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  • Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Events:

Talking American Studies (Podcast)

Talking American Studies (Podcast)

Talking American Studies is a podcast spotlighting contemporary contributions to American Studies, featuring scholars sharing their work. Available via spotify, itunes, twitter & facebook.

Summer School 2022: Teaching the Sustainable Development Goals

You're studying TEFL and interested in sustainable development? Find out more on the summer school on these themes under this link.

Current Projects:

Diversity in our Department - a short video

The strength of the MA ‘Anglophone Modernities in Literature and Culture’ lies in its diverse student body, which enables thoughtful intellectual and experiential exchange. The focus on postcolonial and global studies in this department and the affiliated Potsdam Postcolonial Chair for Global Modernities is thus not merely in name; with a series of visiting guest faculty from postcolonial regions and a student body from all around the world (from places as diverse as India, the United States, Colombia, New Zealand, Armenia, Germany, Turkey, Bangladesh, Brazil, or Japan), students learn with and from each other— inside and outside of class. Watch the video to listen to some of our students’ and guest professors’ thoughts and reflections on diversity in the ‘Anglophone Modernities’ in this student-produced short film.

Potsdam Postcolonial Chair for Global Modernities

Potsdam Postcolonial Chair for Global Modernities

The Department of English and American Studies hosts the Potsdam Postcolonial Chair for Global Modernities funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) from 2020-2022.

Tupaia’s Map

Lars Eckstein and Anja Schwarz have extensively researched a legendary map of the Pacific, drawn in 1769/1770 by the Polynesian master navigator Tupaia for James Cook and his crew.

Didaktikwerkstatt Englisch

The »Didaktikwerkstatt Englisch« is a reference library that offers a collection of materials for the teaching and learning of English as an additional language.

cover hard times

»Hard Times«

A biannual magazine now hosted by the English Department offering short articles, discussions, and interviews providing critical input on current cultural phenomena and political debates.

Visualization

RTG »Minor Cosmopolitanisms«

The Research Training Group (RTG) minor cosmopolitanisms establishes new ways of studying and understanding the cosmopolitan project beyond its Eurocentric legacies.

Manuscript

Writing the Cosmopolitan Imagination

Writing the Cosmopolitan Imagination: is a bilateral research and exchange network involving the Departments of English and German at the University of Potsdam and the University of Delhi.

Network Digital Humanities

As part of its strategic research funding, Potsdam University is supporting a »Network for Digital Humanities«. The initiative aims to connect local and international actors in this emerging field.

Degrees in Focus:

Master of Anglophone Modernities

The master Anglophone Modernities and Culture prepares graduates for an academic profession in research and teaching with a focus on postcolonial, British or American Literatures and Cultures.

Young woman at a window with book

Master in Linguistics (KoVaMe)

Der Master 'Kommunikation - Variation - Mehrsprachigkeit' (KoVaMe) bietet die Möglichkeit, bisher erworbene Kenntnisse zu Sprache, Kommunikation, Variation und Mehrsprachigkeit zu erweitern.

Hörsaal

Teacher Training - English as a foreign language (EFL)

Are you thinking about studying education at our department? Here is information that may help you.

Two-subject bachelor English/American Studies

Are you thinking about earning a B.A. in English and American Studies? You will find more information here.

Hands on:

English Drama

English Drama Group

The English Drama Group has been part of campus life at the University of Potsdam for 34 years now. Over time, it evolved from a curriculum course to a versatile company managed by students.

Call for Participation

Student Representatives (Fachschaft)

Questions about your program, courses, etc? Visit us during our office hours (or set up an appointment with us), send us an email or take a look at our website.

Writing

Academic English

Academic English is situated at the crossroads of deepening an already well-advanced language proficiency and the knowledge acquired in linguistics as well as cultural and literary studies.

Secretaries

The department’s secretaries can be contacted either via email or via telephone [see contact details].
Please note: Consulting hours only by individual appointment via email.

Sharing our solidarity with Ukraine

We are appalled by the war of aggression that the Russian Federation has been waging on Ukraine since February 24, 2022. We deeply condemn this blatant violation of international law. We would like to express our solidarity with the Ukrainian students and graduates at the Institute of English and American Studies and we appreciate the support efforts that the University of Potsdam has started. For details, please visit https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/international/service/center/io/informationen-zur-ukrainekrise .

We also are grateful to all students from Russia and Belarus who are part of the support effort for our Ukrainian students and their families, and we sympathize with them sympathise with them for the difficulties they are facing in this situation.

Many of us share a sense of powerlessness and speechlessness while glued to the newsreel or live ticker, and while the world that we have taken for granted appears to evaporate. At the same time, there are a million urgent things to be done. Thousands of refugees arrive at Berlin Main Station every day and relief work is the first and most pressing demand right here, right now – relief for all refugees. Likewise, political pressure from below must be upheld so that the measures so far taken to stop Putin and his war be intensified. In short, this is not the time for navel-gazing. But it is also true that we urgently need conversations on how we position ourselves in this situation, how it does or does not ‘change everything’, and also about the fear, confusion, anger, self-doubt we feel at this moment – not least as students of British and US imperialisms past and present as well as anti-colonial, decolonial, anti-racist and indigenous struggles.

If you wish to share your thoughts and feelings, your reflections, ideas and reactions, or simply to reach out to other members of the department community, you are very welcome to use the forum at https://moodle2.uni-potsdam.de/course/view.php?id=32302.

While we have taken steps in the past to support our students and colleagues who were facing war and crises at home, this is the first time we are creating such an exchange forum. We now think that we should have done this sooner, to support our students from Syria and other places in such times of crisis. We are urgently centering the needs of our students from Ukraine here and now, but we also hope that we can use this forum to build structures of support among all of our students, and to sustain this as a permanent support network for all.

 

Potsdam Postcolonial Chair for Global Modernities

We are happy to announce the Potsdam Postcolonial Chair for Global Modernities
Funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and supporte by the RTG minor cosmopolitanisms, the Chair advances innovative teaching in Potsdam’s superdiverse MA Programme Anglophone Modernities in Literature and Culture. Guest Professors contribute to a diversification and decanonisation of the curriculum and facilitate the reflection of teachers and students on the specific locality of knowledge production. Together with members of our deartment, the Guest Professors will also conduct a series of workshops that test out best practice models for teaching a global postcolonial classroom.
The Chair will be held by up to six scholars for periods between 3-6 months, among them our long-term partners Satish Poduval from the EFLU Hydereabad (winter 2020-21) and Ira Raja from the University of Delhi (summer 2022), as well as our invited keynote speaker Sarah Casteel (summer 2021).

10 Thesen zu guter Lehre

  1. Gute AbsolventInnen gibt es nur durch gute Lehre.
  2. Gute Lehre kostet Zeit.
  3. Lehre beinhaltet Kurskonzeption, Vorbereitung, fachlichen Austausch mit den KollegInnen und den Studierenden im und neben dem Kurs, Nachbereitung, Prüfung und Kursüberarbeitung.
  4. Gute Lehre bedeutet dies alles entsprechend der Bedarfe der aktuellen Lerngruppe sowie auf Basis des aktuellen fachwissenschaftlichen und hochschuldidaktischen Forschungsstandes zu tun.
  5. Lehre muss damit ständig in Bewegung in Richtung Ideal sein.
  6. Die Studierenden müssen an die akademische Lernkultur herangeführt werden.
  7. Unsere Lehrkultur muss sich daran anpassen.
  8. Lehre ist fachabhängig: Die Geisteswissenschaften leben primär vom Austausch solider Argumente in der aufwändigeren Schriftform.
  9. Gute Lehre führt zu Teilhabe und nimmt Populisten den Raum.
  10. Unsere Studierenden werden nur so viel in ihr Studium und damit die Zukunft dieser Gesellschaft investieren, wie wir bereit sind, in Lehre zu investieren.

Die Lehrenden des Instituts für Anglistik und Amerikanistik der Universität Potsdam im Februar 2019

Weitere Informationen zu forschungsbasierter Lehre an der Philosophischen Fakultäthier

Department News:

Die Schreibberatung des Zessko

Im Zessko bieten Studierende für Studierende aller Studiengänge eine individuelle Beratung bei Problemen mit wissenschaftlichem Arbeiten an (auch in der Semesterzwischenzeit). Nähere Informationen hier...

(27.03.2017)