. Tübingen: De Gruyter. Forthcoming.
Schweighauser, Philipp. Beautiful Deceptions: European Aesthetics, the Early American Novel, and Illusionist Art. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Forthcoming.

Conference papers, panels and workshops:

Schweighauser, Philipp and A. Elisabeth Reichel. “Of Cultural, Poetic, and Medial Alterity: The Scholarship, Poetry, Photographs, and Films of Edward Sapir, Ruth Fulton Benedict, and Margaret Mead.” Research Colloquium, Dept. of English, 10 March 2015. 
Schweighauser, Philipp and Ilja Karenovics. “‘A perfectly normal trilingual childhood’: Vladimir Nabokov als scharfzüngiger Wandler zwischen Sprachen und Kulturen.” Ringvorlesung “Die ‘Postpferde’ der Kultur: Übersetzen zwischen Adaptation und Kreation,” University of Basel, 11 November 2015.
Schweighauser, Philipp et al. “Literature & Philosophy.” Joint International Workshop of the Swiss Philosophical Society and the Swiss Association for North American Studies. University of St. Gallen, 16-17 October, 2015.
Schweighauser, Philipp et al. Panel on “Other Multiculturalisms--World.” American Multiculturalism in Context. Université Haut-Alsace and Jazz School Basel. 26-28 March, 2015. 
Schweighauser, Philipp et al. Panel on “Utopisches Denken jenseits der Repräsentation.” Annual Meeting of the Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft 2015. Utopien - Wege aus der Gegenwart. University of Bayreuth, 30 Sept-3 Oct, 2015.
Schweighauser, Philipp. “Fredric Jameson: Die Grenzen utopischen Denkens ohne Blaupause.” Annual Meeting of the Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft 2015. Utopien - Wege aus der Gegenwart. University of Bayreuth, 30 Sept-3 Oct, 2015.

Information on activities in American Studies organized for my institution in 2015:

Organised guest lectures 
Discussion with Nicholson Baker of his novels The Anthologist and Travelling Sprinkler. Literaturhaus Basel, 23 September 2011.
Will Kaufmann (Lancashire): “Woody Guthrie: The Long Road to Peekskill.” University of Basel, 5 May 2015. 
Edgar Landgraf (Bowling Green State University): “Postmodern Realities: Don DeLillo’s White Noise and Luhmann’s Systems Theory.” University of Basel, 17 November 2015.


Therese Steffen

Newspaper article:
Steffen, Therese, „Die Schlacht an der Farbengrenze: „Selma““, Tages Anzeiger 19 February, 2015. 25.

Conference organized at University of Basel:
2015 International Workshop: Cities in Flux, University of Basel, University of Kwazulu Natal, UCT, University of Stellenbosch, SSAJRP: Lindy Stiebel, Sally-Ann Murray, Vivian Bickford-Smith, Itala Vivan, Jean Comaroff, Meg Samuelson, Conv. Olivier Moreillon, Sabine Binder, Therese Steffen, (9-10 June)

Valedictory Lecture at University of Basel:
Steffen, Therese, „Forms and Functions of “Passing” in Southasian/Indian, US (African)-American, and South African Texts and Contexts,“ 27 May 2015.


Julia Straub

Publications:
“The Poetry of the New Nation: Philip Freneau’s “The Wild Honey Suckle and Joel Barlow’s “The Hasty-Pudding.”” A History of American Poetry. Ed. Oliver Scheiding, René Dietrich and Clemens Spahr. Trier: wvt. 37-48.
“Nineteenth-Century Literature and Photography.” Handbook Intermediality: Literature – Image – Sound – Music. Ed. Gabriele Rippl. 2015. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 156-72.

In preparation
“The Magazine as Museum in the Eighteenth Century: Transatlantic Perspectives.” Transatlantic Cultures and Literary Forms, 1780-1850. Ed. Annika Bautz and Kathryn Gray. Aldershot: Ashgate (in the press).
“Introduction: Transatlantic Literary Studies.” Handbook of Transatlantic North American Studies. Ed. Julia Straub. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2016. 1-17.

“The Transatlantic Dante in the Nineteenth Century: Cultural Authority and Reception Histories.” Traveling Traditions: Nineteenth-Century Cultural Contexts. Ed. Erik Redling. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016. 79-93.
Handbook of Transatlantic North American Studies. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter, 2016.

Review of Reingard Nischik. Handbook of Comparative North American Studies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014 in Anglia 2015 (in preparation).

Review of Paul Giles. Antipodean America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 in Amerikastudien/American Studies 2015 (in the press).

Review of Jennifer Clark. The American Idea of England, 1776-1840: Transatlantic Writing. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013 in Amerikastudien/American Studies 2015 (in the press).

Talks:
“Tales, & c.”: The Place of Short Narratives in the Eighteenth-Century Periodicals Archive.” OIEAHC-SEA Conference, Chicago, June 2015.
“The Massachusetts Magazine, January 1789: Reading Early American Magazines.” Inaugural lecture as “Privatdozentin”, University of Bern, May 2015.

Panel organization:
Panel Chair at the conference “Protestantism on Screen”, Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle-Wittenberg

Co-Organization of Panel 1, “Nature, Knowledge(s), and Early American Literary Culture”, DGfA Annual Meeting, Bonn

Information on activities in American Studies organized for my institution in 2015:

Organization of workshop:
PhD-Workshop “Comparative Methods in Literary and Cultural Studies”, University of Bern, July 09-10

Organized guest lectures:

Guest lecture by Prof. Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet (Lausanne), November 2015

Reading with Holocaust survivor Dr Israel Unger, together with the Canadian Embassy, October 2015

Seminar session with the US Ambassador Suzy G. LeVine at the University of Bern, May 2015

Reading by Prof. Will Kaufman (University of Central Lancashire) at the University of Bern, May 2015

Prof. Nicholas Havely (University of York) at the University of Basel, March 2015

Prof. Oliver Scheiding (University of Mainz) at the University of Bern, March 2015


Barbara Straumann

Barbara Straumann took up her new post as Assistant Professor with Tenure Track for English Literature since 1800 at the University of Zurich on 1 February 2015.

She published:
• “Adaptation – Remediation –Transmediality”. Intermediality: Literature – Image – Sound – Music. Hg. Gabriele Rippl. Handbooks of English and American Studies: Text and Theory. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015, 249-267.
She gave the following papers and talks:
• “‘How to Live Well on Nothing a Year’: Money, Credit and Debt in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair”, SAUTE Conference “Economies of English”, University of Geneva, 24-25 April 2015.
• “‘What’s aught but as ‘tis valued?’ Heroes, Whores, Value and Exchange in Troilus and Cressida”, “All Is Fair in Love and War: Workshop on Troilus and Cressida”, English Department, University of Zurich, 29-30 May 2015.
• “I Owe You: Schulden in der britischen Literatur”, inaugural lecture, University of Zurich, 9 November 2015.
• „Julia Kristeva“, Ringvorlesung Literaturtheorie, University of Zurich, 14 December 2015.

She organized and hosted a workshop on
• “Archaeologies of Debt”, English Department, University of Zurich, 6-7 November 2015, with Professor Richard Dienst (Rutgers), Dr. des. Mischa Suter (University of Basel), Ulrike Dencovski (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg).

She organized the following guest lecture as part of her MA research seminar on “Money and Literature”:
• Dr Paul Crosthwaite (University of Edinburgh): “‘The Occult Logic of Market Forces’: Money and Magic in Contemporary Fiction”, English Department, University of Zurich, 9 December 2015.

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, 31 March 2015.

She offered the following “Weiterbildung für Lehrpersonen an Maturitätsschulen” together with Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Bronfen:
• “American Exceptionalism: The Myths That Made America”, Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, University of Zurich, 16 March 2015.


Alexa Weik von Mossner

Alexa Weik von Mossner
• completed her 1-year SNSF Fellowship for Advanced Researchers in the Department of English at the University of California, Los Angeles
• was an international member of the DFG Network “Environmental Crisis and the Transnational Imagination” (coordinated by Timo Müller at the University of Augsburg) 
• was an international member of the DFG Network “Ethik und Ästhetik in literarischen Repräsentationen ökologischer Transformationen” (coordinated by Evi Zemaneck at the University of Freiburg)
• continued to act as treasurer of the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment (EASLCE)
• was elected Vice President of the Austrian Association for American Studies (AAAS)
• published the following articles and essays
 “Small Islands in Documentary Film.” Small Islands and Natural Hazards. Eds. Uwe Lübken and Rebecca Hofmann. Special Issue of Global Environment 8.1 (2015): 178-195. 
 “Grüne Filmstudien.” Ecocriticism: Eine Einführung. Eds. Gabriele Dürbeck and Urte Stobbe. Köln: Böhlau-Verlag (UTB Series), 2015. 
 “Slow Violence on the Beach: Documenting Disappearance in There Once Was an Island.” The Beach in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures: Reading Littoral Space. Eds. Virginia Richter and Ursula Kluwick. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015. 175-191. 
 “Die Vorstellung der Zukunft: Dystopische Klimaszenarien in der Populärkultur.” Ökologie und die Künste. Ed. Erika Fischer-Lichte and Daniela Hahn. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2015. 239-250.
• gave the following invited talks 
 “American Environments at the Movies: A Cognitive Approach to Embodiment, Emotion, and Perception.” Annual Meeting of the Swiss Association for American Studies (SANAS), University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Nov. 21, 2015.
 “Ökologien der Angst: Klimaszenarien in der Populärkultur.“ Invited talk at the conference “Das Spiel ist aus? Verantwortung und Freiheit angesichts apokalyptischer Zukunftsszenarien, ” Collegium Helveticum, Basel, Switzerland, November 5, 2015.
 “Eroding the Nation: Environmental Crisis and Social Change in Contemporary Dystopian Film.” Invited talk at the DFG-Network Environmental Crisis and the Transnational Imagination. University of Augsburg, Germany, July 17-18, 2015.
 “American Environments at the Movies: Embodiment, Perception and Emotion.” Invited talk at California State University, Fullerton, USA, April 21, 2015.
 “Touching the Senses: Environments at the Movies.” Invited talk at the Mellon Sawyer Seminar on the Environmental Humanities. University of California, Los Angeles, USA, March 17, 2015. 
 “Imagining Geological Agency: Storytelling in the Anthropocene.” Invited contribution to the Interdisciplinary Symposium “After Nature: Questions of Justice in Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Four Theses on the Climate of History.” University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA, February 26-27, 2015. 

• co-organized a conference panel
 together with Nicole Seymour and Salma Monani on “Engaging Ecocinema: The Affects and Effects of Environmental Documentaries” at the 2015 Annual Conference of the Society of Cinema and Media Studies in Montreal, Canada, March 25-29, 2015

• gave the following conference talks
 “The Lively Echoes of Dead Places: Sound and Sensation in The Road and WALL-E.” 2015 Annual Meeting of the Austrian Association of American Studies, University of Graz, Austria, November 7-10, 2015. 
 “The Good, the Bad, and the Terrifying: Depictions of Climate Science in Popular Film.” International Conference on “Science, Research and Popular Culture” at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, September 17-18, 2015. 
 “Emotion, Empathy and Ethics in the Literary Evocation of Place.”11th Biennial Conference of ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Environment) at the University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA, June 24-28, 2015. 
 “Feeling Climate Change: Visual Spectacle and Strategic Empathy in Chasing Ice.” 2015 Annual Conference of the Society of Cinema and Media Studies. Montreal, Canada, March 25-29, 2015. 
 “Captivating Evocations: Literary Topophilia and Our Imaginary Sensations.” 2015 International Conference on Narrative. Chicago, USA, March 5-8, 2015.