PD Dr. Kirsten Twelbeck

Research Interests

• American Literature and Culture
• 19th and 20th Century Debates on Nationhood and Citizenship
• Postcolonial Studies
• Gender Studies
• Medicine and Literature

University Education and Degrees

• Niedersächsisches Zertifikat Pro Lehre

Grants and Research Abroad

• German Association for American Studies (DGfA)
• European Association for American Studies (EAAS)
• German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (DHV)
• Member of the "Netzwerk Humboldt-Stiftung"
• Mentor in the Ph.D. Mentoring Program of the Evangelisches Studienwerk

Publications

Monograph:

• No Korean is Whole - Wherever He or She may be: Erfindungen von Korean America seit 1965. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang Verlag, 2002.

Journal and Book Articles

• "Eden Refound(ed): Post Civil War Literary Gardening." Rereading The Machine in the Garden. Eds. Eric Erbacher, Florian Sedlmeier, and Nicole Maruo-Schröder. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus. Forthcoming.
• "How Far Could They Go? Imprisoned Nurses, Unsexed Angels, and the Transformation of True Womanhood in Civil War America." Communicating Disease: Cultural Representations of American Medicine. Eds. Carmen Birkle and Johanna Heil. Heidelberg: Winter, 2013. 145-173.
• "Reconstructing Race Relations: Esther Hill Hawks' Diary and her Life Among the Freedmen." American Lives. Ed. Alfred Hornung. Heidelberg: Winter, 2013. 98-102.
• "Bible Seller and Cross-Dressed Spy: Sarah Emma Edmonds and the Debate on Authenticity." Religion in the United States. Eds. Jeanne Cortiel, Kornelia Freitag, Christine Gerhard, and Michael Wala. Heidelberg: Winter, 2011. 41-57.
• "'The devil had looked out for his own': Remaking America through the Chinatown Missionary Experience." Chinatowns in a Transnational World. Myths and Realities of an Urban Phenomenon. Eds. Vanessa Künnemann and Ruth Mayer. New York: Routledge, 2011. 135-162.
• "The New Rules of the Democratic Game: Emancipation, Self-Regulation, and the 'Second Founding' of The Unites States." Civilizing and Decivilizing Processes: Figurational Approaches to American Culture. Eds. Christa Buschendorf, Astrid Franke, and Johannes Voelz. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. 175-208.
• "A Passing Era: Memory, Nation, and the Jew in American and South African Literature." Transatlantic Negotiations. Eds. Christa Buschendorf and Astrid Franke. Heidelberg: Winter, 2007. 225-242.
• "Beyond a Postmodern Denial of Reference: Forms of Resistance in Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters." Special Issue Asian American Studies in Europe/Germany . Eds. Carmen Birkle, Wilfried Raussert, and Mita Banerjee. Amerikastudien / American Studies 51:3 (2006): 425-437.
• "Ty Pak: Korean American Literature as 'Guilt Payment'." How Far is America from Here? Ed. Theo D'haen et al. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2005. 481-497.
• Otherness as Reading Process: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee." Asian American Literature in the International Context. Eds. Rocío Davis and Sämi Ludwig. Hamburg: LIT, 2002. 185-201.

Conference Papers and Invited Lectures

• "Post-Holocaust Europe in Jewish-American Literature: Three Generations (Walter Abish, Melvin Jules Bukiet, Jonathan Safran Foer)," Habilitation lecture at Leibniz University Hannover, July 10, 2014.
• "Foreign Relations: Jack London in Asia and the Pacific," invited lecture at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, April 29, 2014.
• "Women, War, and Violence in the American Civil War," America: Justice, Conflict, War, EAAS Conference in The Hague, April 3-6, 2014.
• "Eden Refound(ed): Post Civil War Literary Gardening," Rural America, DGfA Annual Conference, June 1, 2013.
• "Handel, Netzwerke, Anpassungen: Die amerikanische Medizingeschichte als Transatlantischer Austausch," Atlantic Studies, Leibniz University Hannover, December 11, 2012.
• "Writing Solidarity: Esther Hill Hawks and the Symbolic Economy of her Civil War Diary," DGfA Annual Conference, June 1, 2012.
• "Deutsche Mediziner/innen in Amerika. Über den In- und Export von medizinischem Wissen quer über den Atlantik, 1730-1945," Atlantic Studies, Leibniz University Hannover, November 29, 2011.
• "Transpazifische (Gegen)Bewegungen: Die asiatische Einwanderung in die USA in Literatur und Kunst," invited lecture at Amerikazentrum Hamburg, April 21, 2011.
• "From Nurse to Spy: Civil War Women and Late Nineteenth-Century Politics", Literature and Medicine, Marburg, February 11-12, 2011.
• "From Nurse to Spy: Women's Entry into Nineteenth Century Politics," invited lecture, Erlangen, January 12, 2011.
• "'I pray to Our Heavenly Father that He will keep you & me in the way of duty & obedience': Letter Writing, Masculinity, and Civil War Visions of Christian Fellowship," National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations, joint Annual Conference, St Louis, MO., April 2010.
• "Christianity and the Second Founding of the United States," 2nd Israeli-German Frontiers of Humanities Symposium of the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Foundation, Potsdam, October 2010.
• "Teufel, Befreier, Kind. Das Bild Lincolns während des amerikanischen Bürgerkrieges." Abraham Lincoln: Ein amerikanischer Präsident in der Diskussion. Bayerische Amerika-Akademie, München, October 23, 2009.
• "From Sugar Cane to Fortune Cookie: Asian American Culture as an Intervention in History," Connecting Cultures: The New Literature in English, Leibniz University, Hannover, September 2009.
• "'The devil had looked out for his own': Remaking America through the Chinatown Missionary Experience," Chinatowns. Myths and Realities of an Urban Phenomenon in the United States and Europe, Leibniz University Hannover, September 18-20, 2008.
• "Bible Seller and Cross-Dressed Spy: Sarah Emma Edmonds and the Debate on Authenticity," invited lecture at the John F. Kennedy-Institute, FU Berlin, 2007.
• "Familiar Journeys, Unfamiliar Sights: A White Female Doctor and the Lessons of Reconstruction," invited lecture at Humboldt University (W.E.B. DuBois Lecture Series), Berlin, 2007.
• "Entwaffnende Worte: Gender, Körper, und die Wiedergeburt der Vereinigten Staaten 1865-1877," Gender Studies Ringvorlesung, Hannover, January 2007.
• "Vom Zuckerrohr zum Glückskeks: Asiatische Amerikaner zwischen Ausgrenzung und Partizipation in Literatur und Kunst," invited lecture at the Deutsche Amerika-Institute of Tübingen and Heidelberg and the Deutsches Amerikazentrum Stuttgart, January 30-February 1, 2007.
• "Chinese Exclusion, Gender, and the Rebirth of the Nation in 19th Century America," Pacific Interactions, response lecture to papers presented by Yong Chen and Sebastian Conrad, Hannover, November 18, 2006.
• Gender Trouble und Geschlechterkrieg: Uniformierte Engel und haushaltende Soldaten im Amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg," invited lecture at the Gender Studies Department, Hannover, January 2006.
• "Another Kind of Whiteness: Passing as a Jew in American and South African Literature," DGfA annual conference, Frankfurt a.M., 2005.
• "'We can't live here together': Imagining the Future Nation in Civil War Hospitals, Prisons, and Freedmen's Schools," invited lecture, Leipzig, November 26, 2004.
• "Asian Americans and Cultural Citizenship," 'Citizenship' in Deutschland, den USA und Kanada, John F. Kennedy-Institute, Berlin 2003.
• "'Amerikanisierung' des deutschen Universitätssystems'? Zu den historisch-kulturell unterschiedlichen Bedingungen der amerikanischen und deutschen Kultur- und Sozialförderung," Die Universität geht auf die Straße (public lecture in the central shopping street of Hannover), Summer 2003.
• "Ty Pak: Korean-American Literature as 'Guilt Payment'," EAAS, Leiden, May 22, 2003.
• "Re-reading Dictee from a Berlin 1989 perspective," EAAS Conference, Lisbon 1999.
• "Von Frauenstudien zu Gender Studies: Wie sich das Bild Marilyn Monroes über die Jahrzehnte verändert hat," Was wollen die Gender Studies? Evangelisches Studienwerk, Villigst, Summer 1997.

Organization of Conference Panels and Workshops

• "Workshop for Ph.D. students," Network for American Studies in Northern Germany (NoNeNo), Leibniz University Hannover, May 23-24, 2014.
• "Fan Culture," symposium with Lucia Krämer (Leibniz University Hannover), Lisa Kuppler (editor, author of fan fiction, blogger), and Bettina Soller, Leibniz University Hannover, July 2010.
• "Alternative Economies: Gift, Theft, Gambling," workshop with Bärbel Tischleder, German Association of American Studies, DGfA, June 2010.
• "Reconstruction, Representation, and the Rules of the 'Democratic Game'," Interdisciplinary Conference at the John F. Kennedy Institute, Free University Berlin, June 19-20, 2009 (financed by the German Research Foundation).
• "The Book as Medium: Material, Body, Character," workshop with Dorothea Löbbermann, German Association of American Studies, June 10, 2006.
• "Re-Writing America: Multi-Ethnic Perspectives in Literature and the Media," Teachers' Academy Blaubeuren, November 18-21, 2004.
• "Gender Studies: An Interdisciplinary Conference," Evangelisches Studienwerk, Villigst, Sommer 1997 (together with two other organizers).

Teaching Experience

Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany, Winter Semester 2014/15

• A Cultural History of American Literature III: From Realism to the Mid-20th Century (Lecture; Reading Group, WS 2014/15)
• America and the Holocaust (Hauptseminar, WS 2014/15)
• Transatlantic Relations: The German-American Encounter (Proseminar, WS 2014/15)
• Cultural History and Rhetoric: Gender, Race, and the American Civil War (WS 2014/15)

Leibniz University Hannover

Introductory Lectures

• "American Literature and Culture I: From the Beginnings to 1850," Fall 2009-Fall 2013
• "American Literature and Culture II: From 1830 to the Present," Spring 2009-Spring 2014
• "Introduction to Literary and Media Studies," Spring 2002-Spring 2005
• "Introduction to American Culture (Literature and Art)," Spring 2002

Undergraduate Seminars

• "'The Glue That Binds Us': Immigration in the U.S., Canada, and Germany," Spring 2010
• Women's Humor," Spring 2004
• "Asia on my Mind: Stereotypes of Asia(ns) in a Historical Perspective 1850-2000," Spring 2003
• "New Directions in United States Ethnic Literatures," Fall 2002
• Contemporary Asian American Literature," Spring 2002

Graduate Seminars

• "American Memories," Spring 2014
• "America and the Holocaust," Fall 2013
• "American Modernism," Spring 2013
• "Transpacific Reflections: From America to China and Back Again," Fall 2012
• "Transatlantic Reflections: Germany, America, and Vice Versa," Spring 2012
• "Narratives of Healing from the Early Colonial Period Until Today," Fall 2011
• "Anti-Intellectualism in America," Spring 2011
• "The Civil Rights Movement," Fall 2011
• "Bestsellers, Blockbusters, and the Shaping of American Culture," Spring 2010
• "Education in America," Fall 2009
• "Looking at the 'Long Century': Visual Culture, Literature, and Imaginary Nationbuilding 1800-1880," Spring 2009
• "Imagining the Nation: Immigration in Germany, Canada, and the US," Fall 2004
• "The American Civil War," Spring 2004
• "Literature and Photography: From the 19th Century to Modernism," Fall 2003
• "The American Family in the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries," Spring 2003
• "Spectacles of the Body in 19th Century America," Fall 2002

Free University Berlin Spring 2000-Fall 2001; Fall 2006

Undergraduate Seminars

• "Einführung in die amerikanische Geschichte und Kultur," Fall 2001
• "Amerikanische Gewinner des Literaturnobelpreises," Spring 2001
• "Ethnic Postmodernism," Fall 2000
• "Asian American Cultural Politics," Spring 2000

Graduate Seminars

• "American Democracy and the Reconstruction Era," Fall 2006