Associate Faculty Member, UBC Centre for Migration Studies | Affiliated Faculty, Center for European Studies

I am a permanent resident of Canada and an uninvited visitor to the traditional territory and unceded (stolen) lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations, were I live and work. I very much appreciate the openness and hospitality that has allowed me to live and work here, albeit within a settler-colonial context of which I am also a part of, especially within academics and UBC. I am still struggling with the problem of carrying on with colonial structures when promoting ‘decolonialization’ theoretically, since my very own presence here at UBC and Vancouver is based on privileges. Being originally from Munich, Germany (after having lived in the US and in Japan), and by teaching and researching European Cultures and Literatures, I am aware of the danger of carrying on with the systemic structures of Othering when the concepts of belonging and identity are applied. Having recently engaged with Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem’s concept of Indigenous Storywork, I support any narratives that disrupt colonialization practically, and promote a transition and change towards building relationships with the land and its peoples. At the moment and for the future, I am intrigued to turn my research into a search for stories that radically retell the ongoing history of colonialism and cultural hegenomy differently; to listen to voices that focus on the people and to respect their sources, rather than to take them only as representatives, their stories and their lands only as resources.

In the past, I founded the research group on narratives at UBC’s Centre for Migration Studies, and was appointed as UBC Resident Director for the Canadian Year in Freiburg, Germany (2009/10); DAAD Lecturer, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo, Japan (April 1999-September 2003); Visiting Scholar, Department of Cross-Cultural Studies, Nagoya City University, Japan (May 1998-February 1999); Adjunct Lecturer, Department of German, Free University Berlin, Germany (Winter 1995/96).

• 19th to 21st century German-language literatures from Germany and Austria
• 20th century European avant-garde movements and aesthetics
• Transcultural images of the body in literature, sciences, and visual art performances
• Narratives of Migration, Exile, Flight, Displacement, and Radical Diversity
• Politics and Aesthetics of Postmigration
• (Practical) Decolonial approaches to literature

Research Projects

UBC Narratives Group, Centre for Migration Studies (Founder and co-organizer)

Decolonizing and Indigenizing European and Migration Studies through Indigenous Storywork (SSHRC Connection Grant with Elizabeth Nijdam as co-applicant; David Gaertner, Dorothee Leesing, and Maria Jose Athie Martinez as collaborators)

Belonging in Unceded Territories (Collaborator, PI Antje Ellermann, UBC Centre for Migration Studies, SSHRC Partnership Development Grant)

Migration as Core Narrative of Plural Societies: Towards an Aesthetics of Postmigrant Literature (Principal Investigator, SSHRC Insight Development Grant)

Transitional Spaces in Post-Migration German-Language Literatures (Hampton Catalyst Grant 2018-19)

Interweaving Tissue and Text: From Avant-Garde ‘Life as Art’ to Biotechnology (Book project)

Interdisciplinary and international workshop on Body Spaces – Corporeal Topographies in Literature, Theatre, Dance, and the Visual Arts, UBC Liu Institute, March 14-16, 2008 (Keynote speaker: Prof. Gabriele Brandstetter, Institute of Theatre Studies, Free University Berlin, Germany. Supported by UBC Hampton Research Fund and SSHRC.)

With Calvin N. Jones (co-editor 2002-2008), Jakub Kazecki (contributor 2005), Sonja Seims (contributor 2009): International Else Lasker-Schüler Bibliography. c. 2500 entries. Last major update 2011. Shared RefWorks Database. Web Publication. (Supported by UBC HSS Grant in 2004.) Submissions are welcome

I. Books and Special Volumes

1. (co-edited with Moritz Schramm) Postmigration: Aesthetics and Interventions. Special Issue of Crossings 14:1 (May 2023). (Open access.)
2. (co-edited with Moritz Schramm) The Politics of Postmigration. Special Issue of EuropeNow 51 (1 May 2023). (Open access.)
3. (edited) Performative Body Spaces: Corporeal Topographies in Literature, Theatre, Dance, and the Visual Arts. Critical Studies 33. Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 2010. (250pp. -> ebrary)
4. (co-edited) Kulturwissenschaft als Provokation der Literaturwissenschaft: Literatur – Geschichte – Genealogie. Neue Beiträge zur Germanistik. Vol. 3:3. Munich: iudicium, 2004. (214 pp.)
5. (co-edited) Medien und Rhetorik: Grenzgänge der Literaturwissenschaft. Eds. Tetsuro Kaji et al. Munich: iudicium, 2003. (226 pp.)
6. (authored) Else Lasker-Schüler: Avantgardismus und Kunstinszenierung. Tübingen/Basel: Francke, 2000. (367pp.)
   (-> Review)

II. Book Chapters

„Körper und Schrift: Die anagrammatische Ästhetik der Avantgarde.” Chpt. 3.2.4 of Handbuch Literatur & Performance. Eds. Bettina Brandl-Risi and Lucia Ruprecht. Berlin: de Gruyter. (forthcoming)

„Kann es eine gewaltlose, dekolonialisierte und dezentrierte Literaturwissenschaft geben? Ein persönliches Manifest für eine verantwortungsbewusstere, relationale Wissensvermittlung. [Can There Be Any Literary Studies without Violence, Colonialism and Eurocentrism? A Personal Manifesto for Sharing Kowledge in a More Responsible and Relational Way.”] Aufruhr verZeichnen: 26 literaturwissenschaftliche Einsprüche. [ReasSigning Upheaval. 26 Objections from Literary Studies.] Eds. Dorit Funke et al., C.W.Leske 2023, pp. 71-89.

“Nach der Flucht ist vor der Flucht: Postkoloniale und postmigrantische Diskurse in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Gehen, ging, gegangen.“ [After the Flight is before the Flight: Postcolonial and Postmigrant Discourses in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone.”] Der Flüchtling im globalen Nomadismus. Literatur-, medien- und kulturwissenschaftliche Annäherungen.“ [The Refugee within Global Nomadism. Contributions to Literature, Media and Cultural Studies.] Ed. Michael Hoffmann, Jean-Bertrand Miguoué and Miriam Esau. Königshausen und Neumann. Deutsch-Afrikanische Studien zur Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft [German-African Studies in Literature and Cultural Studies]. (forthcoming in 2023)

„Migration und Flucht als utopische Räume der pluralen Gesellschaft: Diaspora als Bewegung der Postmigration in Ilija Trojanows Nach der Flucht (2017). [Migration and Flight as Utopian Spaces of the Plural Society: Postmigratory Diaspora and Movement in Ilija Trojanow’s After the Flight (2017)].“ Wege der Germanistik in transkulturellen Perspektiven. XIV. Bd. 7, Kongress der Internationalen Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG) [New Forms of Utopia in the Literature since 1945/50. Germanic Studies in Transcultural Perspectives. XIV. Vol. 7, World Congress of the Society for Germanic Studies], Sektion B1: Sprache der Migration. Migration der Sprache. Sprachidentitäten und transkulturelle Literatur im Zeitalter der Globalisierungsprozesse [Language of Migration. Migration of Language. Language Identities and Transcultural Literatures in the Age of Globalization], Jahrbuch für internationale Germanistik, vol. 154, Peter Lang, 2023, pp. 535-545. (Open access.)

“‘Warum laufen wir immer den gleichen Bildern hinterher?’ Sprache. Texte. Körper. Bilder. Punkte. Flucht. Medien. Grenzüberschreitungen in Marlene Streeruwitz’ Textcollagen und Photomontagen.“ Marlene Streeruwitz: Perspektiven auf Autorin und Werk. Eds. Mandy Dröscher-Teille and Birgit Nuebel. Stuttgart: Metzler. Kontemporär, 2022, pp. 111-132.

“Towards an Aesthetics of Postmigrant Narratives: Moving beyond the Politics of Territorial Belonging in Ilija Trojanow’s Nach der Flucht (2017).” Postmigration: Art, Culture and Politics in Contemporary Europe. Eds. Anna Meera Gaonker et al. transcript: Bielefeld, 2021, pp. 197-219. Postmigration Studies. (Open access.)

“Portraying the Refugee as a Transitional Figure of Plurality: The Performance of Gender and Ethnicity in the Post-Migrant Narratives of Abbas Khider’s Der falsche Inder [Village Indian] and Ohrfeige [Slap in the Face].” Abbas Khider. Eds. David N. Coury and Karolin Machtans. Peter Lang Oxford, 2021. Contemporary German Writers and Filmmakers, vol. 5, pp. 53-73.

“Wolfgang Paalen – ‚The First Writer of the Atomic Age‘.” Wolfgang Paalen: The Austrian Surrealist in Paris and Mexico. Ed. Andreas Neufert, Franz Smola and Stella Rollig. Koenig Books, 2019. 141-154.

“Faces of the German Female Avant-Garde: Portrait Montages in Else Lasker-Schüler and Hannah Höch.” Schmerz, Lust, Weiblichkeit und Avantgarde in Deutschland. Eds. Lorella Bosco and Anke Gilleir. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2015. 129-156.

“Rewriting the Face, Transforming the Skin, and Performing the Body as Text: Palimpsestuous Intertexts in Yōko Tawada’s ‘The Bath’.” Beyond Alterity: German Encounters with Modern East Asia. Special Volume of Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association. Ed. Qinna Shen and Martin Rosenstock. New York: Berghahn Press, 2014. (168-89)

“Heimat und Exil als Double-Bind: Erinnerungsräume in Else Lasker-Schülers Der Wunderrabbiner von Barcelona.” Jeder Vers ein Leopardenbiss: Else Lasker-Schüler Almanach. Vol. 9. Ed. Hajo Jahn. Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag, 2011. 298-318.

“Mapping the Body Space between Gender and Grammar: VALIE EXPORT’s ‘Body Configurations’.” Contested Passions: Sexuality, Eroticism and Gender in Austrian Literature and Culture. Ed. Clemens Ruthner and Raleigh Whitinger. Austrian Culture Series. Vol 46. Ed. Marianne Lamb-Faffelberger. New York et. al: Peter Lang, 2011. 401-18.

(with Jens Hauser) “Performing the Transfacial Body: ORLAN’s Manteau d’Arléquin.” ORLAN: A Hybrid Body of Artworks. Ed. Simon Donger, Simon Shepherd, and ORLAN. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. 138-54.

“To Be Educated Is to Become a Harlequin: Cross-Skinning as Carnivalesque Hybridity in Michel Serres, Hannah Höch’s Dada and ORLAN’s Body Art.” Gender and Laughter: Comic Affirmation and Subversion in Traditional and Modern Media. Ed. Andreas Böhn, Stefan Horlacher, Gaby Pailer, and Ulrich Scheck. Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 2009. 119-37.

“Performativity and Performance in Else Lasker-Schüler.” A Transatlantic Gathering: Essays in Honour of Peter Stenberg. Ed. Margareta Götz-Stankiewicz and Thomas Salumets. Munich: Iudicium, 2007. 45-56.

“Von der Figur zur Figuration: Historische Avantgarde im double bind von Ethnographie und Soziologie.” Figuration / Defiguration: Kultur und Kulturwissenschaft als Prozess. Ed. Atsuko Onuki and Thomas Pekar. Munich: Iudicium, 2006. 75-96.

“Performance of Metaphor: The Body as Text – Text Implantation in Body Images.” Performance and Performativity in German Cultural Studies. Ed. Carolin Duttlinger, Lucia Ruprecht, and Andrew Webber. Oxford et al.: Peter Lang. 2003. 241-55.

“(Anti-)Rhetorik und irrationale Interaktionsmuster in den Debatten der 90er Jahre”. Geistiger Klimawechsel? – Zu den kulturpolitischen Debatten der 90er Jahre in Deutschland (u.a. zu Botho Strauss, Martin Walser, Peter Sloterdijk). Ed. Walter Ruprechter. Tokyo: Japanische Gesellschaft für Germanistik, 2001. 15-27.

“Heines Romanzero als Zeit-Triptychon: Jüdische Memorliteratur als intertextuelle Gedächtniskunst.” Heine Jahrbuch 40 (2001): 72-85.

“Von der Hieroglyphik zu einer Poetik der Handschrift: Lasker-Schülers Beitrag zur ‘Primitivität’ der Moderne.” Schrift : Bild : Schrift. Ed. Ricarda Dick and Norbert Oellers. Bonn: August Macke Haus, 2000. 161-70. [Reprint of Else Lasker-Schüler: Avantgardismus und Kunstinszenierung. 82-91.]

“Else Lasker-Schülers Der Malik als Schlüsselroman.” Else Lasker-Schüler-Jahrbuch zur Klassischen Moderne. Ed. Andreas Meier and Lothar Bluhm. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2000. 121-43.

“Zwischen Tradition und Moderne: Else Lasker-Schülers avantgardistischer Briefroman Mein Herz.” Else Lasker-Schüler: Ansichten und Perspektiven/Views and Reviews. Ed. Ernst Schürer and Sonja Hedgepeth. Tübingen; Basel: Francke, 1999. 187-218.

“Else Lasker-Schüler und ihr Verleger Heinrich F.S. Bachmair.” Deine Sehnsucht war die Schlange: Else Lasker-Schüler Almanach. Ed. Anne Linsel and Peter von Matt. Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag, 1997. 244-56.

“… warum sind die Dichter meist nur in Worten gut: Gerhart Hauptmann und Else Lasker-Schüler.” Leben – Werk – Lebenswerk: Ein Gerhart Hauptmann-Gedenkband. Ed. Edward Bialek and Marek Zybura. Legnica: Orbis Linguarum [Sonderband], 1997. 99-126.

III. Selected Articles

(co-authored with Moritz Schramm.) “Postmigration: Aesthetics and interventions.” Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, vol. 14, no. 1, 2023, pp. 3-17, doi:https://doi.org/10.1386/cjmc_00071_2 (Open access.)

“De-essentializing ethnic identities through narrating a plural belonging: Aesthetics of postmigration in Zafer Şenocak’s novel Perilous Kinship (1998).” Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, vol. 14, no. 1 (Postmigration: Aesthetics and Interventions), 2023, pp. 71-88, doi:https://doi.org/10.1386/cjmc_00075_1 (Open access.)

“‘How are we going to be able to reach a higher degree of self-determination?’: A conversation with writer Max Czollek about ‘Radical Diversity’.” Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, vol. 14, no. 1 (Postmigration: Aesthetics and Interventions), 2023, pp. 111-120, doi:https://doi.org/10.1386/cjmc_00078_7 (Open access.)

“Unsettling the Politics of Belonging through Narratives of Radical Diversity and Indigenous Storywork.” Europe Now 51, May 2023. (Open access.)

(co-authored with Moritz Schramm.) “The Politics of Postmigration: An Introduction.” EuropeNow 51, May 2023. (Open access.)

“(Re)imagining a ‘Good Life’ as a Settler Scholar: How Can We Decolonize and Indigenize European Studies through Indigenous Storywork?” Polylogues at the Intersection(s) Series, 2022. (Open access.)

“Importing VALIE EXPORT: Corporeal Topographies in Contemporary Austrian Body Art.” Modern Austrian Literature 42:3 (2009). 29-49.

“From Rilke to Stelarc: Cross-Mapping Body Figurations in Early 20th Century German Literature with Early 21st Century Body Performances.” (pdf) Seminar 43.4 (2007): 441-52.

“Vom Cyborg zum Interface Organism: Stelarcs und TC&As Extra Ear-Performance.” Körpermaschinen – Maschienenkörper: Mediale Transformationen. Paragrana 14:2 (2005): 221-34.

“Die Welt bricht auf an allen Enden: Leben und Werk Else Lasker-Schülers.” Schöngeist (Berlin). 4 (2005). 56-61.

“Post-post-moderne Expeditionen ins Jetzt: Das Theater von Marlene Streeruwitz.” Text+Kritik 164 (2004): 64-74.

“Zum Innenleben eines Sprachschrittmachers: Das Herz als Subjektmetapher.” Literarischer Ausdruck und Koerper: am Beispiel der deutschen Literatur. Ed. Yoshihiko Hirano. Tokyo: University of Tokyo, 2003. 107-30.

“Österreich ‘Ohneland’: Robert Schindels Gedichte.” Trans 7 (May 2001). (Open access.)

“Avantgardismus am ‘Ending’: Bodo Hell und Hil de Gard / Aufnahmen und Reproduktionen.” Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (Nagoya City University) 6 (1999): 1-18.

“The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction: On the Relationships Between Early 20th Century Avant-garde Movements and New Media.” Visible Language 33:2 (1999): 154-71.

“Frommer Dichter, schwarzer Schwan und Ruebezahl im Armenhause: Neues Archivmaterial zu Peter Hille.” Hille-Blätter 15 (1998): 47-67.

IV. Reviews in Germanistik (Tübingen) [10], Literature Bulletin (Munich) [2], German Studies Review [2], Journal of Austrian Studies/MAL [2], The German Quarterly; Breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies

V. Contributions to German Culture and Society: The Essential Glossary. Ed. Holger Briel. London: Arnold, 2002.

I welcome proposals for any MA, PhD or post-doc project related to my research and teaching interests (or beyond, if interdisciplinarily sound).

MA/PhD Projects Supervised/Co-Supervised

Rachel Helmer: Racism and Residential School Participation in German-language Mennonite Literature (MA thesis, supervisor)

Francesca Pegorer, Anthropology: Refugees in the City: Senses of Place and Orientation among Syrian Refugees in Berlin (PhD thesis, committee member)

Sabine Zimmermann: The Refugee in Contemporary German-Language Literature: Mobility, Personhood, Place (PhD thesis 2023, supervisor)

Sabine Zimmermann: Lachen und Weinen mit ungebetenen Gästen: Kulturelle Grenzüberschreitungen in Abbas Khiders Ohrfeige und Firas Alshaters Ich komm auf Deutschland zu (MA thesis 2019, supervisor)

Anja Nowak: Spatial Configurations of the Warsaw Ghetto. Selected Aspects of Jewish Space and Nazi Policies (PhD thesis 2018, committee member)

Heather Allen: Interdisciplinary application of cognitive science to literary theory (PhD project, Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Program, co-supervised)

Dali Klabidze: Der Weg zur Selbstwerdung bei Max Frisch und Ingeborg Bachmann (PhD project, co-supervised)

Shuo Liu: Avant-garde and Development of Media in Early 20th and Early 21st Century – with Hannah Höch and Ai Weiwei as Examples (MA essay 2013, supervised)

Jeremy Redlich: The Ethnographic Politics and Poetics of Photography, Skin and Race in the Works of Yoko Tawada (PhD thesis 2012, supervised)

Gorsharn Toor: Dimensions of Bildung in the Novels Eine jüdische Mutter, Nach Mitternacht, and Kindheitsmuster (PhD thesis 2012, committee member)

Karen Roy: File-based Autobiographies after 1989 (PhD thesis 2011, co-supervised)

Karin Lornsen: Transgressive Topographien in der türkisch-deutschen Post-Migrantenliteratur (Transgressive Topographies in Turkish-German Post-Migrant Literature, PhD thesis 2008, supervised)

Geraldine Ysselstein, European Studies: East German Material Culture: Building a Collective Memory (MA thesis 2007, supervised)

Sonja Bichsel: Geier, Sternsichel und Bacchüsschen: Montagetechnik und ästhetische Positionen in den literarischen Porträts Else Lasker-Schülers (Vulture, Crescent Star and Little Bacchus: Montage Technique and Aesthetic Positions in Else Lasker-Schüler’s Literary Portraits, MA thesis 2006, supervised)

Jennifer Murray (MA essay 2005, supervised)

David Hesford: “Film in Irmgard Keun’s Das kunstseidene Mädchen.” (MA essay 2004, supervised)