Contact
Information
Professor of American
Literature CH-1700 Freiburg |
email: thomas.austenfeld [@]
unifr.ch |
Professor of American
Literature, Université de
Fribourg (Suisse), August
2006-present. [served as Dean of the Faculty of
Humanities, 1 July 2009 through 30 June 2011] Professor of Language and
Literature, North Georgia College & State
University (now University of North Georgia) [Tenured], July 1, 2003 -
July 31, 2006 Associate Professor of English
and Department Head of Language & Literature, North Georgia
College & State University, July 1, 2000 - June 30, 2003 Associate Professor of English
[Tenured], Drury College (now Drury
University), Springfield (Missouri), August 1997 - June 2000 Assistant Professor, Drury
College, 1991-1997 Guest Appointment as Associate
Instructor, English Language Institute, University of Utah, Summer School
1992 |
Ph. D. in English, University of Virginia, May 1991. M.A. in English, University of
Virginia, August 1986. "Erstes Staatsexamen" (First
State Exam) in English, Catholic Theology, and Education for Gymnasium
teachers (grades 5-13), University of Münster, Germany, July 1985. |
Publications
Austenfeld, Thomas,
and Grzegorz Kosc (eds.). Robert Lowell in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In Press. 2024. Austenfeld, Thomas, and Aurélie
Zurbrügg (eds.). Who Tells Your Story? SPELL 42.
Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. In Press. 2023. Austenfeld, Thomas (ed.) Robert
Lowell in a New Century: European and American Perspectives. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House
(an imprint of Boydell & Brewer), 2019. Austenfeld, Thomas (ed.). Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools: New Interpretations and Transatlantic Contexts. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2015. Austenfeld, Thomas, Jens Herlth, Dimiter Daphinoff (eds.). Terrorism and Narrative Practice. Münster: Lit Verlag, 2011. Austenfeld, Thomas (ed.). Critical Insights: Barbara Kingsolver.
Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2010. Austenfeld, Thomas, and
Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet (eds.). Writing American Women. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2009. Austenfeld, Thomas (ed.). Kay Boyle for the Twenty-First Century: New Essays. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2008.
Austenfeld, Thomas. American Women Writers and the Nazis:
Ethics and Politics in Boyle, Porter, Stafford, and Hellman. Charlottesville
and London: University Press of Virginia, 2001. Co-editor,
with Veronica Alfano
(Macquarie University) of the series Anglophone Lyric
Poetry and Poetics (Lexington Books, a division of Rowman &
Littlefield). |
Articles / Chapters / Bibliographies (inverse chronological order)
Articles and Chapters
Review
Essays
Bibliographic
Essays
|
Book
Reviews (inverse
chronological order)
|
Occasional
Writings
(inverse chronological order)
|
Conference
Presentations and Public Lectures
(inverse chronological order)
1.
“Edgar Lee Masters and the Power of
Pathos.” IAUPE Conference Rome, Italy,
July 11-14, 2023. 2.
"Poetry is Tuning!" Poetry.
Experience. Attention. The International Network for the Study of Lyric
Conference, Oslo, Norway, June 6,
2023. 3.
"Form and Voice: Contemporary Poets and
Musical Conventions." Panel "Poetry from the Page to the Ear,"
organized by Thomas Austenfeld, American Literature Association Annual
Conference, Boston, MA, May 26, 2023. 4.
"History, Theory, and Anglophone
African Literature": Guest Lecture for Prof. Julia Straub's lecture,
"Writing the 21st-Century: Perspectives on Contemporary Anglophone
Literature," Fribourg, May 4, 2023.
6.
"Teaching Southern Literature
Today." One-day workshop at the Liceo Cantonale di Mendrisio, February
17, 2023. 7.
Journée d'études,
séminaire de l'Agrégation, Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France,
January 12, 2023. Lecture and discussion: F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night. 8.
T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land: Modernism a Hundred Years Onwards." Guest
lecture University of Bern, upon invitation by Prof. Thomas Claviez, April
12, 2022. 9.
“African Anglophone Literature: History,
Theory, and Teaching Practice.”
One-day workshop at the Scuola
Cantonale di Commercio, Bellinzona, February 25, 2022. 10. "Teaching
Southern Literature Today: A Workshop."
Palacky University, Olomouc, November 4, 2021 (online). 11. "A
Poem and Its Voices: 'Memories of West Street and Lepke' by Robert
Lowell." CUSO Workshop: “Working with Poetry”
directed by Julia Straub and Gabriele Rippl, University of Fribourg, June 11,
2021. 12.
"American Sestinas: A Century of
Aesthetic Paradoxes." Presented at the conference Contrainte créatrice : la fortune littéraire de la sextine dans le
temps et dans l’espace, directed by Marion Uhlig. University of Fribourg, May 19, 2021. 13. "Title/Abstract/Thesis:
How to Prepare Your Dissertation for the Academic Market of Ideas."
Guest lecture to doctoral seminar in Foreign Language Department at
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, upon invitation by Prof. Francesco
Rognoni, May 4, 2021 (online). 14. "Recent
African American Women Poets: Tracy Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Claudia
Rankine." Guest Lecture upon invitation by Prof. Agnieszka Soltysik
Monnet, University of Lausanne, April 27, 2021 (online). 15. "Katherine
Anne Porter and Kay Boyle: Expatriate Women Writers." Guest lecture upon
invitation by Prof. Sandra Spanier, Pennsylvania State University, March 31,
2021 (online). 16. “’a
swamp // where graves had been. I recall’: Natasha Trethewey’s Monumental
Work of Memory.” Doing Southern Studies
Today conference, January 13, 2021.
Humboldt University Berlin (online). 17. Respondent
to Keynote Address by Prof. David Caplan, "On Erasure," Conference New Poetries—New Poetics?, University
of Konstanz, February 14-15, 2020. 18.
"Amerikanische
Literatur nach 1945: Weltmacht, Protest, Vietnam, Vielfalt." Ringvorlesung First Came America. Volkshochschule Zürich, 5. Februar 2020. 19. "Between
Lyric and Epic: The Challenge of Walt Whitman." Guest Lecture,
Universität Trier, January 22, 2020. 20. "What
Poets Do With History: Derek Walcott’s Omeros
and the Battle of the Saint(e)s."
Guest Lecture, Muhlenberg Center at Martin-Luther Universität
Halle-Wittenberg, January 14 and 15, 2020. 21. Convocation
Address: "Spots of Time and Ice Cream Sundaes." Franklin University 50th
Anniversary Convocation, September 27, 2019, at Franklin University, Sorengo
(Lugano), Switzerland. 22. "Impersonating
Poems: The Lyric's Voice Between Speaker and Audience." International Society for the Study of
Lyric (INSL) Conference, Lausanne, June 4, 2019. 23. "Life Studies at Sixty." American Literature Association Conference,
Boston, May 25, 2019. 24. "Rhetorical
Appeal in Kay Boyle's Poetry: The Place of Pathos." American Literature
Association Conference, Boston, May 24, 2019. 25. "Victorious
Figures of Bravado: Lowell's Pathos." British Association of American
Studies Conference, Brighton, April 25, 2019. 26. "Pathos
in the Poetry of Kay Boyle: Channeling Emotion in 20th-century
Protest Poetry." SAAS Conference, Salamanca, April 9, 2019. 27. "Confessional
Poetry and The Cold War." American Studies Week, University of
Flensburg, December 3, 2018. 28. "Pathos:
The Genre of Poetic Address." SANAS conference Lausanne, The Genres of Genre, November 2, 2018.
29. "'To
prepare a face': Faces in 20th-century Literature and Philosophy."
Australian Literary Studies Association, Canberra, July 4, 2018. 30. "American
Poetry: Pleasure, Pathos, Prosody."
Invited Guest Lecture at the University of Klagenfurt. Austria. January 10, 2018. 31. "The
Pathos of Modernist Poems."
Lecture given at a Symposium to honor Prof. Hans Bak on the occasion
of his retirement, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, December 15,
2017. 32. "A
Plea for Pathos: Recovering an Essential Paradigm for the Lyric." Situating Lyric Conference, Boston
University, June 7-11, 2017. 33. "Gestures
of Faith in Contemporary American Poetry." Presented at the conference Spiritual Networks: Religion in Literature
and the Arts, 1700 to the Present, University of Halle-Wittenberg, May
18-10, 2017. 34. "Self-surveillance:
Conscience and Control in Dave Eggers' The
Circle." Closing Presentation in the series ÜberwachungsRäume / Spaces of Surveillance, a lecture series at
the University of Flensburg, Germany, January 30, 2017. 35. "An
Ecocritical Approach to Robert Lowell." American Literature Association
Conference, San Francisco, May 26, 2016. 36. "South Pacific: Love, War, Orientalism,
and Tolerance." Lecture on the occasion of a Swiss European Mobility
visit to the Department of American Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen,
December 3 and 4, 2015. 37. "Reassessing
the Age of Lowell." American Studies Colloquium Series at the American
Studies Center, University of Warsaw, Poland, November 12, 2015. 38. "Giving
'The Age of Lowell' its Due."
American Literature Association Conference, Boston, May 23, 2015. 39. "Robert
Lowell and the History of Poetic Self-Revelation." Distinguished Professors' Lecture Series,
Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, March 27,
2015. 40. "Katherine
Anne Porter and the Problem of Europe."
Guest lecture as part of the SEFOC program, Palacky University,
Olomouc, Czech Republic, March 19, 2015. 41. "Robert
Lowell and the Age of Identitarian Poetry." Guest lecture, University of Uppsala,
February 18, 2015. 42. "American
Poetry: History, Developments, How and Why to Teach it." Continuing Education Workshop to the
English Teachers of the Kantonsschule Baden, March 5, 2015. 43. "'to
braid her hair for the journey home': Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah."
Guest lecture in Professor Hans Bak's class on North American Fiction,
Radboud University Nijmegen, December 4, 2014. 44. "Bibliography
in a Digital Age: (Re)covering Kay Boyle." Faculty Colloquium talk,
English Department, Radboud University Nijmegen, December 4, 2014. 45. "Lowell's
Dolphin:
Shame, Guilt, and the Fate of Confessional Poetry." SANAS conference,
Basel, November 21-22, 2014. 46. "Confess--disclose--proclaim:
The Trope of Self-revelation in American Poetry Since the Sixties."
SEFOC Conference at Palacky University, Olomouc, October 17, 2014. 47. "Kay
Boyle Scholarship: Trends and Opportunities." American Literature
Association Conference, Washington, DC, May 22, 2014. 48. "Catholicism
in the United States: History, religious practice, social place." Guest
Lecture in the Dept. of Sociology, University of Fribourg, October 17, 2013. 49. "Memoir,
not Autobiography: Lowell's Self-Articulation Reexamined." A
presentation in two forms. Thirty minute-version: Editorial Institute, Boston
University, October 30, 2013. Twenty-minute-version: PAMLA Conference, San
Diego, November 2, 2013. 50. "The
Drama of Staging a Lyrical Moment: An Introduction to the Work of Dana
Gioia." 2013 Triennial Conference of IAUPE, The International
Association of Professors of English, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China,
July 16-20, 2013. 51. "Occasional
Poets: Kay Boyle and Katherine Anne Porter." Alternative Modernisms
Conference, Cardiff University, May 16-17, 2013. 52. "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. 53. Keynote Lecture:
"Fleeing, Flying, Staying, Leaving: Escape and Ecology in American
Literature." Conference In Fuga,
Catholic University of Milano, Italy, March 1, 2013. 54. ERASMUS
visit to the University of Salamanca, February 20-22, 2013.
Presentation to graduate students and faculty: "Library and
Database Research Using Remote Catalogues." 55.
ERASMUS visit to
Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France, December 6-7, 2012. Presentations:
(a) "American Pastoral: Intertextuality and 'the past undetonated'"
to a class of Agrégation students. (b)
"A Question of Voice: Lowell, Didion, and literary history" to
LERMA, Laboratoire d’Études et de Recherche sur le Monde Anglophone, at
Aix-en-Provence. 56. "Foer
the Love of Schulz! An Archaeological Reading of Tree of Codes." In Search of the Lost Original: Comparative
Perspectives on Bruno Schulz (1892-1942). Conference at the University of
Fribourg, November 30, 2012. 57. ERASMUS
visit to University of Rome "Tor Vergata," Rome, Italy, November
22-23, 2012. Presentations: (a) "Emily Dickinson: Context, Scholarship,
Philology." (b) "Library and Database Research Using Remote
Catalogues." 58. Guest
Lecture / guest instructor: "Love
Medicine as part of contemporary American Literature." Radboud
University Nijmegen, October 17, 2012. 59. Keynote Lecture:
"Whatever Happened to the Confessional Voice in American Poetry?"
ELLE Conference, Partium Christian University, Oradea (Romania), September
15, 2012. 60. Roundtable
contribution, "Celebrating 50 years of Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools."
American Literature Association Conference, San Francisco, May 25, 2012. 61. "Transatlantic
Literary Journeys." Narrenschiff /
Ship of Fools. A Transatlantic Encounter. Conference at the University of Fribourg,
directed by Thomas Austenfeld, May 11-12, 2012. 62.
"Nobody's Nation: What Remains of
Multiculturalism in American Literature?" Tertium Datur:
Hybridisierung, Synkretismus, Créolité. Interdisziplinäres Kolloquium Universität Fribourg,
April 20, 2012. 63. "The Last Report: Louise
Erdrich between Communities—A Comparative Analysis." Native America: Indigenous
Self-Representation in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.
Conference at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, February 24-25,
2012. 64. ERASMUS
visit to Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, February 9-11,
2012. Presentations: (1) "Library and Database Research Using Remote
Catalogues." (2) "Robert Lowell's Life Studies and the Obsession with Cleanliness." 65. "Robert
Lowell in the Bathroom." Mid-Twentieth-Century
Poets and Cultural Change. PAMLA Conference, November 6, 2011,
Scripps College, Claremont, CA. 66. "European
Perspectives on the American West." Invited Lecture, California State
University Bakersfield, November 3, 2011. 67. "Looking
for 'Siegfried': Generation
Without Farewell and the Life Story of a German
Journalist." American Literature Association Conference, Boston, May 28,
2011. 68. "Recollection
and Revolution: Katherine Anne Porter and Kay Boyle as Poets." American
Literature Association Conference, Boston, May 28, 2011. 69. "Mule
and Wagon vs the Dixie Limited: Transportation in Flannery O'Connor."
SAUTE Conference, Bern, May 7, 2011. 70. "Violence
in American History, Literature, and Culture." Invited Lecture, Partium
Christian University, Oradea (Romania), April 15, 2011. 71. "Terrorism
as Satire: America's Tacky Empire and Chuck Palahniuk's Pygmy." Presented at the
conference "Terrorism through the Lens of Literary Epistemology:
Historical Imagination and Narrative Practice," University of Fribourg,
December 3, 2010. 72. "Parallel
Lives: Kay Boyle, Tamara de Lempicka, and Cool Modernism." SANAS joint
conference with AAAS Innsbruck, November 12, 2010. 73.
"Pigs, Ghosts, and a Ship of
Fools: Modernist American Women Writers and Totalitarian Europe." SAGVL Conference "Autoritäre Moderne / Modernité
et Autorité" in Fribourg, Switzerland, October 8-9, 2010. 74. "The
Voice of the Academic Writer: Nonfiction Essays and the Question of
Authority." Conference of the European Association of English
Studies (ESSE) in Torino, Italy, August 25, 2010. 75. "Transcontinental
Hemingway." International Hemingway Conference Lausanne, Switzerland,
June 29, 2010. 76. "The
Age of Lowell and the Discontinuities of American Poetry." Invited Guest
Lecture, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Brescia, Italy, March 20, 2010.
77. "Information
Literacy for Ph.D. students." Invited Guest Lecture, Università
Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy, March 18, 2010. 78. "'Drowning
is not so pitiful': Matchimanito Lake as historical, therapeutic, and
demiurgic locale in Louise Erdrich's work." Spanish Association for
American Studies Conference, Barcelona, April 2, 2009. 79. "Between
Homage and Autobiography: Learning and Teaching in David Levin's Exemplary Elders
(1990) and Frank McCourt's Teacher
Man (2005)." Academic Autobiography Conference, Universidad de
Navarra, Pamplona, March 28, 2009. 80. "Rosicky's
Neighbors: Values, Virtues, and the Contingency of Criticism." Invited
Guest Lecture, English Department of the University of Bern, Switzerland,
March 9, 2009. 81. "Genre,
Voice, Identity: Nonfiction Prose and the Personal Essay." Swiss Society
of General and Comparative Literature, University of Fribourg, March 7, 2009.
82. "Arthur
Miller's The Misfits:
The Last Frontier of the West." University of Lausanne English
Department, December 5, 2008. 83. "Rosicky's
Neighbors: Values, Virtues, and the Contingency of Criticism." English
Department of the University of Arizona, Tucson AZ, November 21, 2008. 84. "Locked
Up Underground: Kay Boyle and Prisons." Biennial Conference of the Swiss
Association of North American Studies, Crêt-Bérard, November 15, 2008. 85. "Teaching
Lowell Beyond the Alps: A Multilingual Approach to Imitations."
American Literature Association Conference, San Francisco, May 23, 2008. 86. "Four Visions of America:
Beyond the Unum."
Biennial EAAS (European Association of American Studies) Conference, Oslo,
May 11, 2008. 87. "Rosicky's
Neighbors: Values, Virtues, and the Contingency of Criticism." Antrittsvorlesung / Leçon Inaugurale,
University of Fribourg, April 30, 2008. 88.
"The Fret of Modernism: The Discourse
of Fear in American Culture, 1917-1941." Miroirs de la Peur. Journée d'Etude / Tagung, University of Fribourg,
October 12, 2007. 89. "A
Happy Naturalist? Jeremy Bentham and the Cosmic Morality of The Octopus."
American Literature Association Conference, Boston MA, May 2007. 90. "Playing
the Prodigal: Walcott's Variations on a Biblical Parable." "The
Caribbean Unbound" Conference, Franklin College, Lugano, Switzerland,
March 31, 2007. 91. "Sensations:
The Hypertrophy of Aesthetics in Philip Roth's Everyman." Biennial
Conference of the Swiss Association of North American Studies, Geneva,
November 11, 2006. 92. "The
Spinet and the Coffin: Katherine Anne Porter and the Art of
Music." American Literature Association Conference, San Francisco,
CA, May 26, 2006. 93. "Negotiating
Frontiers in Thomas Mann's The Magic
Mountain." VIIIth Conference on "European Culture,"
Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona (Spain), October 20, 2005. 94. "'Will
the real Louise Erdrich please stand up?' Unearthing German heritage
and culture in The Master Butchers Singing Club." American
Literature Association Conference, Boston MA, May 27, 2005. 95. "Walcott's
Omeros:
Starting a New World." 20th Century Literature Conference,
Louisville KY, February 24-26, 2005. 96. "Reluctant
Modernism: Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Spanish Baroque Culture."
Ninth Conference of the International Society for the Study of European
Ideas, Pamplona (Spain), August 3, 2004. 97. "Research
Projects Exploring Connections between Spanish and Austrian
Literature." Presented at "Into the Classroom: Incorporating
Faculty Seminars and Teaching Abroad into the Curriculum." March
12-13, 2004, Clayton College and State University. 98. "Spanish
Baroque and Austrian Modernism in Hugo von Hofmannsthal." 20th
Century Literature Conference, Louisville KY, February 26-28, 2004. 99. "Giving
Everyone a Voice: Translating von Hofmannsthal's Jedermann" at a Special
Session, "World Poetry in Translation" at SAMLA, Atlanta GA, 14-16
November, 2003. 100.
"'Our Cleopatra': Peter Taylor,
Katherine Anne Porter, and Southern Identity" at the American Literature
Association Conference, Cambridge MA, May 23, 2003. 101.
[with Tanya Bennett] "Begin Here:
Introducing African-American Literature into General Education" at
Kennesaw State University's conference "Stepping Up to the Plate: Best
Practices in Diversity Education," April 26, 2003. 102.
"Peter Taylor's A Summons to Memphis:
Duty Ethics and American Individualism." 20th Century
Literature Conference, Louisville KY, February 27 – March 1, 2003. 103.
"American Women Writers in
Europe." Invited Theme Day Lecture, Drury University, Springfield
MO, February 20, 2003. 104.
Introductory Speaker at NGCSU Faculty
Retreat: "Why Should We Care About Ethics?" Black Mountain
Lodge, Dahlonega GA, Sept. 13, 2002. 105.
"Shifting the Ground of
Responsibility: The two versions of Rita Dove's The Darker Face of the Earth."
20th Century Literature Conference, Louisville KY, February 21-23,
2002. 106.
"Memories of Heidelberg: Stafford's
Multiple Selves and the Negotiation of Collusive Guilt." SAMLA,
Atlanta GA, November 9-11, 2001. 107.
"Ron Hansen's Women: Politics,
Religion, Sexuality." Western Literature Association Conference,
Omaha NE, October 17-21, 2001. 108.
"Ethical Criticism and Porter's
Voice." American Literature Association Conference (Katherine Anne
Porter Society), Cambridge MA, May 24, 2001. 109.
"Generation Without Farewell: Kay Boyle's Ethical
Assessment of Germany." 20th Century Literature
Conference, Louisville KY, February 22, 2001. 110.
"Teaching Values through Western haecceitas: Western Stories,
Lived Experience, Ethical Models." "Spiritual Frontiers"
Conference at Brigham Young University, Provo UT, March 30-April 2, 2000. 111.
"Language as a Tool of Honesty."
(Workshop: Language as a Tool). Sixth Conference of the International
Society for the Study of European Ideas, Haifa (Israel), August 1998. 112.
"Travellers, Not Tourists: The
Trope of Travel as Acculturation." (Workshop: Perceptions of the
Arts and Texts of the Twentieth Century). Sixth Conference of the
International Society for the Study of European Ideas, Haifa (Israel), August
1998. 113.
"'Fear in a Handful of Dust':
Foreigners Experience the West in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees."
Western Literature Association Annual Meeting, Albuquerque NM, October 15-19,
1997. 114.
"Thomas Wolfe and Katherine Anne
Porter: Two Americans Discover Their Democratic Roots." International
Thomas Wolfe Conference, Munich (Germany), May 23-25, 1997. 115.
"Mirandas Abroad: Two Girls of the
Golden West Meet the Nazis." Western Literature Association,
Lincoln NE, October 2-5, 1996. 116.
"Memory, Literature, and European
Nation States." Fifth Conference of the International Society for
the Study of European Ideas, Utrecht (Netherlands), August 19-24, 1996. 117.
"Porter's Totalitarianism
Revisited." Katherine Anne Porter Society at the American
Literature Association's Annual Conference in Baltimore, MD, May 27-30, 1995.
118.
"Problems of Regional Identity:
Katherine Anne Porter as Western Writer." Western Literature
Association Conference, Salt Lake City, October 5-8, 1994. 119.
"'O Bella Roma': Robert Lowell's
Religious Imagination in the Nineteen-Fifties." LeMoyne Forum on
Religion and Literature, Syracuse (New York), October 15-17, 1993. 120.
"The Necessary Imagination: European
Writers Encounter the West." Western Literature Association
Conference, Wichita (Kansas), October 7-9, 1993. 121.
"Under the Microscope: Porter and
Steinbeck Dissect Humanity." Northeastern MLA Conference in
Philadelphia, March 1993. 122.
"Day by Day: Lowell's Poetic Eschatology."
Southeastern Conference on Christianity and Literature, New Orleans, 4-6
February 1993. 123.
"From Mexico to Germany: Katherine
Anne Porter and Politics." International Katherine Anne Porter
Conference at Baylor University (Waco, TX), 14-16 May 1992. |
|
Professional Organizations
|
Teaching Experience –
University of Fribourg (in
chronological order 2006-2025)
Fall 2006 ·
Lecture: American
Literature, 1865-1914 ·
Seminar: Realism and
Naturalism ·
Proseminar: The Western |
Spring 2007 ·
Lecture: American
Literature, 1914-1945 ·
Seminar: American
Expatriate Writers ·
Proseminar: Modernist
Identities in T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" |
Fall 2007 ·
Lecture: American
Literature, 1945-Present ·
Seminar: Robert Lowell
and Elizabeth Bishop ·
Proseminar: Louise
Erdrich |
Spring 2008 ·
Lecture: Early American
Literature through 1836 ·
Seminar: The Nation and
the Self: Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin ·
Proseminar: Arthur
Miller, Selected Plays |
Fall 2008 ·
Lecture: American
Renaissance, 1836-1861 ·
Seminar: Wicked Books and
Wicked Witches: Melville and Hawthorne ·
Proseminar: Nature,
Nation, Self: Emerson's Essays ·
Research Colloquium |
Spring 2009 ·
Lecture: Machines,
Gardens, Factories: American Literature in the late 19th Century ·
Seminar: Studies in
Determinism: Crane, Dreiser, Norris ·
Proseminar: Willa Cather,
Selected Novels ·
Research Colloquium |
Fall 2009 (Dean's teaching reduction) ·
Lecture: Transcontinental
Hemingway ·
Research Colloquium |
Spring 2010 (Dean's teaching reduction) ·
Seminar: San Francisco in
History, Literature, and Politics (co-taught with Dr. Catherine Bosshart) ·
Research Colloquium |
Fall 2010 (Dean's teaching reduction) ·
Lecture: American Poetry
since the Age of Lowell ·
Seminar: Derek Walcott:
Periphery and Center |
Spring 2011 (Dean's teaching reduction) ·
Lecture: American Fiction
since 1960 ·
Seminar: John Updike’s Rabbit Tetralogy as Social History of the United States |
Fall 2011 ·
Research Sabbatical |
Spring 2012 ·
First-Year Module
Lecture: An Overview of American Literary History ·
Proseminar: Introduction
to Literary Studies ·
Proseminar: The Western ·
Research Colloquium |
Fall 2012 ·
Lecture: Early American
Literature: Columbus to Emerson ·
Proseminar: American
Essays from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Joan Didion ·
Seminar: 20th-century
American Poetry, Part One: From Masters & Robinson to Lowell & Bishop |
Spring 2013 ·
Lecture: American
Literature 1836 – 1914 ·
Proseminar: American
Memoirs and Life Writing since 1989 ·
Seminar: Visions of the
West: Wallace Stegner to Sherman Alexie ·
Research Colloquium |
Fall 2013 ·
Lecture: American
Literature 1914 – 1945 ·
Proseminar: Literary
Theory ·
Seminar: 20th-century
American Poetry, Part Two: From the mid-sixties to the present |
Spring 2014 ·
Research Sabbatical
(Dean's compensation) |
Fall 2014 ·
First-Year Module
Lecture: Introduction to Literary Studies ·
Proseminar: Introduction
to Literary Studies ·
Seminar: The American
South |
Spring 2015 ·
First-Year Module
Lecture: An Overview of American Literary History . Tradition and Innovation in American Drama (World Literature Part IV) ·
Proseminar :
Introduction to Literary Studies ·
Seminar : Expatriate
Autobiographies |
Fall 2015 ·
Lecture: American Prose
Fiction in the Third Millennium ·
Proseminar: The Art of
the Essay ·
Seminar: Women's Lives in
Turn-of-the-Century Novels: Crane, Chopin, Dreiser, Wharton, Cather |
Spring 2016 ·
Lecture: History of
American Poetry: Whitman's Legacy ·
Proseminar: Freedom and
Form in American Modernist Poems ·
Seminar: Writing New York |
Pre-semester: BA/MA seminar and excursion. Creative
Writing New York ·
Lecture:
Nineteenth-Century Prose Fiction: Poe, Hawthorne, Melville and Twain ·
Proseminar: Fictions of Communities: Cisneros,
Morrison, Boyden ·
Seminar: Dark Visions: The Scarlet Letter and Moby-Dick |
Spring 2017 ·
Lecture: History of
American Poetry: Dickinson’s Legacy ·
Proseminar: Southern Literature
and Poverty: Theroux, Faulkner, Ward ·
Seminar: Robert Lowell –
The Centennial Seminar |
Fall 2017 ·
Research Sabbatical |
Spring 2018 ·
Lecture: A Survey of
American Literature, Part II (Intro class) ·
Proseminar: Introduction
to Literary Study ·
Seminar: Foundational
Documents of American Democracy ·
[University of Berne]
Lecture: American Poetry and Culture |
Fall 2018 ·
Lecture: Social Justice Debates in American Literature ·
Proseminar: Becoming a Reader and Scholar of American Literature
I ·
Seminar: Pathos and the American Tradition |
Spring 2019 ·
Lecture: American Autobiographies ·
Proseminar: Becoming a Reader and Scholar of American Literature
II ·
Seminar: Women's Lives in Naturalist Fiction: Crane, Chopin,
Dreiser, Wharton, Cather
|
Fall 2019 ·
Lecture: Three American Epics: Song of Myself, The Waste Land, Omeros ·
Proseminar: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Writer and Activist ·
Seminar: Walt Whitman at
200: Leaves of Grass and Prose
Works |
Spring 2020
|
Fall 2020 ·
Lecture: American Drama ·
Proseminar: Becoming a Reader and Scholar of American Literature
I ·
Seminar: African American Women Poets ·
[University of Berne] Lecture: American Drama |
Spring 2021 ·
Lecture: Survey of American Literature (Intro module class) ·
Proseminar: Becoming a Reader and Scholar of American Literature
II ·
Seminar: Music and the American Novel |
Fall 2021 ·
Lecture: The Forgotten Nineteen-Thirties ·
Proseminar: Democracy in
America? ·
Seminar: American Memoirs and Life Writing since 2000 |
Spring 2022 ·
Lecture: Survey of American Literature (Intro module class) ·
Proseminar: Rhetoric and Narrative in American Fiction ·
Seminar: (with Prof. Julia Straub) Modernism Centennial: Poetry |
Fall 2022 ·
Lecture: Six Great Debates in 19th-century America: Expansion,
Indigeneity, Slavery, Gender, War, Industrialization ·
Proseminar: Contemporary North American Drama ·
Seminar: American Modernism in Prose |
Spring 2023 ·
Lecture: Survey of American Literature (Intro module class) ·
Proseminar: Scorn not the
Sonnet! ·
Seminar: Who Tells Your Story? Narrative, Authorship, Authority |
Fall 2023 ·
Lecture: History of American Poetry ·
Proseminar: American Essays—Art and Voice, Part One: Beginnings
to 1950 ·
Seminar: Regionalism—the West and the South [with Dr. Aurélie
Zurbrügg] |
Spring 2024 ·
Lecture: Short Stories: A National Art Form ·
Proseminar: American Essays—Art and Voice, Part Two: 1950 to the
Present ·
Seminar: Milton in America |
Fall 2024 ·
Lecture: Survey of American Literature (Intro module class) ·
Proseminar: Violence and the American Novel ·
Seminar: How to read American Poems (with Journée d'études with Profs. Uhlig
and Müller) |
Spring 2025 ·
Lecture: American Self-Deception and Self-Renewal ·
Proseminar: Louise Erdrich ·
Seminar: TBA |
Theses supervised at the
University of Fribourg (chronological
order)
Completed (B.A., M.A., “License”) |
|
B.A. Theses
since 2007 (and comprehensive oral exams, beginning 2017) 1.
Mathilde Waeber,
"Blackness and / as Social Construction in Zora Neale Hurston and Nella
Larsen," BA 2007 2.
Eric Miller,
"Scarlett and Blanche: An Evolution of the Southern Belle," BA 2007 3.
Ivana Plechaty,
"Carl Gustav Jung in Saul Bellow's Herzog
and Henderson the Rain King, BA 2007 4.
Maribel Bueno,
"Anishinaabe Spirituality in Louise Erdrich's Works," BA 2008 5.
Martin Häsler,
"To Alter Destiny--an Irresolvable Quest [Kurt Vonnegut]," BA 2008 6.
Francesca Sartore,
"Cities and Sewers in Baudelaire and Eliot," BA 2008 7.
Alexis Wilson,
"Literary Characteristics of American Contemporary Comic Books," BA 2008 8.
Santiago Cruz Petersen,
"Form and Effect of Whitman's 'Song of Myself,'" BA 2009 9.
Cinzia Minervini Jordan,
"Riding Towards Freedom: Moral Responsibility in the Work of Arthur
Miller," BA 2009 10. Emmanuelle
Bourguet, "Hopelessness in the Plays of Arthur
Miller and Tennessee Williams," BA 2009 11. Karine
Antille, "Patriarchy, Women’s solidarity and
their impact on inter-sexual relationships in Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place and
The Men of Brewster Place,"
BA 2009 (supervised by Dr. Weik
von Mossner) 12. Pierre
Defferrard, "Childhood in the Deep South:
Influence of family, friends and society on Huck Finn, Scout Finch and
Richard Wright," BA 2010 13. Niklas
Fischer, "New Orleans vs. Chicago: Two Types
of Carnival in Nelson Algren's A Walk on
the Wild Side and The Man
With the Golden Arm," BA 2010 14. Dana
Antonioli, "Violence in Bastard Out of Carolina, Coming of Age in
Mississippi, and Desert
Flower," BA 2010 15. Julia
Bachmann, "Bebop influence on the
conceptualisation of time in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road," BA 2010 (supervised by Dr. Weik von Mossner) 16. Åsa
Semple, "Religious and Moral Decay in The
Great Gatsby," BA 2010
(supervised by Dr. Weik von Mossner) 17. Thomas
M. Meier, "Science and Entertainment in
Contemporary Ecological Films," BA 2010
(supervised by Dr. Weik von Mossner) 18. Fabio
Gramegna, "Madness in Edgar Allan Poe's Tales:
'The terror of the soul'," BA 2010 19. Jeremy
Gremaud, "Edgar Allan Poe’s, Mark Twain’s and
Ambrose Bierce’s Satire: The Effect of the Civil War on the 'Ritualized
Attack' Against Society’s Ignorance," BA 2011 20. Christian
Keist, "The Representation of History and
Time in the Black Arts Movement’s Drama and the Influence of the Nation of
Islam," BA 2011 21. Aurélie
Morard, "'Unsilencing' the Outcast. From
Postcolonial to Global Literature," BA 2012 22. Nora
Studer, "Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and Charles Bukowski's
Ham on Rye: The reciprocal
influence of the protagonists' disorder/disease and their estrangement,"
BA 2012 23. Veronica Sergi, "How do unreliable narrators
contribute to the reader's aesthetic awareness?", BA 2013 24. Jessica Saillen, "The survival of American Indian
traditions in James Welch’s Fools Crow
and Louise Erdrich’s The Bingo
Palace," BA 2013
25. Nadja T. Camesi, "A Tough Guy--The Male Hero in Western
and Hard-boiled fiction," BA 2013 26. Fanny Maendly, "Manhood Behind Bars: An Analysis of
Malcolm X's Autobiography and
Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson
Before Dying," BA 2013 27. Anita Pervanic, "Joan Didion: Home of Words," BA 2013 28. Loïc Obertüfer, "Obsession and Madness in Narrating Wieland, Pym, and Ethan Frome," BA 2013 29. David Schwery, "Black Politicians and Their
Speeches," BA 2013 30. Anne-Laure Boéchat, "Gender Determination in Hemingway's
The Garden of Eden," BA 2013 31. Patrick Puzdrowski, "Women in Edgar Allan Poe's Short
Stories," BA 2014 32. Preethy Alex, "Troy Maxson: An Interconnected Collective.
A Lacanian Analysis of August Wilson's Fences,"
BA 2014 33. Nathalia Schweizer, "Postwar Youth in J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey and The Catcher in the Rye," BA 2014 34. Valentin Bruegger, "American Expatriate Writing: Framing
the Paris Moment," BA 2014 35. Mélanie Balet, "Aspects of the Gothic in Horace Walpole, Charles Brockden Brown, and Edgar Allan Poe," BA 2015 36. Zita
Buess-Watson, "
Native Americans in Western Literature and Art," BA 2015 37. Charlène
Minster, "Catherine in The Garden of Eden: An Analysis
Applying Feminist Criticism and Psychoanalytical Criticism," BA 2015 38. Mélanie
Voyame, "A
Structuralist Analysis of Three Detective Novels," BA 2015 39. Michèle
Cirelli, "Justice and Power in
Young Adult Fiction: An Analysis of The
Giver, The Hunger Games, and To
Kill a Mockingbird," BA 2015 40. Diana
Helfer, " Crying
for a Vision: The Lives and Visions of Margery Kempe and Black Elk," BA 2015 (co-supervised with Prof.
Elisabeth Dutton) 41. Aurélie
Zurbrügg, "Whitman's
'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry' and Crane's The
Bridge: A Journey Into a New Era," BA 2015 42. Lorenzo Ghiggia, "A Farewell
to Arms and For Whom
the Bell Tolls: Ernest Hemingway's War Novels Seen through the
Eyes of Two Soldiers in Love," BA 2016 43. Clelia Alberici, "The Female Character in Young Adult
Novels," BA 2016 44. Fabienne Eberhard, "Thornton Wilder beyond Our Town," BA 2017 45.
Celine Scheidegger, "Nature in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and The
Blithedale Romance," BA 2017 46.
Amélia Godel, "Women
Characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Works," BA 2017 47. Arusa Chughtai, "On Hybridity: The Millennial Muslim," BA 2017 48.
Marie Gaspoz, "African
American Women's Self-actualization Within the Black Community," BA 2017 49. Patricia Machado Soares, "Imperfections Beneath Suburban Life: A close reading of The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit and Revolutionary Road," BA 2017 50. Baptiste Arnoux, "The Experience of Expatriation and its Consequences on
Personality in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah
and Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast," BA 2017 51. Noella Tinguely, "The Impact of Domestic Ideologies on the Slave Mother's
Self-Identity in Harriet Jacobs's Incidents
in the Life of a Slave-Girl (1861) and Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987)," BA 2017 52. Kathrin Schütz, "Who am I? – Loss of Control and Personal Space Through the
Environment in Dystopian Fiction," BA 2017 53. Samuele Ramelli, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2017 54. Méline Murisier, "Between Dystopia and Uchronia: A Shift in Reality. Perspectives on the Totalitarian State in
Three American Novels," BA 2017 55. Justine Salvadori, "John Fante and the Italian-American Myth of Assimilation in Wait Until Spring, Bandini; The
Brotherhood of the Grape and West
of Rome," BA 2017 56. Olivia Stettler, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2017 57. Kevin Maillard, "Frederick Douglass – The Self-Taught Slave Who Became an
Accomplished Writer," BA 2017 58. Laura Muehlebach, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2017 59. Leandra Hörler, "Truth and Lying in Four Plays by Arthur Miller," BA 2018 60. Anna Borella, "The American Justice System on Trial: Confronting the Role of
Race and Class," BA 2018 61. Andrea Leu, "Violence and Identity in Native American Literature: Joseph
Boyden's The Orenda and Sherman
Alexie's Indian Killer," BA 2018 62. Anna Vestermark Caccia, "Displaced and Misplaced: Cultural Syncretism and Plural
Identities in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The
Thing Around Your Neck," BA 2018 63. Elsa Berset, "The Madman as Hero in Jack Kerouac's On the Road," BA 2018 64. Fabienne Widmer, "Constructed Masculinity in Junot Diaz's 'The Silence: The Legacy
of Childhood Trauma,' The Brief
Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This
Is How You Lose Her," BA 2018 65. Julie Beytrison, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2018 66. Patrick de Azevedo, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2019 67. Sanida Meša, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2019 68. Jessica Turpin, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2019 69. Mylène Schuwey, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2019 70. Claudia Jenrich, "Depression in Recent Young Adult Novels: The Memory of Light and All the Bright Places," BA 2019 71. Martina Piffaretti, "Abuse and Objectification of African American Women in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Written by Herself and The Color
Purple," BA 2019 72. Jeannette Widmer, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2019 73. Talena Zbinden, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2019 74. Zofia Brunner, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2019 75. Blerina Hoti, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 76. Maria Martinovic, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 77. Barbara Rossi, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 78. Vanessa d'Antino, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 79. Andrea Lehmann, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 80. Blerina Abdula, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 81. Justine Dubail, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 82. Elisa Zaccaria, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 83. Katja Andlauer, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 84. Madeleine Antille, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 85. Océane Page, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 86. Lisa Dusina, "Hawthorne, Baum, and Miller: Witchcraft and Utopia in Selected
American Texts," BA 2020 87. Léa Ducrest, "How can a black immigrant woman feel equally at home in two different places?," BA 2020 88. Antonio Pedro Fangueiro Pires, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 89. Benedita Lucau, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 90. Myriam Miraoui, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 91. Anna Tedeschi, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2020 92. Noemie Jeannet, “Social justice and capitalism in literature: The
Grapes of Wrath and The Jungle,”
BA 2021 93. Yanik Brawand, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2021 94. Damien Elsig, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2021 95. Celia Arnold, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2021 96. Alina Müller, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2021 97. Sophie Jacquier, "Controlling Sex, Reproduction and Motherhood in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Sheri S. Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country and Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God," BA 2021 98. Sofia Vassere, "The Oxygen Man" as a Double Bildungsroman," BA 2021 99. Jeremy Wright, Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2021 100.
Gioja
Weibel,
Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2021 101.
Maurizio
Vannetti,
Comprehensive Oral Exam, BA 2021 102.
Francisca
Domingues dos Santos (advised by Aurélie
Zurbrügg), " Creating Identity: Jazz Features in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Toni Morrison’s Jazz," BA 2021 103. Noemi Aebli (advised by Aurélie Zurbrügg), "Social and Hierarchical Structures in American Alternate Histories. An Analysis of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America," BA 2021 104.
Joanne Waeber, "The Art of Immersive Storytelling in Taylor Swift and F.
Scott Fitzgerald," BA 2021 105.
Hervé Pollet, “Edith Wharton’s Critique of New York High Society in The
House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence: Fashion, Gender Roles, and
Money in the Gilded Age,” BA 2022 106.
Marine
Bussard,
"The Representation of Hurricanes Okeechobee and Katrina in
Literature," BA 2022 107.
Emma de
Reyff,
"Examining the Challenges to Black Femininity in Nella Larsen’s Passing and Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun," BA 2022 108.
Giosuè Rocco Antorini, “Space and Place in Contemporary Mexican Immigration Novels: a
Literary-Geographical Analysis of Signs Preceding the End of the World and
American Dirt,” BA 2023 109.
Inès Baltic, “Identity of California Women in Joan Didion’s Fiction. An
analysis of female characters in Run River and Play It as It Lays,”
BA 2023 110.
Muriel Amstutz, “Police Brutality and Systemic Racism against African Americans
in American Literature,” BA 2023 |
|
M.A. Theses & License
Mémoires 1.
Sina Lenherr,
"Back to the Reservation: Three Male Character in their Search for
Identity in Selected Novels by Louise Erdrich," License 2007 2.
Lenka Curdova,
"The Family Conflict: Three Plays of Eugene O'Neill," License 2008 3.
[external advisor] Anne Jobin [Université de
Neuchâtel], "Shifting Identities: Mixedbloods in Native American
Literature," License
2008 4.
Helen Walker,
"The Inescapable Past: Form, Family and Denial in Arthur Miller's Plays All My Sons, Death of a Salesman,
and The Price," MA 2008 5.
Sabine-Anna Marro,
"Two Turn-of-the-Century California Novels: María Amparo Ruíz de
Burton's The Squatter and the Don
and Frank Norris's The
Octopus -- 'Novels with a Purpose'?," MA 2008. Recipient of the 2008 SANAS
Teaching Travel Award. 6.
Naomi Hasler,
"The Portrait of a New Woman? How Margaret Fuller's political ideology
and Henry James's fictional reality clash," MA 2008. Winner of the Prize for Equality
and Gender Research of the University of Fribourg 2010. 7.
Julie Hoogewoud,
"Beyond Minimalism: Silence as Narrative Strategy in the Fiction of
Raymond Carver," MA 2009
8.
Laura Tschanz,
"The Importance of Knowing One's Past in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Tar Baby," MA 2009 9.
Mauro Ciresa,
"Investigation in Edgar Allan Poe's Detective Tales," MA 2009 10. Eric
Miller, "Adams and Jefferson: True Friends
or Friendly Foes?" MA 2009
11. Mélanie
Baillifard, "Literary Responses to Indian
Policies from 1800 to 1840. From Poetical Justification to Real
Protest," MA 2009
12. Stefania
Russo, " The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley as
the Anti-Slavery Campaign of a Black Woman in Revolutionary America
," MA 2010 13. Roberta
Vaghi, "Magical Realism in Selected Novels
by Toni Morrison," MA 2010
14. Elisa
Burri Monnard, "Women’s Lives in Essays and Stories
in Godey’s Lady’s Magazine,"
MA 2010 15. Mathilde
Waeber, "American Indian Cultural Identity
and the Search for Affection in James Welch’s Winter in the Blood and The Death of Jim Loney and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony," MA 2010 16. Francesca
Massei, "Women in the Gothic
Narratives of Matthew G. Lewis and Charles Brockden Brown," License 2010 17. Luzia
Wicki, "Shockingly Wealthy: The High as a
Way of Life," License
2010 18. Ola
Madhour, "Degeneration and the 'Lost
America" in Henry James's Roderick
Hudson and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun
Also Rises," MA 2011
19. Alexis
Wilson, "Magic in Chicano Magical
Realism," MA 2011
20. Claudia
Furrer, "Sociolinguistic Concepts and
Literary Analysis: The Outsider Protagonist in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood and John Kennedy
Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces,"
MA 2011 21. Julia
Bachmann, "F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The
Jelly-bean,' Ralph Ellison's Invisible
Man, and all that Jazz," MA 2012 22. Emmanuelle
Bourguet, "Courageous Souls: The Portrayal of
Women in Chopin's The Awakening
and Wharton's Summer," MA 2012. Recipient of the 2012 SANAS
Teaching Travel Award. 23. Jeremy
Gremaud, "Canadian, Female and Individual
Identities in Margaret Atwood's The
Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye
and Alias Grace," MA 2012 24. Carine
Maffli, "The Legacy of Satan: A Reading of
Melville's Ahab in the Light of Milton's Satan, MA 2012 25. Cinzia
Minervini Jordan, "Being and Becoming: A Reading of
Arthur Miller's Focus and The Crucible in the Light of
Giorgio Agamben," MA 2012
26. Ryan
Kopaitich, "Narrating Postmodernism: A Study of
Two Postmodern Novels," MA
Comparative Literature 2012 27. Andrea Meier, "Marginal Communities and Ethnic
Conflicts in Selected Novels by Louise Erdrich and Toni Morrison," MA 2012 28. Lawrence Faulstich, "War as a Prism of 20th-century American
Identity," MA 2013 29. Nathalie Codina, "Emily Dickinson's Poetics and Weltanschauung," MA 2014 30. Jessica Meier, "Ecofeminism and Dualisms in Terry
Tempest Williams," MA 2014 31. Céline Sidler, "The American Dream's Mythology in
Three Immigrant Women's Novels," MA 2014 32. Rekik Scholler-Mekonnen, "Speculative Encounters: Negotiating
Survival and Kinship in Octavia Butler's Kindred
and Dawn," MA 2014 33. Alain Wider, "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hybrid Poet," MA 2014 34. Robert Zenhäusern, "The Conversion Paradox: New World
Christianity and African Spirituality in Selected Slave and Neo-Slave
Narratives," MA 2014 35. Biljana Vuchovska, "The Value of Green Visions:
Environmental Philosophy in Walden,
Ecotopia and The Word
for World is Forest," MA 2014 36. Åsa Semple,"From Abasement to Strength: Gender Identity in
Toni Morrison's Sula and Paradise," MA 2014 37.
Sibylle Lüthi, "Representational
Affirmation: Examining Sherman Alexie's Struggles with the Language of
Authenticity," MA 2015 38.
Valeria Cruz Petersen Rast, "'A wild night and a new road': From Death to Poetics in Emily Dickinson's Poetry," MA 2015 39.
James Violette, "The Judge and
the Boy: Violence and Holiness in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and The Road,"
MA 2015 40.
Fanny Maendly, "Female
Protagonists in Slave and Neo-Slave Narratives: Jacobs, Williams, and
Butler," MA 2015 41.
Anne-Laure Boéchat, "Land, Gender, and Ethnicity in Willa Cather's Characters," MA 2015 42.
Patrizia Zanella, "'universal mirrors that are my eyes': The Gaze in Louise
Erdrich," MA 2015 43.
Olivia Oberson, "The
Challenges of Nonconformity: Communities in Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs, Chopin's The Awakening, and Wharton's The
House of Mirth," MA 2015 44.
Maria Teresa Delgado, "Switzerland as an In-Between State in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, Ernest
Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, and
Selected Short Stories," MA 2015 45. Jessica Saillen, "The Influence of Mixed-race Identity in American Literature Through Three Perspectives: Native American, African American and Hispanic," MA 2015 46. Tania Pannatier, "Double Consciousness. Mixed-race
women characters in William Wells Brown, Charles Waddell Chesnutt, and Nella
Larsen," MA 2016 47.
Loïc Obertüfer, "Tennessee
Williams's Dramatic Development: The
Magic Tower, The Purification, The Glass Menagerie & Suddenly Last Summer," MA 2016 48.
Edith Carron, "Lily Bart
and Gertrude Stein: Contrasting Two Modernist Performances," MA 2016 49. Preethy Alex, "The Third Continent -- the Domestic Space of Malayali Americans and Bengali Americans in the United States," MA 2016 50. Andrew Niemann, "Finding Meaning in the Everyday:
Understanding Nicholson Baker's The
Mezzanine through William James," MA 2016 51. Anita Pervanic, "'layers of violence and tenderness
wrapped like bulbs': The Southern Grotesque and Ideal Femininity in the
Fiction of Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers," MA 2016 52. Simon Weisskopf, "Bob Dylan. The Poet Who Aged in
Public," MA 2016 53.
Patricia Fux, "Demystifying the
Lost Generation: A Collection of Data," MA 2016 54.
Sabie Zenku Baftiri, "Ambiguous Mother(hood) in Sylvia Plath's Poetry and Prose," MA 2017 55. Sharon Reidy Miller, "Is Eleanor Roosevelt's Portrayal of Women Both Honest and
Truthful?", MA 2017 56. Melis Öner, "'You're Not the Indian I Had in Mind': Self-Representation
versus Stereotypes in Sherman Alexie and Thomas King," MA 2017 57. Alicia Szüts, "Women and the Holocaust: A Double Victimization," MA 2017 58. Noémie Fragnière, "Struggling Female Artists in Selected Novels by Louisa May
Alcott, Kate Chopin and Willa Cather," MA 2017 59. Nathalia Schweizer, "Female Authenticity in American Literary Naturalism," MA 2017 60. Michèle Cirelli, "Contrasting Critical Approaches to Wharton, Fitzgerald and Dos
Passos," MA 2017 61. Célia Germanier, "The Blues as Musical Legacy of African-American History," MA 2017¨ 62. Cynthia Staehlin, "Representing Terrorism in Hersey's Hiroshima, DeLillo's Falling
Man and Updike's Terrorist,"
MA 2017 63. Mirella Arimondi, "Power and Behavior in Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Butler's Kindred
and Eggers's The Circle," MA 2017 64. Aurélie Zurbrügg, "'I just wanted to go home': Toni Morrison's Quest For the Ideal
Home in Her Fiction," MA 2017 65. Elisa Pagliaro, "'I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do': James Baldwin's Phenomenological
Ethics," MA 2018 66. Marie Budon, "Journey into the Dark: Emily Dickinson's Gothic
Imagination," MA 2018 67. Valentin Brügger, “Vanishing Points: Escape and Separation in the Early Works of Jane
& Paul Bowles,” MA 2019 68. Michelle Riedberg, “Authentic Depiction or Wishful Projection: Children in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Alcott’s Little Women,” MA 2019 69. Samuele Ramelli, “A Mirroring of Mankind’s Fears Through American Dystopian Literature,”
MA 2019 70. Amélia Godel, “’This life is a life of vicissitude’: Nineteenth-century American
Women’s Letters, Between Duty and Disillusionment,” MA 2019 71. Marie Gaspoz, “’I am a stranger to myself and a stranger now in this strange land.’
The Immigrant Experience in the United States Through Three Contemporary
Narratives,” MA 2019 72. Nora Rickli, "'To See What Is. … Possible.' Reproductive Freedom in Contemporary Speculative Fiction," MA 2019 73. Camille Merkofer, "Living the Ideal Life in American Suburbs and German Dörfer: An Analysis of Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, Jeffrey Eugenides'
The Virgin Suicides, Juli Zeh's Unterleuten, and Arno Camenisch's Ustrinkata," MA 2019 74. Christopher Bignasca, "Bob Dylan: The Leader Who Did Not Want to Be
Followed," MA 2019 75. Fabienne Eberhard, "Changing the Rules of the Game: A Literary Investigation
of Social Systems of Oppression From Slavery to Mass Incarceration," MA 2020 76. Anna Caccia, "'Two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings':
Blackness and Americanness in Contemporary African American Memoirs," MA 2020 77. Jonathan Modesti, "Wronged and Oppressed Identities: Abuse and its Effects
on Women Characters in Stephen King's Carrie,
Gerald's Game, and Big Driver,"
MA 2020 78. Anna Borella, "Making a Movement: Pathos and Social Justice in Novels
by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charles Chesnutt," MA 2020 79. Céline Scheidegger, "Performing Personalities: Women on View in Selected
Novels by Wharton, Cather, Yezierska and Larsen," MA 2020 80. Valentina Prati, "Social Justices Debates in Chicana Literature: Castillo,
Chávez and Cisneros Reinterpreting Anzaldúa," MA 2020 81. Laura Carnal, "A Century of African American Identity: Wallace Thurman,
Lorraine Hansberry, Danzy Senna & Ta-Nehisi Coates," MA 2020 82. Milena Calcagni, "Advancing Socialism through Literary Advocacy in the
United States: Engagement and Failure," MA 2020 83. Simon Metry, "'Who shall say where the one ends, and the where the
other begins?' Plagiarism and Literary Influence around Edgar Allan
Poe," MA 2020 84. Noëmi Werthmüller, "The power of orality and literacy in Margaret Atwood's
dystopian novels The Handmaid's Tale
and The Testaments," MA 2021 85. Prisca Genilloud, "Immigration
in the United States: A Comparison of Immigrants' Experiences in The Jungle, My Ántonia, Hunger of Memory and Jasmine," MA 2021 86. Isabella Bianchi, "Maya Angelou the Womanist, or How a Phenomenal Woman Comes into Being," MA 2021 87. Alida Savio, "The Representation of Black Women in
Contemporary Literature," MA 2021 88. Simona Suardi, "The Good in the Bad: Dysfunctional Families in American
Literature. Dorothy Allison's Bastard
Out of Carolina (1992), Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle (2005) and Trevor Noah's Born a Crime (2016)," MA
2021 89. Matthias Calderari, "Living on the Hyphen:
Biculturalism and Latinidad in Esmeralda Santiago's When I Was Puerto
Rican (1994) and Almost a Woman (1999), Julia Alvarez's How the
Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) and Cristina García's Dreaming
in Cuban (1992)," MA 2021 90. Patrick Correia de Azevedo, "Masculinity, Race, and
Queerness in Tarell Alvin McCraney's Plays," MA 2021 91. Andrea Leu
Escobar,
“Travel Literature, The Other and Patagonia. An Analysis of Bruce Chatwin’s In
Patagonia, Paul Theroux’s The Old Patagonia Express, Luis Sepúlveda’s Patagonia Express
and Mempo Giardinelli’s Final de Novela en Patagonia,” MA 2022 92. Elsa
Berset, “Narratives
of Moral Uncertainty: Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim and Toni Morrison’s Beloved,”
MA 2022 93. Jeannette Widmer, "Feminism and Afropolitanism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's
Americanah," MA 2022 94. Vanessa d'Antino, "Invisibility, Blackness and Whiteness in Ralph Ellison's
Invisible Man, James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and Ta-Nehisi
Coates's Between the World and Me, MA 2022 95. Justine Dubail, "Misogyny and the Myth of Masculinity: Portrayal of Women
in Hip Hop Lyrics," MA 2023 96. Svetlana Nikolic, "Identity Issues in the Theatre of David Henry
Hwang," MA 2023 97. Maéva Uldry, "Orphan Girls in Early Twentieth-Century Children's
Fiction. A comparative analysis of Alice Hegan Rice's Lovey Mary (1903), Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin's Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903),
L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables
(1908) and Alice B. Emerson's Ruth
Fielding at Sunrise Farm or What
Became of the Raby Orphans (1915)," MA 2023 98. Sophie Jacquier, “An Intersectional Approach of Mutual
Unknowability and Orality Between Mother and Daughter in American Literature:
Toni Morrison, Natasha Trethewey, Louise Erdrich and Amy Tan,” MA 2023 99. Michèle Wermeille, “Impossible Choices and Muted
Voices. Female Agency and Abortion in Four American Novels from 1917 to
2017,” MA 2023 |
|
Ph.D. Projects |
|
Completed Mariacristina Natalia Bertoli. The
Mirror, the Cup and the Crystal. Iconic Implications of Disappearance and
Representation in the American Tradition of Riddle Poetry.
(October 2012) Martin Moling. "Shake,
Rattle and Write": Rock Music in American Fiction Writing, 1966-2011.
(October 2013) Ola Madhour. "Knowledge
of Necessity": Maternal Origins in Elizabeth Bishop's Epistemological
Quest. (June 2015) Patrizia
Zanella. The Border-Crossing Fiction of Louise
Erdrich, James Welch, Tomson Highway, and Thomas King. Supported by a Doc.CH grant from the
SNSF. (October 2019) Mariam
Taha, Literary Environmental
Studies and the Representation of Urban Environments in Selected Novels.
Co-tutelle with Cairo University, Egypt. (June 2022) Aurélie Zurbrügg, The Message on the Wall. The Wall as a
Medium in Public Art and Contemporary Fiction. (February 2023) |
In Progress Rachael
Franke. "Is It Black and White?:
Portrayals of Mothers in Contemporary US American Novels." |
Recent
Service, awards, and other activities (inverse chronological
order)
University of Fribourg
North Georgia College & State University (July 2000-August
2006) Honors & Awards
Committees
Activities
Extramural Work
Various Activities at Drury College / University, 1991-2000
Earlier
Awards and Recognitions
|
Teaching Experience - North
Georgia College & State University 2000-2006
|
Teaching Experience - Drury
University 1991-2000 (formerly Drury College)
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This page last revised September 22, 2023