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Biographical Information

Saskia Hertlein was a non-tenured Assistant Professor/Post-Doc (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin/Habilitandin) in American Literary and Media Studies at UDE from 2012-2020. Her research and teaching focuses on Inter-American issues as well as critical intercultural and diversity competence, critical social responsibility, and, recently, literary urban studies.

Saskia Hertlein's MA-thesis examined the influence of the maquiladora industry on the development of the border region between Mexico and the United States 1984-2004. In 2014, she completed her doctorate at the University of Duisburg-Essen with a dissertation on emerging adulthood, migration, and ethnicity in contemporary American fiction, and another major project was concerned with conceptions of an Early US City.

Research Interests

• Critical Diversity Studies
• Transnational American Studies
• Inter-American Studies
• Literary Urban Studies, Early US Cities
• American and Postcolonial Literatures
• Literature, Culture, and the Life Course, esp. Emerging Adulthood, Age, and Aging
• Gender (Studies) and/in Literary and Cultural Studies, Transnational Feminism
• Control and Resistance in Contemporary Literature and Culture
• Multiculturalism, Race, and Ethnicity in American Literature and Culture
• Migration in American Literature and Culture
• Inter-/Transcultural Learning; Going Abroad
• Teaching American Studies
• Europe in American Literature and Culture; Germans in the Americas
• Literature and Religion/Convictions/Politics

Selected Projects while at UDE

• Spaces, Communities, Discourses in Inter-American Studies
• Literary and Cultural Approaches to the Early US City: Conceptions & Typology
• Fostering Critical Inter-/Transcultural and Diversity Competence/Literacy
• Negotiating Convictions and Modes of Conviviality in Times of Uncertainty (Literary and Cultural Perspectives)
• Critical Social Responsibility
• Simultaneity in the City (ALUS-Symposium, co-organized with Lena Mattheis)
• Was denkt das Denkmal?

Publications

Monographs

Tales of Transformation. Emerging Adulthood, Migration, and Ethnicity in Contemporary American Fiction. Trier: WVT/Tempe: Bilingual Press, 2014. (Interamerican Studies–Estudios Interamericanos; 14). Print.

Edited Volumes

Raab, Josef, and Saskia Hertlein, eds. Spaces—Communities—Discourses. Charting Identity and Belonging in the Americas. Trier: WVT/Tempe: Bilingual Press, 2016. (Interamerican Studies–Estudios Interamericanos; 15). Print.

Günther, Lena-Simone, Saskia Hertlein, Bea Klüsener, and Markus Raasch, eds. Radikalität: Religiöse, politsche und künstlerische Radikalismen in Geschichte und Gegenwart Band 2: Frühe Neuzeit und Moderne. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2013. Print.

Schnackertz, Hermann Josef, and Saskia Hertlein, eds. The Culture of Catholicism in the United States. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012 (American Studies; 21). Print.

Articles

“Brücken bauen: Was denken die Würzburger Brückenheiligen?” Was denkt das Denkmal? Ed. Julia Lange and Tanja Schult. [in preparation]

“‘Don’t Panic:’ ‘Eternally Foreign’ in the Americas.” Reinventing the Social: Movements and Narratives of Resistance, Dissension, and Reconciliation in the Americas. Ed. Isabel Caldeira, Maria José Canelo, Gonçalo Cholant. [in preparation]

“Of Love Songs, Open Wounds, and (Almost) Everything In-Between: Borderlands and Inter-American Literature.” Inter-American Perspectives in the 21^st Century. A Festschrift in Honor of Josef Raab. Ed. Olaf Kaltmeier and Wilfried Raussert. Trier: WVT/Tempe: Bilingual Press, 2020. (Interamerican Studies–Estudios Interamericanos). Print. [in preparation]

“‘Out of Limbo — Young People Exploring Difference.” Difference in Peace and Conflict: Mapping American Perceptions of Alterity in Literature, Culture and History. Ed. Teresa Botelho and Elisabetta Marino. Rome: UniversItalia, 2019. Print. 133-54.

“‘The Danger of a Single Story’: Addressing Contemporary Public Discourse and Protest Movements in American Studies Classrooms in Germany.” Who Can Speak and Who Is Heard/Hurt? Facing Problems of Race, Racism, and Ethnic Diversity in the Humanities in Germany. Ed. Mahmoud Arghavan, Nicole Hirschfelder, Luvena Kopp, and Katharina Motyl. Bielefeld: transcript, 2019. (Culture and Social Practice). Print. 261-82.

“Between Love Songs and Open Wounds: Transnational Feminisms and Inter-American Literature” WiN The EAAS Women’s Network Journal 1 (2018): np. Web.

“Inter-American Identities in Contemporary Coming-of-Age Fiction.” Spaces—Communities—Discourses. Charting Identity and Belonging in the Americas. Ed. Josef Raab, and Saskia Hertlein. Trier: WVT/Tempe: Bilingual Press, 2016. (Interamerican Studies–Estudios Interamericanos; 15). Print. 263-78.

Raab, Josef, and Saskia Hertlein. “Introduction: Spaces, Communities, and Discourses in Inter-American Studies.” Spaces—Communities—Discourses. Charting Identity and Belonging in the Americas. Ed. Josef Raab, and Saskia Hertlein. Trier: WVT/Tempe: Bilingual Press, 2016. (Interamerican Studies–Estudios Interamericanos; 15). 1-20. Print.

“Crossing Boundaries on the Way Into the Beautiful North.” Cruzando Fronteras en las Américas. Las Dinámicas del Cambio en la Política, la Cultura y los Medios./ Crossing Boundaries in the Americas: Dynamics of Change in Politics, Culture, and Media. Tomo 1: Fronteras Simbólicas: Cine, Media, Música. Ed. Yolanda Minerva Campos García, Margarita Rams Gonínez, and Wilfried Raussert. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 2015. 215-36. Print.

“Geographies of Home: Constructions of Home and Belonging in Contemporary Emerging Adult Fiction.” Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging. Ed. Florian Kläger, and Klaus Stierstorfer. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2015. 409-26. Print.

“Von ‚Kinder, Küche, Kirche’ zum ‚Machismo im Rock’? Emanzipationsbestrebungen von Frauen als Zeichen der Zeit.” Zeitzeichen. Ed. Ulrich Kropač, and Bernhard Sill. St. Ottilien: eos, 2014. 111-34. (Forum K’Universale; 2). Print.

Günther, Lena-Simone, Saskia Hertlein, Bea Klüsener, and Markus Raasch. “Einleitung.” Radikalität: Religiöse, politsche und künstlerische Radikalismen in Geschichte und Gegenwart Band 2: Frühe Neuzeit und Moderne. Ed. Lena-Simone Günther, Saskia Hertlein, Bea Klüsener, and Markus Raasch. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2013. 7-10. Print.

“‘Old Stories, Young Perspectives’ in Luis Alberto Urrea’s Into the Beautiful North.” “Forever Young”? The Changing Images of America. Ed. Philip Coleman and Stephen Matterson. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012. (European Views of the United States; 4) 231-40. Print.

Schnackertz, Hermann Josef, and Saskia Hertlein. “Preface.” The Culture of Catholicism in the United States. Ed. Hermann Josef Schnackertz, and Saskia Hertlein. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012. (American Studies; 213) 7-14. Print.

Reviews

“‚Dazwischen’: Pop in transatlantischer Perspektive“ Review/Rezension: Die amerikanischen Götter. Transatlantische Prozesse in der deutschsprachigen Literatur und Popkultur seit 1945 ed. by Stefan Höppner and Jörg Kreienbrock. andererseits. Yearbook of Transatlantic German Studies 5 (2018): np. Online/Print.

“Review: Fictions of spirituality. Die narrative Verhandlung von Religiosität und spiritueller Sinnsuche in ausgewählten US-amerikanischen Gegenwartsromanen by Hanna Bingel.” Anglia 133/2 (2015):  428-31. Online/Print.

Talks

“Heroes in the Borderlands: Responsibility and Heroism in/and Luis Alberto Urrea’s Work.” University of Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen, Germany. Lecture Series “Great Responsibility” Heroism in Anglophone Cultures. June 2019.

“Europa und die USA — Erschütterung kultureller Beziehungen?” Katholische Akademie Die Wolfsburg, Mülheim a.d.Ruhr, Germany. Unteroffiziersakademie 2019: Die Krise der internationalen Beziehungen. Die Erosion alter Bündnisse? March 2019.

“The Rise of the 21st Century College Hero? Wendy Wasserstein’s Third between Those Who Have, Those Who Do, and the Question of What Makes a Hero.” University of Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen, Germany. Lecture Series “We Don’t Need Another Hero?” Heroism in Contemporary Culture. June 2018.

“‘Don’t Panic:’ ‘Eternally Foreign’ in the Americas.” University of Coimbra, Portugal, Fifth Bi-Annual Conference of the International Association of Inter-American Studies: Reinventing the Social: Movements and Narratives of Resistance, Dissension, and Reconciliation in the Americas. March 2018.

“Im/Possible Cities in the Independent ‘Shining City upon a Hill’— Literary Visions of Early US Cities between Anti-Urbanism and Urban Growth.” University of Tampere, Finland.  First Conference of the Association of Literary Urban Studies: (Im)Possible Cities. August 2017.

“Make America New Again? Inter-American Literature and New Frontiers between Love Songs and Open Wounds.” University of Hannover, Germany, German Association for American Studies Annual Conference: Modernities and Modernization. June 2017.

“Between Love Songs and Open Wounds. Transnational Feminism and Inter-American Literature.” University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, Second Biennial European Association for American Studies Women’s Network Symposium: Transnational Feminisms. March 2017.

“‘Eternally Foreign’ in the Americas” University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, Fourth Bi-Annual Conference of the International Association of Inter-American Studies: Human Rights in the Americas. October 2016.

“Between Plagiarism, Diversity, and a ‘Hegemonic-Free Zone’—Wendy Wasserstein’s Third and ‘US Rights in Education’ in the Advanced EFL Classroom.” University of Osnabrück, Germany, German Association for American Studies Annual Conference: The United States and the Question of Rights. May 2016.

“Ferguson in Europe? (Re)Producing Contemporary Protest Movements in German Classrooms” Toronto, Canada, Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association: The (Re)production of Misery and the Ways of Resistance. October 2015.

“Fictions of Diversity: Literary Explorations of Contemporary Young American Women” Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Poland, First Biennial European Association for American Studies Women’s Network Symposium: The State of the Nation: American Women in the Twenty-First Century. March 2015.

“Producing Knowledge in the Age of Reflexivity. A Collaborative Research ‘Experiment’ on Migration” with Michal Assa-Inbar, Robin Finlay and Anlam Filiz, Carl von Ossietzky-University Oldenburg, Germany, Migrations of Knowledge: Potentials and Limits of Knowledge Production and Critique in Europe and Africa. December 2014.

“The InVisibility of Difference. What Kind of American Are You?” Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Lima, Peru, Third Bi-Annual Conference of the International Association of Inter-American Studies: De/Colonization in the Americas: Continuity and Change. August 2014.

“Geographies of Home: Literary Representations of Contemporary Young and Emerging Adults’ Constructions of Home and Belonging.” University of Münster, Germany, Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging. September 2013.

“‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche?’ Emanzipationsbestrebungen der Frauen als Zeichen der Zeit.” with Sabine Bieberstein and Verena Gutsche, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Campus Eichstätt, Germany, Ringvorlesung: Zeitzeichen (Forum K'Universale). January 2013.

“‘I was born at the crossroads and I am whole’: Young Asian American Woman Protagonists at 21st Century Eastern and Western Crossroads.” Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, MO, USA, First Annual Asians in the Americas Symposium. September 2012.

“Crossing Boundaries on the Way into the Beautiful North.” University of Guadalajara, Mexico, Second Bi-Annual Conference of the International Association of Inter-American Studies: Crossing Boundaries in the Americas: Dynamics of Change in Politics, Culture, and Media. September 2012.

“‘I was born at the crossroads and I am whole.’ Literary Constructions of Hybridity in Contemporary Coming-of-Age Novels.” Ege University Izmir, Turkey. European Association for American Studies Biennial Conference: Health of the Nation. March 2012.

“‘...that’s what books are for ... to travel without moving an inch’: ‘Transnational Movements in Space’ in Contemporary Coming-of-Age Literature.” University of Regensburg, Germany, German Association for American Studies Annual Conference: Transnational American Studies. June 2011.

“A Child of Many [Imagined] Diaspora[s], Born into this Continent at a Crossroads.” Bielefeld University,  Germany, CIAS Opening Conference: Diaspora(s): Cultures in Transit. Mai 2011.

“Interamerican Identities in Contemporary Coming-of-Age Fiction.” University of Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen, Germany: First Bi-Annual Conference of the International Association of Inter-American Studies: Transnational Americas. November 2010.

“Crossing Inter-American Borders in Luis Alberto Urrea’s Into the Beautiful North.” Bielefeld University, Germany: Trans/ Inter/ Intra: Ways of Exploring the Americas/Maneras de explorar las Américas, June 2010.

“‘Old Stories, Young Perspectives’ in Luis Alberto Urrea’s Into the Beautiful North.” Trinity College/University Colleges Dublin, Ireland, European Association for American Studies Biennial Conference: “Forever Young”? The Changing Images of America. March 2010.

“‘Multicultural Americanness’ in Contemporary Coming-of-Age Literature.” Bielefeld University, Germany, International Postgraduate Forum: Multiculturalism in the Americas/Multiculturalism in Britain: Comparative Perspectives. June 2009.

Service to the Profession

2019-20 Deputy member of the School of Humanities' "Studienbeirat," University of Duisburg-Essen

2018-20 Member of the School of Humanities’ Faculty Council, University of Duisburg-Essen

2017/18 Member of the university’s Search Committee for Equal Opportunities Officers, University of Duisburg-Essen

2016-20 Member of the university's Committee for the Distribution of PROMOS/DUE Mobil Scholarships

2016-18 Member of the university’s Committee for Diversity Management [from 04/2018: Social Responsibility, Diversity, and International Affairs], University of Duisburg-Essen

2016-18 Deputy member of the university’s Senate, University of Duisburg-Essen

2011/12 Vice Equal Opportunities Officer of the School of Languages and Literatures, CU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

2011 Member of the Selection Committee for the Chair of American Studies, CU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

Courses Taught at the UDE

• "We, the People" in Times of Uncertainty: Convictions, Language, Power, and Belonging in 20th and 21st Century Anglophone Literature (Seminar)
• Everything Under Control? Control, Free and Manipulated Choices, and Resistance in 20th and 21st Century Anglophone Literature (Seminar)
• Humanity during a Grey and Desolate Time of Confusion: John Steinbeck (Seminar)
• Innocents Abroad: Americans Explore the World, the World Explores America (Seminar)
• The City in 19th Century American Literature (Seminar)
• A Survey of American Literature (Seminar)
• Grundkurs Literaturwissenschaft (Introduction to Literary Studies)
• A History of American Literature (Lecture)
• Going Abroad 101: Intercultural Theory and Practice (Lecture/Seminar)
• English B1 (Language Course)
• English B1 Refresher (Language Course)
• English C1 (Language Course)
• Business English Intermediate (Language Course)
• Termpaper Workshop [with Laura Sollgan] (Workshop)

Module/Credit Responsibilities

Modulbeauftragte [mit Dr. Julian Sudhoff] für Modul X/AE "Auslandserfahrung erwerben und reflektieren" (alle Bachelor Englisch mit Lehramtsoption)

Beauftragte [mit Dr. Luisa Alfes, Samuel Sanders und Jasamin Ulfat] für Inklusionscredits (Bachelor/Master Englisch mit Lehramtsoption)

Classes Taught Elsewhere

• Beyond Borders (RUB, Advanced Seminar)
• Fictions of Diversity (FHSU, Seminar)
• Literary and Cultural History I: "All the World’s a Stage? American Drama“ (KU EI, Seminar)
• Literary and Cultural History I: "Frontiers, Clashes, and Turning Points in American Literature and Culture“ (KU EI, Seminar)
• Literary and Cultural History I: "Set in Motion: American Literature on the Move“ (KU EI, Seminar)
• Literary and Cultural History I: "Who’s the ‘Them’ and Who’s the ‘Us’? America from the Inside and Outside“ (KU EI, Seminar)
• Literature and Other Discourses: "Literature and Fundamental Questions of Mankind (Religion, Theology, & Philosophy)“ (KU EI, Seminar)
• "Literature and Media: A Kaleidoscope“ (KU EI, Seminar)
• Fachreflexion "Literary and Cultural Studies (Anglistik + Amerikanistik)“ (KU EI, Lecture/Seminar)
• PS "Being ‘American:’ Multiethnic Literatures“ (KU EI, Seminar)
• PS/Ü "Beyond Borders: Multicultural American Voices“ (KU EI, Seminar)
• PS/Ü "Time Capsule: Coming of Age in 20th/21st Century America“ (KU EI, Seminar)
• Introduction to Anglophone Literary and Cultural Studies (KU EI, Seminar)
• Exkursion nach Kuba: "Good Neighbors with a Big Stick? Cuba and the USA: Cultural, Historical, Literary, Political, and Social Relations“ (KU EI, Lateinamerikastudien, Seminar/Exkursion)
•  "Interkulturelles Training/Vorbereitung USA“ – Vorbereitung für Praktikanten im Amity-Programm (Zusatzangebot des International Office der Katholischen Universität Eichstätt- Ingolstadt außerhalb der Module)
•  "Interkulturelles Training/Vorbereitung (allgemein) – Basisqualifikation/Vertiefung“ (Zusatzangebot des International Office der Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt außerhalb der Module)
• "Interkulturelle Vor-/Nachbereitung von Auslandspraktika für Lehramtsstudierende" (Bayerischer Lehrer- und Lehrerinnenverband, Seminar)

Memberships

• ALUS (Association for Literary Urban Studies)
• ASA (American Studies Association)
• DGfA (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien) / EAAS (European Association for American Studies)
• DHV (Deutscher Hochschulverband)
• IAS (International Association of Inter-American Studies)