About

I received my PhD (2004) and 'Habilitation' (2008) from the University of Tübingen. In 2009 I joined the English Department of the University of Potsdam as Chair of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures. A lot of my work in Potsdam has been collaborative, conducted and published together with my wonderful colleagues. Between 2016 and 2025, I was co-spokesperson of the Research Training Group (DFG Graduiertenkolleg) minor cosmopolitanisms, a programme focussing on PhD training conducted in close collaboration with partners in South Africa, India, Australia and North America. Since 2025, I am a member of the Research Unit (DFG Forschungskolleg) Collaborations: Assemblages, Articulations, Alliances, running a project on Oceanian Poetic Collaborations. From 2027, I will be co-spokesperson of the International Research Training Group Cultures of Repair, conducted in collaboration with the University of Melbourne. My main research project over the past decade and a half has focussed on the scholarship of Tupaia, a Polynesian tahu'a and master navigator who joined the crew of Captain James Cook on his first voyage to Oceania.