Program

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2015
02:30 – 02:45 p.m.	Registration
02:45 – 03:30 p.m.	Conference Opening and Welcome with Prof. Dr. Jeanne Cortiel (Bayreuth)
03:30 – 05:00 p.m.	Panel 1: Challenging Heteronormativity Chair: Linda Hess (Münster) Section A: Re-Writing Queer Lives ·  Stefan Hippler (Würzburg): “’I am Gay’: The Poetics and Politics of Coming Out in Contemporary American Gay Male Coming-of-Age Fiction” ·  Florian Weinzierl (Regensburg): “Making a Fun Home: Queer Families in Contemporary Musical Theater” Section B: Queer Representations ·  Simon Daniel Whybrew (Graz): “‘You gave Birth to a Freak of Nature. Doesn’t Mean it’s a Good Idea to Treat Him Like One’: Intersexuality in the House, M.D. Episode ‘The Softer Side’” ·  Wiebke Kartheus (Leipzig): “Bargaining for Prestige: The Interrelation between Cultural and Economic Transactions in Exhibition Making”
05:00 – 05:30 p.m.	Coffee Break
05:30 – 07:00 p.m.	Panel 2: Social Change and the Media Through the Ages Chair: Lukas Büttcher (Bayreuth) Section A: News Cultures ·  Timo Weidner (TU Dortmund): “Influence beyond Scope: Local News during the Republic’s Early Years and Today” ·  Eric W. Fraunholz (Leipzig): “‘Of the Flies of the Market Place’: Nietzsche and the American Anarchists” Section B: Analyzing Contemporary (Documentary) Film · Michaela Castellanos (Mid Sweden): “Breaching the Lens: Gaze Constellations in The Cove and Blackfish” · Jonas Bodensohn (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt): “From Following to Interstellar: Uncertainty in Christopher Nolan’s Cinema”
09:00 – 10:15 p.m.	Nightwatchmen Tour through Bamberg (Meeting Point: “Gabelmann”)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2015
08:45 – 09:00 a.m.	Announcements
09:00 – 10:30 a.m.	Panel 3: Political Discourse and American Culture Chair: Stephen Koetzing (Erlangen-Nuremberg) Section A: Foreign Politics & the Media ·  Annika Brunck (Tübingen) “From Israel to Iran—The Origins of the Discourse on Arab Terrorism” ·  Yuwei Ge (Marburg): “Discovering U.S.-China Relations in House of Cards” Section B: Parks & Recreation ·  Nico Völker (Gießen): “A ‘Park’ Grows in Brooklyn: Atlantic Yards, 21st Century Urbanism, and the ‘Brooklynization’ of Brooklyn” ·  Sabrina Mittermeier (LMU Munich): “Disney’s America or Who owns History?”
10:30 – 11:00 a.m.	Coffee Break
11:00 – 12:30 p.m.	Panel 4: Rethinking Race and Ethnicity in North America Chair: Antonia Purk (Erfurt) Section A: Race & Resistance ·  Alexandra Hartmann (Paderborn): “’I Believe in Nothing If Not in Action:’ African American Humanism and (Embodied) Agency” ·  Nele Sawallisch (Mainz): “The Radical Discourse of Black Nineteenth-Century Canadian Writing” Section B: Ethnicity & Representation ·  Evelyn Huber (Mannheim): “Native American Representations in US Advertising, 1890 – 2015” ·  Carmen Brosig (Erlangen-Nuremberg): “Cultural Nationalism and Constructions of Transnational Solidarity: Ethnic Minorities’ Protest Culture(s) during the Vietnam War”
12:30 – 02:00 p.m.	Lunch Break
02:00 – 03:30 p.m.	Round Table Discussion “Perspektiven nach der Promotion: Alternativen zur akademischen Laufbahn” (in German)
03:30 – 04:00 p.m.	Coffee Break
04:00 – 05:30 p.m.	Panel 5: American Literature in Global Contexts Chair: Nicole Poppenhagen (Flensburg) Section A: Media Cultures & Globalization ·  Naghmeh Esmaeilpour (HU Berlin): “The Effects of Global Media Culture on Authors and Artists” ·  Steffen Reitz (Frankfurt): “Literature as Media Art: The Philosophy of John Cage’s Literature” Section B: Contemporary American Poetry & Globalization ·  Anna Bongers (Bochum): “Globalization in Cathy Park Hong’s Dance Dance Revolution and Engine Empire” ·  Marleen Knipping (Göttingen): “Writing the Region in the 21st Century: Literary Communities and Contemporary American Poetry”
06:00 – 07:30 p.m.	Poetry Reading “Writing the Female Body: Poetry and More with Laura Passin”
08:00 p.m.	Conference Dinner at Restaurant Weierich

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2015
09:00 – 10:30 a.m.	Panel 6: Trauma and the Body in American Literature Chair: Marius Henderson (Hamburg) Section A: Bodies and Violence ·  Veronika Hofstätter (Stuttgart): “’How many a Fearful Thing has been suffered by the Fearful Sex’: The Body in American Captivity Narratives” ·  Marta Usiekniewicz (Warsaw): “Sick and Dangerous: The Black Fat Body as a Challenge to Fat Studies” Section B: Re-thinking Trauma Narratives ·  Gesine Wegner (Dresden): “Making the Unspeakable Seen? Trauma and Disability in David Small’s Stitches and Brian Selznick’s Wonderstruck” ·  Maartje Koschorreck (Mannheim): “How to Deal with the Plurality of Traumas? New Approaches to Trauma Literature”
10:30 – 11:00 a.m.	Coffee Break
11:00 – 11.30 a.m.	COPAS: A Short Introduction
11.30 – 01.00 p.m.	PGF Meeting and Brown Bag Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.	Panel 7: Illness and Gender in American Culture Chair: Tanja Reiffenrath (Göttingen) Section A: Illness and/as Discourse ·  Claudia Trotzke (Regensburg): “Performing Health and White Privilege in The Knick – Some Spotlights” ·  Laura Passin (Northwestern): “What the Living Do: AIDS and Elegy in Contemporary American Poetry” Section B: American Gender Politics ·  Maria Kaspirek (Erlangen-Nuremberg): “Domesticity, Heredity and Insanity in The Scarlet Letter” ·  Svenja Hohenstein (Tübingen): “The Heroine and the Meme – Establishing a Feminist Discourse Online”
2:30 – 3:00 p.m.	Conference Wrap-up
3:00 p.m.	End of Conference

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