Dr. Katharina Gerund

Research Interests

Affect Studies, Public Feeling, and the Sentimental
Gender Studies and Feminist Theory
Americanization, Reeducation, and Cultural Mobility
African American Literature and Culture
Critical Military Studies
Popular Culture (esp. film and TV series)

Current Research Projects

• Happy Home Front Heroines? Military Spouses in the Cultural Imaginary of the U.S. (book project)
• member of The Occupation Studies Research Network
• member of The Global Sentimentality Project
• faculty member of the interdisciplinary research training group (GRK 2726)  “The Sentimental in Literature, Culture, and Politics”

Administrative Functions & Service to the Department/Faculty

• women’s representative of the faculty of humanities, social sciences, and theology
• study advisor for Lehramt Unterrichtsfach Englisch (Grundschule, Mittelschule, Realschule)
• coordinator of the exchange program with Kalamazoo College

Education

Habilitation/Venia Legendi for American Literary and Cultural Studies, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg (2024)
Dr. phil. in American Studies, Bremen University (2012, summa cum laude)
M.A. in American Studies, Theater and Media Studies, Psychology, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg (2007)

Employment

• as of 2021: senior lecturer in American Studies at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
• 2015-2021: assistant professor of American Studies at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
• 2012-2015: coordinator of the doctoral program “Presence and Tacit Knowledge” (funded by the DFG) at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
• 2009-2011: lecturer in American Studies and coordinator of the interdisciplinary MA program “The Americas – Las Américas – Les Amériques” at HHU Düsseldorf
• 2008: lecturer in American Studies at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and at Bremen University

Fellowships, Grants, Awards

• 2022: FAU Teaching Award
• 2018-2023: research project “Reeducation Revisited: Transnational and Comparative Perspectives  on the Post-World War II Period in the US, Japan, and Deutschland” (PI together with Heike Paul and Fabian Schäfer, funded by the DFG)
• 2018-2021: research network “Paragesellschaften: Parallele und alternative Sozialformationen in den Gegenwartskulturen und -literaturen” (member, funded by the DFG)
• 2018-2020: research network “Narrative Liminality and/in the Formation of American Modernities” (member, funded by the DFG)
• 2019: invited participant of the Villa Vigoni Dialogue on “Civil Religion and Civil Sentimentalism: Cultural and Political Imaginaries of Order and Belonging”
• 2018: participant of The Mellon School for Theater and Performance Research at Harvard University (“Public Humanities”); fellowship of the Bavarian American Academy (BAA)
• 2018: invited participant of the German-Israeli Frontiers of the Humanities Forum 2018, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
• 2016: travel grant of the Faculty of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology at FAU
• 2013 and 2011: DAAD travel grant
• 2012: Yale University Post-Graduate Research Fellowship of the BAA
• 2012, 2010, and 2007: BAA fellowship for the Annual Summer Institute/Summer Academy
• 2010-2014: research network “Black Diaspora and Germany” (member, funded by the DFG)
• 2010: fellowship, Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), Spring Academy
• 2007-2009: doctoral fellowship from Bremen University
• 2004-2005: DAAD fellowship for graduate studies, Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Service to the Profession

• reader/ad hoc reviewer for Anglistik, Atlantic Studies, COPAS: Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies, cultura & psyché: Journal of Cultural Psychology, Humanities, Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift, Lexington Press, MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, The New Americanist, Journal of American Studies, Neohelicon: Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum, Papers on Language and Literature, The Yearbook of Transnational History, and ZfK – Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften.
• member of the editorial advisory board of WiN: The EAAS Women’s Network Journal (2017-)
• elected member of the “bylaws committee” of the Collegium for African American Research (2016-2017)
• assistant editor of the annual bulletin (Mitteilungsblatt) of the German Association for American Studies (2015-2017)
• member of 2007/08 PGF team; co-organizer of the 2007 Postgraduate Forum of the GAAS at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and of the “PGF Workshop” at the 55^th Annual Conference of the GAAS at Heidelberg, May 2008 (with Alexandra Ganser and Christina Hein); co-editor of COPAS 9 (2008).

Community Involvement

• lectures & workshops for high school students on “Civil Rights & the Black Power Movement,” “Race Relations in the Age of Trump,” “Black Hollywood,” “Scandal! Race and Gender on Primetime Television,” “Representations of Slavery in Contemporary US Culture,” “Race Relations in/and US Literature,” and “Women and/in Power? The Presidency in US (Popular) Culture”
• film & TV talks at Club International (vhs) Erlangen, at the German-American Institute Nürnberg, at Casablanca cinema Nürnberg, at Filmhaus Nürnberg and at Filmgalerie im Leeren Beutel Regensburg
• teacher training seminars on American TV culture, the American presidency, populism and popular culture, race relations in the US, and public feeling.
• public lectures, workshops, and media appearances on topics ranging from (contemporary) US-American politics, activism, and popular culture (esp. film and TV) to Americanization, reeducation, and the dynamics of race/gender in the transatlantic world

Publications

Reviews

• “Gregory S. Jay, White Writers, Race Matters: Fictions of Racial Liberalism from Stowe to Stockett (New York: Oxford UP, 2018), 370 pp.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 65.3 (2020). Web.
• “Frank Mehring. The Democratic Gap: Transcultural Confrontations of German Immigrants and the Promise of American Democracy (Winter, 2014).” Amerikastudien/American Studies 63.4 (2018). Web.
• “Daniel Stein. Music Is My Life: Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz. Jazz Perspectives. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2012.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 62.1 (2017). www.dgfa.de
• “Kristian Buchna. Ein klerikales Jahrzehnt? Baden-Baden (2014) and Kathleen R. Hooper. Designing Democracy. Frankfurt a. M. (2014),” Jahrbuch Extremismus & Demokratie. Ed. Uwe Backes, Alexander Gallus, and Eckhard Jesse. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2015. 394-395.
• “Ivo Ritzer. Wie das Fernsehen den Krieg gewann.” rezensionen:kommunikation:medien, Dec. 3, 2015. http://www.rkm-journal.de/archives/18783
• “Martin Lüthe. Color-Line and Crossing-Over: Motown and Performances of Blackness in 1960s American Culture. Trier: WVT, 2011.” Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 24.1 (2013): 211-213.
• “Racism, Slavery, and Literature. Ed. Wolfgang Zach and Ulrich Pallua. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010.” Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 130.2 (2012): 310-313.
• “Jan Philipp Burgard. Von Obama siegen lernen oder “Yes, We Gähn!”? Der Jahrhundertwahlkampf und die Lehren für die politische Kommunikation in Deutschland. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2011.” ZAA: Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 2 (2012): 203-205.
• “Carlyle Van Thompson. Black Outlaws: Race, Law, and Male Subjectivity in African American Literature and Culture. New York: Peter Lang, 2010.” Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 129.3-4 (2011): 582-585.
• “Stephanie Brown and Éva Tettenborn, eds. Engaging Tradition, Making It New: Essays on Teaching Recent African American Literature. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.” Amerikastudien / American Studies 55.4 (2010): 775-777.
• “Maria I. Diedrich and Jürgen Heinrichs, eds. From Black to Schwarz: Cultural Crossovers between African America and Germany. FORECAAST 18. Münster: LIT, 2010.” CAAR Reviews (2010). www.caar-web.org/caar-publications/reviews.html

Workshops & Conferences (Selection)

• The Myths That Made America: Teaching American Studies. Workshop at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Oct. 9-10, 2024 (with Isabel Kalous).
• The Ambiguous Semantics of “Reeducation” in Transnational and Transhistorical Perspective. International Conference at the BAA (online), Feb. 16-18, 2022 (with Jana Aresin, Heike Paul, et al. as part of the project “Reeducation Revisited”).
• Student Conference Structural Racism in the U.S., in cooperation with LMU Munich and the University of Passau, BAA Munich (online), July 23-24, 2021.
• BAA Conference 2021: Rethinking Solidarity, BAA Munich (online), July 8-9, 2021.
• Beyond National Character? Identity Formation in the Context of Postwar Reeducation. Workshop at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg (online), Nov. 5-6, 2020 (with Akino Oshiro as part of the project “Reeducation Revisited”)
• American Home Front(s). Workshop/Student Conference at the Bavarian American Academy in Munich in cooperation with LMU Munich and the University of Regensburg, July 20-21, 2019.
• “Images of War: U.S. Popular Culture as Militainment.” Workshop at the 66th Annual Meeting of the GAAS, Hamburg, June 2019 (with Mareike Spychala).
• “Army Wives, Astronauts, and Cowgirls: Gendered Mobility in American Culture.” Panel at the 2018 EBAAS conference, London, April 2018 (with Alexandra Ganser).
• Reeducation Revisited: Strategies, Actors, Institutions in Transnational and Comparative Perspective. International Conference at the German-American Institute Nuremberg, Sept. 2017 (with Heike Paul and Anne Schenderlein/GHI Washington).
• “Transnational Feminism and American Studies.” Workshop at the EAAS Biennial Conference at Constanta, Romania, April 2016 (with Silvia Schultermandl).
• Public Feeling in Global Contexts. International Conference at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, April 2016 (with Heike Paul).
• “Tacit Knowledge.” Workshop at the 62^nd Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies, Bonn, May 2015 (with Heike Paul).
• American Studies in a Transatlantic Perspective: Critical Regionalism in Politics and Culture. 6^th BAA Summer Academy at Texas State University, San Marcos. May/June 2014 (with Heike Paul, Jessica Pliley, Meike Zwingenberger et al.).
• “Tacit Knowledge and the Politics of the Performative.” Workshop at the Conference Judith Butlers Theoretische Interventionen – Grundlagen, Effekte, Kritik at FAU, April 2014 (with Heike Paul).
• (Extra-)Ordinary Presence: Social Configurations and Cultural Repertoires. International Conference of the DFG doctoral program “Präsenz und implizites Wissen” at FAU, Nov. 2013 (with Markus Gottwald, Kay Kirchmann, Heike Paul, et al.).
• American Studies in a Transatlantic Perspective: Critical Regionalism in Politics and Culture. 5^th BAA Summer Academy at Munich and Nuremberg. May/June 2013 (with Heike Paul and Meike Zwingenberger).
• Cultural Encounters between Germans and Americans after World War II: New Perspectives on ‘Reeducation,’ ‘Reorientation,’ Americanization (1945-65). International Conference at FAU, June 2010 (with Heike Paul).

Conference Papers & Invited Guest Lectures (Selection)

• “Ideal Surrogates? Military Spouses and ‘the Mommy Deployment’ in Contemporary US Literature and Culture.” Workshop: Narrativising Surrogacy: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, U Oldenburg, Apr. 4, 2024.
• “Happy Home Front Heroines? Military Spouses in the Cultural Imaginary of the US.” George Washington University, Washington D.C., June 20, 2023 (zoom).
• “Tubman and the Underground Railroad in Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet.” Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México, Mexico City, Apr. 27, 2023 (zoom).
• “Josephine Baker: Singer, Superstar, Spy.” U of Zurich, Mar. 29, 2023.
• “Secrecy, National Security, and the (Un)Knowability of War: Representations of Military Families in Post-9/11 US Culture.” Conference: The Ethics and Narratives of Non-Knowledge: Literary and Cultural Perspectives on the Limits of Research, Schloss Herrenhausen/Hannover, Nov. 3, 2022.
•  “American Heroine, Black Revolutionary, Gunwoman: Harriet Tubman in Contemporary Popular Culture.” Conference: Ladies in Arms: Representations of Shooting Women in Contemporary Popular Culture, U of Vienna, Oct. 20, 2022.
• “Happy Home Front Heroines? Die emotionale Arbeit US-amerikanischer Soldatenfrauen.” Workshop: Leistungsgefühle. Historische Perspektiven transnational, KWI Essen, Sept. 27, 2022 (online).
• “‘America’s Germany?’ Reeducation and Its Legacies.” 38th Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange, Jan. 12, 2022 (online).
• “The Legacies of Reeducation in Germany and Beyond.” Transatlantic Exchange of Civic Educators, Oct. 11, 2021 (zoom).
• “Doing Domesticity: Military Spouses and Cultures of Homemaking in the 21st Century.” GAAS Annual Conference (online), June 17-19, 2021.
• “The Gift of Democracy: American Occupation, Reeducation, and Gratitude in Postwar Germany.” Online Symposium Gratitude in Transatlantic Relations, May 19, 2021.
• “To be continued…: Military Families and Perpetual War in Contemporary TV Series.” SCMS Annual Conference (virtual), March 17-21, 2021.
• “Unofficial Ambassadors? Military Spouses in the Transatlantic World.” CITAS Lecture Series 2020/2021, U Regensburg, Jan. 18, 2021 & Deutsch-Amerikanisches Zentrum Stuttgart, Sept. 23, 2021.
• “Home Front Autobiographies: Military Spouses and the ‘War on Terror’.” U of Bochum, Jan. 21, 2020.
• “Frauen und Aktivismus in der Ära Trump.” Workshop at HFF Munich, Jan. 31, 2020.
•  “J’ai deux amours….: Josephine Bakers Paris.” ‘Framing Paris’: Medienreflexion und künstlerische Selbstinszenierung in den 1920er Jahren. Workshop at Friedrich-Schiller-U Jena, Dec. 3-4, 2019.
• “(Un)Learning Racism? The Racial Logics of US Reeducation Efforts in Postwar Germany.” HLCS Conference at Radboud U (Nijmegen, Netherlands), Nov. 14-15, 2019.
• “Home Front Autobiographies of the ‘War on Terror’: Narrative Liminality, Tacit Knowledge, and Affective Labor.” Poster Presentation. Conference: Beyond Narrative: Literature, Culture, and the Borderlands of Narrativity. U of Leipzig, Oct. 2019.
• “‘Glücksversprechen Militär: Militärfamilien in der amerikanischen Populärkultur.” Conference: Glücksversprechen. Inszenierungen und Instrumentalisierungen alternativer Lebensentwürfe in den Gegenwartskulturen at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Sept. 2019.
• “Home Front Sentimentality: Military Spouses in Contemporary TV Series.” BAA Summer Academy, DAI Nuremberg, May 2019.
• “Happy Home Front Heroines? Military Spouses in Contemporary TV Shows.” U of Graz, March 2019.
• “Army Wives and The Unit: Military Spouses in U.S.-American TV Series.” Regensburg European American Forum (REAF), U of Regensburg, Jan. 2019.
• “The Im/Mobilities of Military Spouses in Post-9/11 US Culture.” 45th Austrian Association for American Studies Conference “American Im/Mobilities”, Vienna, Nov. 2018.
• Panelist: “International Committee Talkshop II: Transnational Teaching from Emergency to Emerging Projects.” American Studies Association’s Conference “States of Emergence,” Atlanta, GA, Nov. 2018.
• “‘When They Call You a Terrorist’: Angela Davis’ Activism from Black Power to #BlackLivesMatter.” U of Tuebingen, July 2018.
• “Public Feeling on the Home Front: The ‘Waiting Wives’ of US Wars Abroad.” Annual Conference of the GAAS, FU Berlin, May 2018.
• “African American Women, Sentimental Political Storytelling, and Contemporary TV Culture.” Marburg U, May 2018.
• “Military (Im)Mobilities: Women and War in Siobhan Fallon’s Short Stories.” EBAAS conference, London, April 2018.
• “Happy Home Front Heroines? Army Wives in Post-9/11 American Culture.” Workshop “American Domesticities,” U of Zurich, Nov. 2017 and Annual Conference of the Historians in the GAAS “Heroism and the Heroic in American History,” Tutzing, Feb. 2018.
• “Angela Davis and the Challenge of Prison Abolition.” U of Vienna, April 2017.
• “The Affective Labor of Army Wives.” Second Biennial EAAS Women’s Network Symposium at Lausanne, March 2017.
• “Sentimental Political Storytelling and Black Femininities in Contemporary Television Series.” FSU Jena, Nov. 2016.
• “Home, Family, and Domesticity in Army Wives.” Annual conference of the American Studies Association, Denver, CO, Nov. 2016.
• “Contested Canons? Toni Morrison and the Nobel Prize in Germany.” Bamberg U, June 2016.
• “Public Feeling, Tacit Knowledge, and Civil Sentimentalism in American Popular Culture.” International conference “Public Feeling in Global Contexts,” FAU, April 2016 (with Heike Paul).
• “Political Solidarity and the Racial Logics of Sisterhood.” U of Regensburg, Jan. 2016.
• “The Fugitive Figure in African American Autobiography.” Lecture series “Movement in Literature,” FSU Jena, June 2015.
• “Angela Davis, Black Power und das ‘andere Amerika’ in beiden deutschen Staaten.” Conference “Feinde, Freunde, Fremde? Deutsche Perspektiven auf die USA,” Akademie für politische Bildung, Tutzing, May 2015.
• “‘Wien, Wien – Josephine”: Josephine Baker in the Context of European (African) American Studies.” European American Studies Workshop by the Bavarian American Academy and Dartmouth College, Munich, May 2015.
• “‘America’s Germany’? Die amerikanische Reeducation-Politik der Nachkriegszeit.” 5^th International Conference on Holocaust Research “Afterwards – An Experiential History of the Holocaust 1945-1949,” Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Berlin, Jan. 2015.
• “Sisterhood Is Regional? US-American Women’s Activism between the Global and the Local.” Keynote lecture, 6th BAA Summer Academy “American Studies in a Transatlantic Perspective: Critical Regionalism in Politics and Culture,” Texas State U (San Marcos, TX), June 2014.
• “The Futures of Feminism and Black Studies: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Sisterhood.” Conference “The Futures of Black Studies: Historicity, Objectives and Methodologies, Ethics,” Bremen U, April 2014.
• “Angela Davis in East and West Germany.” Fulbright American Studies Summer Session, HU Berlin, Aug. 2013.
• “Transracial Feminist Alliances? Audre Lorde and (West) German Women.” Head West: British Association for American Studies 58^th Annual Conference, U of Exeter, April 2013; The Lady Doth Protest: Mapping Feminist Movements, Moments, and Mobilisations – Biennial FWSA conference, U of Nottingham, June 2013.
• “Josephine Baker’s Routes and Roots: (Trans)National Affiliations in the Atlantic World.” 10^th International Conference of the Collegium for African American Research – Dreams Deferred, Promises and Struggles: Perceptions and Interrogations of Empire, Nation, and Society by Peoples of African Descent, Agnes Scott College (Decatur/Atlanta, GA), March 2013.

Courses (at FAU)

• Grundseminar Culture / Culture A (multiple times)
• Grundseminar Literature / Literature A (multiple times)
• Aufbauseminar Culture / Culture B (multiple times)
• Lektürekurs American Civilization (multiple times)
• Lektüreseminar Literature (Lehramt, nicht vertieft, multiple times)
• Banned Books: Literature and the Culture War in US Schools (PS/MS)
• The Reconstruction Era: Literature, Culture, History (PS/MS)
• The Underground Railroad in American History and Culture (PS/MS)
• Asian American Literatures (PS/MS)
• 19th-Century Literature and the Long Civil War (PS/MS)
• Political Melodrama in US Culture (PS)
• The American TV Family (PS)
• Canadian Literature and the Black Atlantic (PS)
• From Page to Screen? Theories and Practices of Adaptation in US-American Culture (PS)
• “Black is Beautiful!:” The Black Power Movement in Its Cultural Context (PS)
• Black Feminism(s): Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison (PS)
• Writing Women in 19th Century America (PS)
• “Live from the Plantation:” American Slavery in the 19th Century (PS)
• Critical Prison Studies (HS, incl. a two-day workshop at the German-American Institute in Nuremberg organized in cooperation with CU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, the U of Regensburg, and the Bavarian American Academy in Munich)
• Home Front USA: American Culture and Society in Times of War (HS, incl. a two-day workshop at the Bavarian American Academy in Munich organized in cooperation with LMU Munich and the U of Regensburg)
• Race and Racism in US Popular Culture (HS, incl. a two-day (virtual) workshop at the Bavarian American Academy in Munich organized in cooperation with LMU Munich and Passau U).
• The US Presidency in Politics, Media, and Popular Culture (HS)
• (Neo)-Slave Narratives (HS)
• American Autobiography (HS)
• “On the Move:” (Cultural) Mobility in North America (HS)
• Asian American Studies (HS)
• From the KKK to the Alt-Right: White Supremacy in American Culture (HS, with Heike Paul)
• Readings in North American Cultural Studies (MA seminar)
• North American Cultural Studies (MA seminar)
• Forschungskolloquium der Amerikanistik/American Studies (with Klaus Lösch/Heike Paul)