Reading has always been a pleasure of mine, and first studying and then teaching English literature has made me even more aware that literature and other kinds of cultural texts, products, and practices are a central part of our societies and ways of life.

I have therefore been interested in the role that literary and cultural texts have in shaping our sense of self and our perception of the world and others. Literature and culture provide us with scripts and ideals of who (and how) to be and lead our lives, but they can also question ideals, norms, and scripts that we often take for granted.

In that sense, I understand the literary and cultural studies as an arena in which we can meaningfully and critically engage with how we see, experience, and change the world, ourselves, as well as our relations to others.

Short Biography

Since July 2017: Full Professor for English and Anglophone Literatures at the English Department, University of Vienna, Austria

Apr. 2019-May 2020: Parental Leave with son Josef

August 2018: Returning Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

Apr. 2016-June 2017: Parental Leave with son Franz

Apr. 2015-March 2016: Guest Professor at the English Department, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany

Jan.-Apr. 2015: Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

May 2014: Oral Habilitation Presentation, granting of the venia legendi "Anglistische Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft" [English Literary and Cultural Studies]

2013: Submission of Habilitation at the School of Humanities, University of Mannheim, Germany
Title of Habilitation Treatise: "The Relative Skin: Whiteness in Contemporary Irish Literature and Film"

2009-2014: Juniorprofessor for British Literary and Cultural Studies at the School of Humanities, University of Mannheim

2008-2009: Juniorprofessor for English Literature/Cultural and Media Studies at the School of Humanities, University of Passau, Germany

2006-2008: Instructor at the Department of British Literary and Cultural Studies (Chair of English Literature and Culture, Anglistik II, Prof. Dr. Meinhard Winkgens) at the University of Mannheim

2003-2006: PhD in English Literature (summa cum laude)
Title of Doctoral Thesis: "Die Einheit in der Differenz: Metapher, Romance und Identität in A.S. Byatts Romanen" [Unity in Difference: Metaphor, Romance and Identity in A.S. Byatt's Novels]

1997-2003: Master of Arts in English, Linguistics, and Media and Communication Studies at the University of Mannheim