I joined TU Braunschweig as a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher in 2017, having received my PhD in English literature from the University of Münster. I also hold a BA in English Studies and the Study of Religions/Ethics and an MA in Advanced Anglophone Studies from the University of Hannover. After completing my MA, I taught German language and literature as a DAAD teaching assistant at University College Cork, Ireland. From 2013 to 2017, I was a member of the DFG-funded Research Training Group Literary Form at Münster. My doctoral research also took me to the North of England, where I spent a term as a visiting graduate student in the Department of English Studies at Durham University. In 2022, I was awarded a travel grant by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation to conduct research for my second-book project at the New York Public Library, the Morgan Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Fine Arts Museum Boston.
I am interested in British and Irish literature from the Romantic period to the present, with a particular emphasis on poetry and poetics, representations of nature, environment, and material culture. 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. The book was shortlisted for the 2022 Book Award for Junior Scholars of the European Society for the Study of English.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.
I am a member of Deutscher Anglistenverband, the German Association for the Study of British Cultures (BritCult), German Society for English Romanticism, and British Association of Decadence Studies (BADS). I'm also active in the DACH Victorianists network and co-hosted the network's 3rd digital workshop on "Ecocritical Perspectives", together with Dr. Jennifer Leetsch, in 2022.
I teach on the first-year module Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies, the second-year Survey Course: Irish Literature and Survey Course: British Literature – Romanticism to New English Literatures and the third-year and Master’s modules Advanced Literary and Cultural Studies and Advanced English Studies. I have taught advanced courses on, for example, “Contemporary British Nature Writing”, “Romanticism and Childhood”, "Ruralism: Literature and the Countryside", “The Brontë Sisters”, “Aestheticism and Decadence: Literature and Visual Culture” and “Victorian Gothic”.
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
"Fibres, Folds, and Trimmings: The Decadent Materials of Sarah Grand’s Emotional Moments." Accepted for publication in Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies.
"Fashioning Wealth: Morris & Company’s Greenery Tapestry and the Aesthetics of Abundance." Accepted for publication in Journal for the Study of British Cultures.
"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': Dance as Decadent Mobility in Late Victorian Poetry." Medicine and Mobility in 19th-Century British Literature, History, and Culture. Ed. Sandra Dinter and Sarah Schäfer-Althaus. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. 165-186.
"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.
Review of Sackgasse Brexit: Reportagen aus einem gespaltenen Land, by Peter Stäuber (Rotpunktverlag, 2018), Journal for the Study of British Cultures 26.1 (2019): 109-112.
"Naturbilder und Umweltdiskurse im Animationsfilm: Findet Nemo und WALL-E." Public lecture, Studium Generale, TU Braunschweig, 2018.
Conference Papers and Invited Talks (Selection)
"Orientalist Appropriations in the Victorian Interior: Mary Eliza Haweis’ The Art of Decoration." East-West Cross-Cultural Encounters: Adaptation and Appropriation. Chungbuk National University, South Korea, March 2023.
"'but river – what have you left us?' Treibgut als Material und Modell in der britischen Gegenwartslyrik." Die Poesie der Ströme: Flussläufe in Literatur und Geowissenschaften: Interdisziplinäres Kolloquium. Nicolas Born Bibliothek, Hitzacker/Elbe, February 2023.
"Textile Materiality in the British Arts and Crafts Movement: The Greenery Tapestry (1892/1915)." Von den Dingen: Material, Stoff, Rest und Ressource: Ringvorlesung des MA-Studiengangs Kultur der technisch-wissenschaftlichen Welt. TU Braunschweig, January 2023.
"The Romantic Child as Environmental Educator: Dara McAnulty's Diary of a Young Naturalist." Romantic Ecologies. Universität Augsburg, October 2022.
"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. Decadence Research Centre/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.
