John, Stefanie, Dr.

I am interested in British and Irish literature from the Romantic period to the present, with a particular emphasis on poetry and poetics. My first monograph, Post-Romantic Aesthetics in Contemporary British and Irish Poetry (Routledge, 2021), looks at Romantic legacies in contemporary eco-poetry and feminist poetry from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Other publications include articles on new nature writing, Romantic concepts of childhood, and ecocriticism in animated films.

More recently I have turned to Victorian heirs of the Romantics, in particular the literature and culture of the fin de siècle. My second-book project investigates literary representations of fabrics and textile objects in the late nineteenth century (c. 1870 to 1900). I examine interrelations between textual forms and textile materiality at a time when the literary field and the production and use of fabrics underwent radical transformations, drawing on contexts such as the Arts and Crafts movement, Aestheticism and Decadence, and the New Woman.

Monograph

• Post-Romantic Aesthetics in Contemporary British and Irish Poetry. New York: Routledge, 2021. Link to publisher's website.

Edited Collection

• Formen des Wissens: Epistemische Funktionen literarischer Verfahren. Co-edited with Lennart Andres, Christian Badura, et al. Heidelberg: Winter, 2017. Reviewed on literaturkitik.de.

Journal Articles

• “Forms in Motion: The Poetic Prose of Robert Macfarlane and Kathleen Jamie.” English 70.269 (2021): 105-126.

• With Sandra Dinter: "Legacies of the Romantic Child: Teaching Post-Romantic Constructions of Childhood in Contemporary British Fiction." Romantic Circles PedagogyCommons, March 2017.
• "Precision Instruments for Dreaming: Anatomizing Keats in Pauline Stainer's The Wound-Dresser's Dream." Romanticism 22.2 (2016): 230-241.

Book Chapters

• "A 'Feverish Restlessness': Decadent Mobility in Late Victorian Poetry." Medicine and Mobility in 19th-Century British Literature, History, and Culture. Ed. Sandra Dinter and Sarah Schäfer-Althaus. Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming in 2022.
• "Wild Verse: The Art of Nature in the Poetry of Ann Batten Cristall." The Lost Romantics: Forgotten Poets, Neglected Works and One-Hit Wonders. Ed. Norbert Lennartz. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. 75-92.
• "Umweltmärchen in Pixar-Welten: Ecocriticism und Naturdarstellungen bei Findet Nemo und WALL-E." Moderne Märchen: Populäre Variationen in jugendkulturellen Literatur- und Medienformaten der Gegenwart. Ed. Maren Conrad. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2020. 101-125. 
• "Contesting and Continuing the Romantic Lyric: Eavan Boland and Kathleen Jamie." Poem Unlimited: New Perspectives on Poetry and Genre, Ed. David Kerler und Timo Müller. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019. 31-46.

Reviews

• Review of Peter Stäuber, Sackgasse Brexit: Reportagen aus einem gespaltenen Land (Rotpunktverlag, 2018), Journal for the Study of British Cultures 26.1 (2019): 109-112.
• Review of Jessica Nowoczien, Drama in the Classroom: Dramenarbeit im Englischunterricht der Sekundarstufe I im Hinblick auf Gendersensibilisierung und interkulturelle Kommunikation (Peter Lang, 2012), Scenario 7.1 (2013).

Public Outreach

• "Victorian Textile Ecologies: The Wildlife of Morris & Co." (public lecture, Studium Generale, TU Braunschweig, 2021).
• "Spotting Wildlife in Arts and Crafts Textiles: The Red Squirrels of Morris & Co." Journal of Victorian Culture Online. Blog article, 3 June 2021.
• "Naturbilder und Umweltdiskurse im Animationsfilm: Findet Nemo und WALL-E." (public lecture, Studium Generale, TU Braunschweig, 2018).

Conference Papers and Invited Talks (Selection)

• "Textile Ecologies and Aesthetic Decor in the Poetry of Alfred Hayes." Victorian and Edwardian Interiors (Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès, France, January 2022).

• "Victorian Interiors and the 'Noble Arts': Morris & Co, at Clouds." Investigating the Super-Rich: Representations of Great Wealth in British Cultures. Annual Conference of the German Association for the Study of British Cultures (Universität Leipzig, November 2021).

• "Unveiling Truth and Beauty: Textiles in Sarah Grand's Short Fiction." BADS Jeudis 2021: Decadende & Aestheticism: Truth, Beauty, Exoticism, and the Sublime in 19th Century Fashion. (Online event, in collaboration with Decadence Research Centre at Goldsmiths, University of London, October 2021).

• "Butterflies in the Sink: Invasive Environments in Thomas Eccleshare's Pastoral." Dystopian/Utopian Theatre in Britain after 2000 and its Political Spaces (ZiF Bielefeld, March 2021).

• “The Poetry of Mutability: Temporality and Change in Wordsworth, Shelley and Shapcott." Late Romanticism: Past and Present (University of Leuven, Belgium, December 2019).

• “A Feverish Restlessness: Decadence, Disease and Mobility in Late Victorian Poetry.” Locating Intersections of Medicine and Mobility in 19th-Century Britain (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, October 2019).

• "Poetry in the EFL Classroom." (with Katharina Glaser, TU Braunschweig, 2018).

• "Ecocriticism in Pixar-Welten: Umwelt und Nachhaltigkeit bei Findet Nemo und WALL-E." (invited lecture, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, April 2018).

• "Wild Verse: Reading Nature in the Poetry of Ann Batten Cristall." The Lost Romantics (Universität Vechta, May 2017).
• "Eavan Bolands Dublin: Die Stadt als Ort romantischer Aktualisierung und Kritik in der irischen Gegenwartslyrik." Romantische Urbanität: Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven vom 19. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, November 2016).
• "Out of Myth into History: Contesting and Continuing Romanticism in Contemporary Scottish and Irish Poetry." Poem Unlimited: New Perspectives on Poetry and Genre (Universität Augsburg, October 2015).
• "The Poetry of Kathleen Jamie." Centre for Poetry and Poetics Forum (Durham University, April 2015).
• "Dreaming the Wound-Dresser's Dream: Keats's Post-Romantic Legacies in Contemporary British Poetry." John Keats and his Circle (Keats House, Hampstead, London, May 2014).
• "Ecocriticism, Post-Romanticism and the Predicament of Contemporary Environmental Poetry." Romantic Heirs: Receptions, Legacies, Dialogues Since 1900 (University of Sheffield, January 2014).
• "Constructions of Romanticism in Paul Farley's and Michael Symmons Roberts's Edgelands." Shifting Territories: Modern and Contemporary Poetics of Place (Institute of English Studies, London, May 2013).
• "Romanticism and Negotiations of Femininity and Subjectivity in Contemporary Women's Poetry." The F Word in Contemporary Women's Writing (Queens University, Belfast, April 2013).
• "Romantic Genius in Distress? Representations of British and German Romantic Poets in Film." Department of German Research Seminar (University College Cork, February 2012).