About

I studied English and Philosophy (and, with markedly less success, Ancient Greek) at the University of Tübingen and the University of Connecticut, graduating with a teaching degree (Staatsexamen) and an M.A. in English Literatures and Cultures. Having become, towards the end of my studies, increasingly interested in ecology, capitalist economy, and the colonial Caribbean, I embarked on a dissertation project focussing on these three subject-matters in October 2016. I worked on this project as a fellow of the DFG-funded Research Training Group, Minor Cosmopolitanisms, at Potsdam University and York University, Toronto. In my dissertation, I interpret colonial Caribbean monoculture in contemporary writings (c. 1640-1800) from an eco-Marxist perspective. I concluded my dissertation project in October 2020 (summa cum laude). At some point along the way, I finally decided to come to scholarly terms with a long-standing passion of mine: horror in its various forms and media. This passion has since become one of the foci of my research and teaching.

Research and Teaching Interests

• History and Literature of the Caribbean
• Marxism
• Ecology and Economy and/in Literature
• Gothic, Horror, and the Weird

Publications

“Character and Perspective in Cosmic Horror: Lovecraft and Kiernan.” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik: A Quarterly of Language, Literature and Culture 69.2.(2021): 173-90.

“Kapitalistische Naturzerstörung und Ausbeutung: Lektionen aus der englischsprachigen Karibik des späten 17. Jahrhunderts.” Ökonomisierte Welten: Im Spannungsfeld von Balance und Disbalance:  Literatur-, kultur- und medienwissenschaftliche Betrachtungen ökonomisch bedingter Ausbalancierungsprozesse. Eds. Lukas Müsel and Matthias Röck. Bern: Peter Lang, 2021. 177-99.

“Silences.” Minor Cosmopolitan: Thinking Art, Politics, and the Universe Together Otherwise. Ed. Zairong Xiang. Zurich/Chicago: Diaphanes/University of Chicago Press, 2020.

Conference Papers

“Refashioning the Plantation: Toussaint Louverture’s Labour Policies as Worldmaking.” Potsdam University, African American Worldmaking in the Long Nineteenth Century, 11-12 October 2019.

“Conservative Fear: The Terror of Uncontrolled Immigration in H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Horror at Red Hook’”. Goethe University Frankfurt, Postcolonial Narrations: Moving Centers and Traveling Cultures, 10-12 October 2018.

Co-Organized Conferences

Minor Cosmopolitan Weekend (HKW Berlin, 6-8 December 2018)

Minor Cosmopolitan Justice and Aesthetics (Macquarie University, Sydney, 12-15 February 2018)

Courses Taught

• Introduction to Cultural Studies
• H.P. Lovecraft
• Mary Oliver’s and W.S. Merwin’s Nature Poetry
• The Caribbean, c. 1640-1700
• Marxism and Literary Studies
• Early Gothic Novels by Women Writers
• Caribbean Nonfiction
• Thomas Ligotti
• Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy
• Shakespeare’s Tragedies
• Folk Horror and the Rural Weird
• Edwidge Danticat

Scholarships and Awards

Successful Completion of the Qualification Programme, “International Teachings Professional”, at Potsdam Graduate School (August 2018-August 2019)

Baden-Württemberg – Connecticut Exchange (academic year 2012/13)

Scholarship by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study at a North American university (academic year 2012/13)