Lisa Seuberth

Dissertation Project: “Whiteness as Usual? American Africanism in the 21st-Century Novel”

The dissertation project investigates the reverberations of the cultural practice Toni Morrison called “American Africanism” in the contemporary US-American public sphere and how its award-winning literatures contribute to the value system in which respective White supremacist and anti-Black discourses circulate. I argue that texts which encounter the dichotomous separation of Black and White with a racially literate and transcultural program increasingly receive cultural capital in the form of literary awards in the 21st century. Combining methods from literary studies, literary sociology, media studies, and the digital humanities, this project seeks to disclose not only White supremacist and anti-Black patterns in the US-American award industry and its prize-winning novels but also the various strategies used for their deconstruction.

Research Interests

  • US-American literature (20th – 21st cent.)
  • Postcolonialism, African American Studies, Critical Whiteness Studies
  • Sociology of literature
  • Speculative fiction
  • Digital Humanities

CV

  • Oct 2022 – Sept 2025: Research associate in the research training group “Literature and the Public Sphere in Differentiated Contemporary Cultures” (GRK2806)
  •  Mar 2022– Aug 2022: Research associate at the Chair of New German Literature (Prof. Dr. Niefanger)
  •  Oct 2021 – Feb 2022: Research associate at the Chair of American Literary Studies (Prof. Dr. Kley), deputizing for the assistant professor
  • Since Apr 2021: Dissertation Project “Whiteness as Usual? The Capital of American Africanism in the 21st-Century Novel” (Prof. Dr. Kley, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)
  • Dec 2020: Erstes Staatsexamen (L-Gym, English, French) at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
  • Feb 2020: B.A. in English and American Studies (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)
  • Apr 2019 – Mar 2020: Student assistant at the Chair of American Literary Studies (Prof. Dr. Kley)
  • Oct 2018 – Jan 2021: Student assistant at the French Department of the Language Center FAU Erlangen

Conference Presentations

  • “Literary Awards as Sites of Cultural Memory and the Cultural Capital of Diversity.” PGF Conference (DGfA) – Transnational Memory Cultures and American Studies, 10.-12. Nov. 2022.
  • “Whiteness as Usual? American Africanism in the 21st-Century Novel.” BAA Conference, 07.-09. Jul. 2022.
  • “From Melville to Saunders: Whiteness and (Anti-)Blackness in US-American Literature.”
    PGF Conference (DGfA) – Transnational Relations: Past, Present, and Future, 04.-05. Dec. 2021.

Publications

Teaching

  • Grundseminar Literature FAU – winter semester 2022/23
  • Grundseminar Literature FAU – winter semester 2021/2

Memberships and Networks