Seminar für Englische Philologie

Stephanie Sommerfeld

Research Interests


  • 19th and 20th Century American Literature and Culture
  • Theories of the Sublime
  • Medial Self-Reflexivity
  • Theories of Modernity



Current Projects:

"Powerful Mediators and the Politics of the American Sublime" (PhD project)

"Poeta ludens: Poe's Twisted Modern Times." Beyond Childhood and Adolescence: Readings of Poe. Ed. José R. Ibáñez Ibáñez and Santiago Rodríguez Guerrero-Strachan.

edited with Dorothea Schuller, Alive at 200: Contemporary Perspectives on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.Göttinger Schriften zur Englischen Philologie 12. Forthcoming.

"Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Online Supplement). Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2020.



Publications


  • "Katya Apekina, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Online Supplement). Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2020.
  • "Tommy Orange, There There." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Online Supplement). Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2020.
  • Rev. of The Portrayal of the Grotesque in Stoddard’s and Quantin’s Illustrated Editions of Edgar Allan Poe (1884): An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Relations between the Visual and the Verbal, edited by Fernando González-Moreno and Margarita Rigal-Aragón. Revista de Estudios Norteamericano 22 (2018): 359-363.
  • "The Posthumanist Technological Sublime as Cultural Technique: Poe's 'The Man That Was Used Up.'" Cultural Technique and Literature. Spec. Issue of ZAA. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik: A Quarterly of Language, Literature and Culture. Eds. Susanne Bayerlipp, Ralf Haekel, and Johannes Schlegel. Themenheft der Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik: A Quarterly of Language, Literature and Culture 66.2 (2018): 181-196.
  • "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym." The American Novel of the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Christine Gerhardt. Handbooks of English and American Studies. Berlin and New York: DeGruyter, 230-247.
  • "Karan Mahajan, The Association of Small Bombs." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Online Supplement). Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler.
  • "Miranda July, The First Bad Man." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Online Supplement). Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2016.
  • with Mark Bischoff "Dramentext, Theatertext, Film: Kritisches Inszenieren, Media Literacy und Konkretisierungsprozesse in Inszenierungen von Susan Glaspells Trifles (1916)." Handbuch Dramendidaktik und Dramenpädagogik. Ed. Wolfgang Hallet und Carola Surkamp. Trier: WVT, 2015. 241-266. Print.
  • "Marilynne Robinson, Lila." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Online Supplement). Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2015.
  • "Mat Johnson, Pym." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Online Supplement). Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2014.
  • "Jeffrey Yang, An Aquarium." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Online Supplement). Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2014.
  • "From the Romantic to the Textual Sublime: Poesque Sublimities, Romantic Irony, and Deconstruction." Deciphering Poe. Ed. Alexandra Urakova. Bethlehem, PA : Lehigh UP, 2013. 75-85. Print.
  • "Post-Kantian Sublimity and Mediacy in Poe’s Blackwood Tales." Theory Mad Beyond Redemption. Ed. Sean Moreland, Devin Zane Shaw, and Jonathan Murphy. Spec. issue of The Edgar Allan Poe Review 13.2 (2012). 33-49. Print.
  • "Nature Revisited: Postironic Sublimity in Dave Eggers." The Sublime Today: Contemporary Readings in the Aesthetic. Ed. Gillian B. Pierce. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. 67-101. Print.
  • "Sherlock Bond, the Deerstalker and Remediation." Film Remakes, Adaptations and Fan Productions: Remake/Remodel. Ed. Kathleen Loock and Constantine Verevis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 45-66. Print.
  • Rev. of Ideas of Order: Ethics and Topos in American Literature by Boris Vejdovsky." Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 59.2 (2011): 204-05. Print.
  • "Marilynne Robinson, Home." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Online Supplement). Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2010.
    Online Access
  • "Steven Millhauser, Dangerous Laughter." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Online Supplement). Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2010.
    Online Access
  • "The Sublime's Invasion of Ellisonland." Edgar Allan Poe: Doscientos años después. Ed. Beatriz González-Moreno and Margarita Rigal-Aragón. Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2010. 141-154. Print.
  • Rev. of Der Sündenfall der Nachahmung: Zum Problem der Mittelbarkeit im Werk Emersons by Jan Stievermann. Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 20.1 (March 2009): 225-227. Print.
  • "George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! or, Slaves without Masters" (Vol. 5, 540), "Iceberg Slim, Pimp" (Vol.15, 274-5), "Steven Millhauser, Martin Dressler" (Vol. 11, 300-1 ), "Edgar Allan Poe, Das erzählerische Werk" (Vol. 13, 113-117), "Edward A. Pollard, 'Black Diamonds'" (Vol. 13, 136), "Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping" (Vol.13, 762-3), "J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye" (Vol. 14, 293-4), "Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms" (Vol. 7, 344-5), "Standing Bear, My People the Sioux and Land of the Spotted Eagle" (Vol. 15, 514-5). Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2009. Print.
  • 11 additional revised and co-authored articles and biograms for Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2009. Print.
  • "Edgar Allan Poe, 'Das erzählerische Werk'." Grusel- und Schauergeschichten. By Edgar Allan Poe. Trans. Gisela Etzel. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2009. 191-201. Print.
  • "Edgar Allan Poe, 'Das erzählerische Werk'." Der Untergang des Hauses Usher und andere Erzählungen. By Edgar Allan Poe. Trans. Gisela Etzel. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2008. 171-181. Print.



Conference Papers


  • “Populism, Jackson, and ‘Fake News’: Poe’s Hoaxes Then and Now.” Poe in the Age of Populism, First International EAPSA Conference (Valladolid, Spain, January 31 - February 2, 2018)
  • “Sublime Media Technologies.” Machines/Ravines: Negotiating the (Technological) Sublime, University of Łódź, Department of American Literature, (Łódź, Poland, September 14 - 16, 2017)
  • “Modern Times: Poe’s Cyborgs in the Classroom.” NeMLA, 48th Annual Convention (Baltimore, Maryland, March 23 - 26, 2017)
  • "Poe's Posthumanism and the Modern Condition." The Fourth International Edgar Allan Poe Conference (New York City, February 26 - March 1, 2015)
  • "A Sense of Belonging: The Physical Materialities of McSweeney’s." 43rd Annual National Conference of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) (Washington, D.C., March 27-30, 2013)
  • "Sherlock Bond and the Deerstalker" Interdisciplinary Conference "REMAKE │REMODEL: New Perspectives on Remakes, Film Adaptations and Fan Productions" (University of Göttingen, June 30-July 2, 2010)
  • "Romantic Irony, Deconstruction, and the Romantic Sublime." The Third International Edgar Allan Poe Conference: The Bicentennial (Philadelphia, October 8-11, 2009)
  • "Faith in Fiction(s): Poe and Transcendental Homelessness." Congreso Internacional: Edgar A. Poe-Doscientos Años Después (Albacete, Spain, February 3-6, 2009)
  • "Echoes of Modernity, Conquests of Acoustic Space: Noise in Poe." 124th Annual MLA Convention (San Francisco, CA, December 27-30, 2008)
  • "'I Care Not from What Source These Disasters Have Flowed': Vigilence and Virtue in Mettingen." Sixth Biennial Conference of the Charles Brockden Brown Society (Dresden, Germany, October 9-11, 2008)
  • "Fitzgerald’s Poe-esque Leeches." Ninth International F. Scott Fitzgerald Conference (London, England, July 8-14, 2007)
  • “Don’t Swallow! Race, Gender, and Xenophobia on Sex and the City’s Menu." 28th Annual Meeting of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (Albuquerque, NM, February 14–17, 2007)
  • "Supreme Fictions of Sublimity in Poe." "Taste, Vision, Transcendence: Sublimity 1700-1900" (University of Sussex, England, January 5, 2007)
  • "Rivaling ‘This Pomp of Purple and Gold’: The Technological Simulation of the Sublime in Poe’s ‘The Domain of Arnheim’." Poe Studies Association, Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, Nathaniel Hawthorne Society: "Transatlanticism in American Literature: Emerson, Hawthorne, and Poe" (Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University, England, July 13-16, 2006)
  • "Self-Reliance: Domestic and Transatlantic Perspectives on the Exhaustion of an American Idea." IASA, Second World Congress: "Americas’ Worlds and the World’s Americas" (University of Ottawa, Canada, August 18-20, 2005)



Invited Talks


  • "From Romantic Cyborgs to the Digital Sublime: Sublime Media in Edgar A. Poe and Dave Eggers." North American Studies Research Colloquium (University of Göttingen, January 24, 2018)
  • "'America Launches Pop Art to Colonize Europe'! Euro-American Relations and the Avant-Garde" Erasmus Mundus M.A. Program Euroculture (University of Göttingen, October 9, 2008)



Organization, Chairs, and Responses


  • "Alive at 200: Contemporary Perspectives on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (Graduate Conference, University of Göttingen, January 20, 2018)
  • Co-ordinator of the organizing comittee for the DIVERSITAS Summer School 2013 (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, July 5-13, 2013)
  • Chair: Panel "Contemporary American Literature" 43rd Annual National Conference of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) (Washington, D.C., March 27-30, 2013)
  • Organization, Chair, and Response: Section "Why TV?" of the Roundtable Discussion with Jason Mittell (Middlebury College). Student Responses by Martin Gerecht, Alexander Niedziolka, Cathrin Sprenger, and Leonie Unger. Großer Seminarraum der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen (Göttingen, November 29, 2011)
  • Conference Organized in Cooperation with Dorothea Schuller: "Discourse, Dreams, Delusion: The Enlightenment and the Gothic in Transatlantic Perspective," Undergraduate Conference, English Department, Universität Göttingen (Göttingen, July 4-5, 2008)
  • Chair: Panel "Dream Factories and Cinematic Realities: Fitzgerald and Film." Ninth International F. Scott Fitzgerald Conference (London, England, July 8-14, 2007)
  • Editorial Team (Fachbereichsassistentin), American Literature Section, Kindlers Neues Literatur-Lexikon (03/2005-05/2008)



External Funding Obtained

03/2013GSGG Travel Grant for the 43rd Annual National Conference of the PCA/ACA (Washington, D.C.)
10/2009Susan Jaffe Tane Travel Grant
10/2009GSGG Travel Grant for the Third International Edgar Allan Poe Conference (Philadelphia)
12/2008GSGG Travel Grant for the 124th Annual MLA Convention (San Francisco)
09/2007Fulbright American Studies Institute "American Values, Contested Values" (San Francisco)
07/2006Poe Studies Association travel grant
09/1999-06/2000Education Abroad Program fellowship, University of California, Santa Barbara


Affiliations

  • Poe Studies Association (PSA)
  • International American Studies Association (IASA)
  • German Association for American Studies (DGfA)
  • Graduiertenschule für Geisteswissenschaften Göttingen (GSGG)
  • Modern Language Association (MLA)



Education:

07/20051. Staatsexamen:
German Literature and Linguistics (M.A. equivalent), University of Göttingen
12/20041. Staatsexamen:
English and French Literature and Linguistics (M.A. equivalent), University of Göttingen
03/2000TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate




Professional Experience:
since 05/2021wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin, North American Studies,English Department, University of Göttingen
since 04/2021Lehrbeauftragte für besondere Aufgaben (Lecturer for
American Studies), American Studies Leipzig, University of Leipzig
03/2018-03/2021Lehrbeauftragte/Lecturer, North American Studies, English Department, University of Göttingen
since 03/2018Lehrbeauftragte/Lecturer, American Studies, English Department, University of Göttingen
09/2016-03/2018Lehrbeauftragte/Lecturer, British Literature and Culture, English Department, University of Göttingen
05/2013-09/2016Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin/Instructor, English Department, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
Since 07/2012 Lehrbeauftragte/Lecturer, English Department, University of Göttingen
09/2006-07/2012Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin/Instructor, English Department, University of Göttingen
10/2005-08/2006Lehrbeauftragte/Lecturer, English Department, University of Göttingen
09/2003-09/2005Studentische und wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft/Research Assistant, English Department, University of Göttingen


Administration:
2010-2012Mitglied der Auswahlkommission für den MA-Studiengang "Englische Philologie", Universität Göttingen
2006Mitglied der Auswahlkommission für eine Heyne-Juniorprofessur (W1 mit Tenure Track auf W2) Nordamerikastudien mit Schwerpunkt Media Studies, Universität Göttingen


Other:


  • 09/2006-08/2012 Sicherheitsbeauftragte des SEP/Health and Safety Advisor (Department of English)



Teaching Experience:

>
2021Religion and Race in Colonial New England (PS, Göttingen)
Myths and Narratives (four PS, Leipzig)
Writing Workshop (Leipzig)
2020/21 The African American Gothic in Literature, Film, and Music (PS, two classes)
2020/21Racial Discourse and Aesthetics in the Early Republic (PS, Göttingen)
African American Gothic in Literature, Film, and Music (PS, Göttingen)
2020Print Explosion, 1825-1850 (PS, Göttingen)
2019/20 Trauma, Agency, Domestic Spaces: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping (PS, Göttingen)
The Politics of Antebellum Nature (PS Göttingen)
2019 Object Agency and Media Architectures in Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales (PS, Göttingen)
2018/19Commodification and Gender: Fitzgerald's New Women (PS, Göttingen)
Conquest, Race, Entanglements: Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Mat Johnson's Pym (PS, Göttingen)
2018Automata and Cyborgs (PS, Göttingen)
2017/18Using Cultural Theories (HS, Göttingen)
2017Using Cultural Theories (HS, Göttingen)
2016/17Using Cultural Theories (HS, Göttingen)
2014American Sublimities (PS, Göttingen)
Technology, Landscapes, Texts: Edgar Allan Poe's Tales and Antebellum Culture (PS, Oldenburg)
Forschungsgruppe "Narration and Media" (interdisz. Seminar, Oldenburg)
2013/14Introduction to the Study of American Literature and Culture (EPS, Göttingen)
Into the Wilderness: "Vacant" Places in American Literature (PS, Oldenburg)
Transmediales Erzählen--Erzählen transmedial (interdisz. Seminar, Oldenburg)
2013Introduction to American Cultural History I
2013Hypermediacy and Seriality (HS, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg)
2012/2013Introduction to the Study of American Literature and Culture (EPS)
2011/12Introduction to American Cultural History I
2011The Sentimental Novel in America (PS)
Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Seriality (PS) at Edinburgh Summer School
2010/2011Introduction to the Study of American Literature and Culture (EPS)
2010/11The Great Awakening and Evangelical Rhetoric (PS)
2010/11Drama, Performance, and Adaptation: The Theater as a Place for Learning Foreign Languages (Vertiefungsseminar Fachdidaktik; taught with Adrian Haack)
2010Cultural Studies I: Introduction to American Cultural History (2 courses)
2009/2010Introduction to the Study of American Literature and Culture (EPS)
2009Mark Twain's American Vernacular (PS)
2008/09Romanticism and Reform: U.S. Literature from the Jacksonian Era to the Civil War (Directed Reading Course)
2008Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland; or The Transformation: An American Tale (PS)
2007/08Cultural Studies I: Introduction to American Cultural History
2007Cultural Studies I: Introduction to American Cultural History
2006/07Cultural Studies I: Introduction to American Cultural History (2 courses)
2006Introduction to the Study of American Literature and Culture (EPS)
2005/06Introduction to the Study of American Literature and Culture (EPS)
2005/06Encounters with the Sublime: Emerson and Poe (PS)