Seminar for English Studies
American Studies
The field of North American Literary and Cultural Studies opens up a variety of innovative analytical approaches to all genres, media and epochs of a North American culture since the 16th century that is understood as interculturally and transnationally networked. Special focus is placed on popular narrative forms from the mid-19th century onwards and on current political developments and discourses.
Key areas of research, which are also dealt with in courses, include African-American literature and culture, comics and graphic narratives, crime, depictions of the Holocaust, children's and youth literature, music and audiovisual media (TV, cinema, computer games) as well as the topics of gender, race and class. The latest theoretical knowledge and approaches to cultural studies analysis are at the heart of research and teaching.
Research profile
The Chair of North American Literary and Cultural Studies deals with a broad spectrum of topics. The focus is on linking text- and media-specific approaches with historical and culture-specific contextualization work, which is based on the active creative power of narratives and artefacts. Above all, phenomena of popular serial narration as well as intermedial and media-crossing forms of representation are analyzed.
In addition to early transnational bestseller literature(city mystery novels in the 19th century) and African-American forms of expression (jazz & blues, novels, autobiographies, picture books, comics), the professorship focuses on graphic literature (superhero comics, newspaper comics, graphic novels) and political discourses and controversies of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Main research areas
- Cultures of the popular
- Popular Seriality
- Comics and Graphic Literature
- African-American literature and culture
- Crime since the 19th century
- English-language children's and youth literature
