American Studies

  • Workshop with Donna Liggins on “Why Black Lives Should Matter to Us in Germany (Given Anti-Immigration Sentiment)” 18 July in the Augustinerschule Friedberg
  • Public lecture: “Rassismus passé? Die USA nach der Präsidentschaft Barack Obamas” (14 February 2017) organized by the Evangelisches Bildungszentrum Hospitalhof, Stuttgart
  • Paper: “The Seductions of Conservatism: On Interpreting Fifty Shades of Grey” (10 February 2017) at the conference “Cultures of US-American Conservatism,” University of Göttingen
  • Public lecture with Donna Liggins: “Why Black Lives Should Matter to Us in Germany” (16 January 2017) University of Giessen
  • Organization and Podium discussant: „Wie konnte es dazu kommen? / How did this happen? – America after the Elections“ (21 November 2016) University of Giessen
  • Podium discussant: “Nach dem Kampf ums Weiße Haus /Analyse – Bewertung – Ausblick” organized by the US Consulate Frankfurt, the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Hessen (10 November 2016), Frankfurt am Main
  • Member of the expert panel at the “U.S. Election Night 2016” (8 November 2016), organized by the Stiftung Bayerisches Amerikahaus and U.S. Consulate General Munich
  • Paper: “US American Culture and Society after 11 September 2001” (28 October 2016) at the conference “Obama’s Court: Recent Changes in U.S. Constitutional Law in Transatlantic Perspective,” Humboldt University of Berlin
  • Paper: “Why Black Lives (Need to) Matter to Us in Germany” (22 October 2016) at the conference “Black America and the Police” Otto-Friedrich-University, University of Bamberg
  • Podium discussant: “Die USA auf neuem Kurs/Die Wahl und die Folgen für Europa” (10 October 2016), organized by the Leibniz-Institut Hessische Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (HSFK), the Franfurter Rundschau, and the Haus am Dom, Frankfurt am Main
  • Lecture: “Drones, Affects, and Visibility” (7 July 2016) University of Tübingen
  • Talk: “Visual Unreliability and the Questioning of Security Measures in Homeland” at Professor Susanne Opfermanns’s Amerikanistik-Kolloquium (1 December 2015) University of Frankfurt
  • Paper: “Normative Readings of Photographs of Violence in US History: Who Gets the Last Word?” at the 2nd Turkish-German Frontiers of Humanities Symposium: “Cultural Images and Objects in Everyday Life” Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Stiftung Mercator, and Koç University (28 November 2014) Bochum
  • Public lecture: “The Centrality of the Constitution to US American Culture – Arguments from the Left and the Right” for the North American Studies Program in Cooperation with the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities “Law as Culture” (20 May 2014) University of Bonn
  • Keynote: “‘Like a dog’: Rituals of Animal Degradation in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Abu Ghraib Prison” at the conference Legal Bodies: Corpus / Persona / Communitas (16 May 2014) LUCAS (The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society)
  • Public lecture: “Historicizing Homeland” at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (16 January 2014)
  • Lecture: “Dreaming Security: Why Homeland Matters” in the Ringvorlesung: “The American Dream Revisited: Critical Perspectives on a National Idea” (21 January 2014) University of Jena
  • Keynote: “A Brief History of the Demonization (and More Occasional Idealization) of African American Men“ at the seminar “Monsters and Villains in Anglophone Media and Culture” (November 15, 2013) cosponsored by the U.S. Consulate General Frankfurt and the Hessische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung
  • Keynote: „‚The Politics of Form‘: Analyzing Post-Post ‚9/11‘ Critical Texts“ at the conference „The Poetics of Politics: Textuality and Social Relevance in Contemporary Amercian Literature and Culture“ (June 20, 2013) TU Dresden and University of Leipzig
  • Moderation: Lecture by Frederick Kempe on „John F. Kennedy and His Legacy for the German-American Relationship“ and the podium discussion with Professor Harald Müller, Atlantic Council, Washington, D.C. and U.S. Consulate General (24 June 2013) Frankfurt, Haus am Dom
  • Paper: „Examining U.S. Security Measures in Post and Post-Post 9/11 Television“ at the Conference „The Dilemmas of Security“: How State and Non-State Actors Negotiate the Concept of Security (26 April 2013), Institute of Anglo-American History, University of Cologne
  • Keynote: „Obama and the Paradigm Shift“ at the seminar „Power in Words? Presidential Rhetoric in the USA“ (January 25 2013) co-sponsered by the U.S. Consulate General Frankfurt and the Atlantische Akademie Rheinland-Pfalz e.V.
  • Panel discussant: „The 2012 Election Results and Their Implications“ at the U.S. Election Night 2012, U.S. Consulate General Frankfurt (7 November 2012)
  • Panel discussant: „Wahlanalyse: Und nun Mr. President?“ at Election Night Stuttgart, Deutsch-Amerikanisches Zentrum / James-F.-Byrnes-Institut and Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg (7 November 2012)
  • Paper: „Proclaiming and Rebutting Narratives of Self in Candidate’s Life Writings and Attack Ads“ at the conference „Electoral Cultures: American Democracy and Choice,“ LMU University of Munich (3 November 2012)
  • Paper: „The Class Trope and the 2012 Presidential Election“ at the Conference „Too Big to Ignore: Narratives of Inequality,“ University of Freiburg (13 July 2012) (Flyer, Conference Program)
  • Paper: “Writing and Revising Selfhood in Presidential Candidate’s Life Writings and in Attack Ads” for the Panel “Faking It: The End of History and the Rise of Memory, Identity, and Personality” at the 59th Annual Convention of the German Association for American Studies, University of Mainz (1 June 2012)
  • Participant by Invitation: Berliner Colloquien zur Zeitgeschichte: “Polarized Politics – The United States in the Age of the ‘Tea Party’ and ‘Occupy Wall Street’,” European Academy Berlin (11-12 May 2012)
  • Public lecture: „Twilight’s Seduction – The (Re)newed Cultural Appeal of Vampires” at the Deutsch-Amerikanisches-Zentrum/James-F.-Byrnes-Institut e.V., Stuttgart (23 November 2011)
  • Keynote: „Political Directions in American Cultural Studies“ at the 2011 Postgraduate Forum of the German Association of American Studies, University of Giessen and Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (4 November 2011)
  • Paper: “Recovering from the Men We Loved to Hate: Post 9/11 Images of Masculinity” at the transdisciplinary symposium „9/11 – Ten Years After, Looking Ahead,” University of Bonn (11 September 2011)
  • Panel discussant: “How should we remember 9/11?” at the transdisciplinary symposium “ 9/11 – Ten Years After, Looking Ahead,” University of Bonn (11 September 2011)
  • Paper: „Weighing in on Obama: Connections between Weight, Class, and Manliness in the States and Germany” at the conference „Obama and the Paradigm Shift – The Measure of Change in the US and Germany,” University of Giessen (2 July 2011)
  • Conference Introduction: „Obama and the Paradigm Shift – The Measure of Change in the US and Germany,“ University of Giessen (30 June 2011)
  • Conference: „Obama and the Paradigm Shift,“ University of Giessen (June 30 – July 2, 2011)
  • Public lecture: „The Significance of Barack Obama’s ‚A More Perfect Union‘ (The Race Speech), Philadelphia, PA March 18, 2008,“ University of Freiburg (23 January 2011)
  • Lecture: „Size Zero and Obesity – Eating in the Land of Extremes,“ Carl-Schurz-Haus, Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut, Freiburg (25 January 2010)
  • Lecture with Podcast: „Reading 9/11,“ part of the WS 2009-2010 Ringvorlesung „New Theories, Models and Methods in Literary and Cultural Studies“, University of Gießen (2 December 2009)
  • Lecture: „Torture, Guantánamo and the Bush and Post-Bush Era: Remembering Human Rights?,“ Deutsch-Amerikanisches-Institut, Tübingen (18 February 2009)
  • Lecture: „Reinventing the Self and the American Presidential Race,“ Carl-Schurz-Haus, Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut, Freiburg (13 November 2008)
  • Radio program about the lecture called „Männlichkeitswahn in der Präsidentschaft,“ Uniwelle Tübingen
  • Lecture: „‚Indiana McCain‘ oder ‚Obambi‘: Bestimmt Männlichkeitswahn den US-Präsidentschaftswahlkampf?“ („‚Indiana McCain‘ or ‚Obambi‘: Will the Obsession with Masculinity Determine the Presidency?“), Deutsch-Amerikanisches-Institut Tübingen (7 October 2008) (Abstract)
  • Performance: Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo’s Guantánamo: ‚Honor Bound to Defend Freedom,‘ Freiburg University (July 2007)
  • Lecture: „Men Who We Love To Hate: George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and the Use and Abuse of Masculinity“ (Männer, die wir zu hassen lieben – George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney und ihre Darstellung von Männlichkeit) for the WS 2006 – 2007 Ringvorlesung über Männlichkeit, Freiburg University (February 2007)
  • Participation: „Amerikanische Autoren und Europäische Leser: Lesung, Gespräch und Symposium zur Gegenwartsliteratur in den USA“; Talk on „The Novel after 9/11: Politics & Paranoia“ and moderation of a discussion between Mark Costello, author of Big If, and Philipp Schweighauser and the audience, Literaturhaus Basel (26 – 27 January 2007)
  • Organization of podium discussion: „Machtmissbrauch im Gefängnis: Das Stanford Prison Experiment, Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib“ (The Abuse of Power in the Prison: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib), Freiburg University (June 2004)
  • Talk with students: „Why Women Suffer More from Eating Disorders and Cutting,“ Kreisgymnasium Hochschwarzwald (May 2004)
  • Paper: „Divisions Within and Divisions Without: 9/11 and E. Lynn Harris’s A Love of My Own“ at the conference „Die US-amerikanische Gesellschaft im Spiegel ihrer zeitgenössischen Literatur,“ Evangelische Akademie Loccum (December 2003)
  • Paper: „America’s Two Bodies Society“ at the AAAS conference: US Icons and Iconicity, Graz University (November 2003)
  • Lecture: „American Visions, Values, and Contradictions,“ Amerika Haus Köln (September 2003).
  • Performance with students: „Gender Benders: Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues and Gloria Steinem’s If Men Could Menstruate,“ Bonn University (3 June 2003) and Freiburg University (17 und 18 July 2003)
  • Moderation of podium discussion: „The Transatlantic Drift of the Transatlantic Rift – The German-American Relationship Revisited“ for „Germany Today 2003: Bi- and Multilateral Patterns in an Enlarged European Union,“ Bonn University (June 2003)
  • Interview with Domradio: The introduction of fingerprinting for European visitors to the United States (May 2003)
  • Paper: „The In-your-faceness of Bodies in American Literature and Culture Now“ at the conference „The Flesh Made Text,“ Thessalonica University (May 2003)
  • Talk: „Discursive Elements of Anti-Americanism and Anti-Europeanism“ for the symposium „Anti-Americanism in Wartime,“ Bonn University (May 2003).
  • Organization and introduction: Symposium „Anti-Americanism in Wartime,“ Bonn University (May 2003)
  • Paper: „Inarticulate, Violent White American Men“ at the AAAS conference: Anti-Americanisms, Vienna University (November 2002)