About

Currently I hold a position as lecturer and research assistant at the University of Potsdam. My post-doctoral research project engages with the field of critical disaster studies and explores the role of narrative in constructing disasters. My dissertation project with the title “Help Yourself, So Help You Science” focused on the dynamics of security narratives and affects in the context of biomedicine and biotechnology in U.S.-American literature and culture. It turns to the intersection of biology, security, and identity, complicating the understanding of health and biology as leading paradigms influencing identity formation. It was published with the Title The Biosecurity Individual: A Cultural Critique of the Intersection between Health, Security, and Identity by transcript. I conducted part of the research as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Washington, Seattle. The PhD project was a continuation of my longstanding interest in the study of biocultural phenomena and cultural theory. I studied American Studies and Spanish Philology, earning my M.A. with the thesis “DeComposing the Self: Dying in American Literature,” for which I received the Hans-Jürgen-Bachorski-Preis from the University of Potsdam. My research focuses on transnational studies, biocultural studies, affect theory, performance studies, ecocriticism, and disaster narratives.

Research Interests

• Critical Disaster Studies
• Ecociticism
• Bioculture
• Performance studies
• Affect studies
• Security Studies
• Transnational American studies
• Border studies
• Latino/a studies

Habilitation Project: Disaster Narratives – Writing Disaster

My new project explores the role of narrative in the construction of disaster in U.S. American Literature and Culture.

Teaching

• Introduction to US-American Cultural Studies
• African American Literature and Culture
• Chicano/a Literature and Culture
• Captivity Narratives
• Autobiography and Life Writing
• Affect Theory
• Biocultures
• Disaster Narratives

Publications

The Biosecurity Individual: A Cultural Critique of the Intersection between Health, Security, and Identity. Transcript, 2023.

“Playing (with the) Future: Biology and Preemptive Performativity.” In Approaching Transnational American Performance.  Edited by Birgit M. Bauridl and Pia Wiegmink, Peter Lang, 2016.

“Die richtige Wahl: Biotechnologie, Selbstüberwachung und Identität.” Prokla. 178 (2015) 83-98.

“Death of the Other: Dying, Alterity, and Appropriation.” The Morbidity of Culture: Melancholy, Trauma, Illness and Dying in Literature and Film. Hrsg. Stephanie Siewert, Antonia Mehnert. Lang: Frankfurt am Main, 2012. 119-138.

Co-author:

Offizier, Frederike; Mark Priewe and Ariane Schröder.  “Introduction.” Offizier, Frederike; Mark Priewe and Ariane Schöder (Ed). Crossroads of American Studies: Transnational and Biocultural Encounters. Universitätsverlag Winter, 2016.

Editor:

mit Mark Priewe and Ariane Schöder (Eds.). Crossroads of American Studies: Transnational and Biocultural Encounters. Universitätsverlag Winter, 2016.