Biographical Information

Florian Deckers is a doctoral researcher in the department of Anglophone Studies and is part of the US Ruhr graduate research group Scripts for Postindustrial Urban Futures: American Models, Transatlantic Interventions. His dissertation project “Raising Latinx Voices” investigates contemporary approaches of Latinx artists in New York that rescript the urban space as well as the identity of the fastest growing minority in the US.

Between December 2019 and March 2020, Florian Deckers was in New York City doing field research and working for the UA Ruhr Liaison Office support in their mission to promote academic exchange between North America and the Ruhr region. In June of 2022, he was able to revisit NY and continue his research on public wall art in the neighborhoods of Spanish Harlem and Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Florian holds a combined BA in German Language and Literature and Anglophone Studies and a combined MA in American Studies and Literature and Media Practice. In 2018, he completed the MA program with his thesis on transnational automobile advertising in Germany and the US and its reconstruction as well as commodification of national images.

Research Interests

• Contemporary Popular Culture
• Urban Studies
• Transnational American Studies
• Cultural Studies

Talks

Deckers, Florian. “The Fading Spirit of East Harlem: Visual Markers of Neighborhood Identity in Flux” talk at the Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS- IBG), Newcastle, 09/2022.

Deckers, Florian. “Dissertation Overview – Raising Latinx Voices” at the Ruhr PhD-Forum, online, 02/2022.

Deckers, Florian. “Counterscripting el Barrio: Functions of Political Murals in Spanish Harlem in Bushwick, Brooklyn” talk at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), online, 04/2021.  

Deckers, Florian. “Changing Perceptions of Graffiti in Bushwick” talk at The Transatlantic Rustbelts – Scripting Urban Future(s), City Scripts Symposium, online, 01/2021.
Deckers, Florian. “Narratives of Nationality: German/American Automobile Advertising in Print and TV” talk at Narrative 2020, Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Narrative, New Orleans, LA, 03/2020.

Deckers, Florian. “Hybrid Latinidad in Lucas Art’s Grim Fandango” talk at Playing the Field II: Video Games, American Studies, and Space Conference, Essen, 05/2019.
Deckers, Florian. “Self-Heroization as Counter-Discourse: The Need for a Latino/a Role Model” talk at Ringvorlesung Mittelbau of the University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, 01/2019.  

Publications

Deckers, Florian. “Re-writing Latinx Identity in the Barrio: Accumulating Meanings of Graffiti and Murals in Spanish Harlem and Bushwick, Brooklyn.” Latinx Representation in Popular Culture and New Media, edited by Anna Marta Marin and Jesse Ramírez, European Perspectives in American Studies Series, Brill, forthcoming.

Deckers, Florian. “Black Lives Matter Graffiti and Creative Forms of Dissent: Two Sites of Counterscripting in Denver, Colorado.” with Renee Moreno City Scripts: Narratives of Postindustrial Urban Futures, edited by Barbara Buchenau, Jens Martin Gurr, and Maria Sulimma, Ohio State University Press, forthcoming 08/2023. https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814215524.html.

Deckers, Florian. “Graffiti im Ruhrgebiet: Zwischen öffentlicher Kunst und Gestaltungshoheit im öffentlichen Raum.” Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI) Blogseries City Scripts meets Pixelprojekt, online, 06/2022. https://blog.kulturwissenschaften.de/graffiti-im-ruhrgebiet.

Deckers, Florian. “Exploring the Digital Land of the Dead: Hybrid Pan-Latinidad in Grim Fandango.” Playing the Field II: American Studies, Video Games, and Space, edited by Dietmar Meinel, De Gruyter, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110675184-013.
Deckers, Florian. “Erhört – unerhört. Das Museum der Unerhörten Dinge als kultureller Speicher.“ Schieflagen: Museum Stadt Erinnerung, edited by Andreas Erb, Ch. A. Bachmann Verlag, 2021.

Deckers, Florian. “After Condemnation and Co-optation: New York Graffiti in Times of Pandemic.” In Media Res: A Media Commons Project, online, 01/2021. http://mediacommons.org/imr/content/after-condemnation-and-cooptation-new-york-graffiti-times-pandemic.

Courses and Workshops

Winter-Term 2021/22: Seminar “Latinx Presence in New York”

Summer-Term 2020: Seminar “New York Writers” (with Dr. Melissa Knox-Raab)

03/2019: RUDESA Spring Academy, Workshop on “City Scripts” with students from Germany, the Netherlands and the US.