Seminar für Englische Philologie

PD Dr. MaryAnn Snyder-Körber

Research Interests


  • Modernity and Modernism
  • Technologies of Body, Gender, and Nation
  • Visual and Media Cultures
  • Auto/Biography Studies
  • American Literature and Culture from the Late 18th Century to the Present



Current Project
Modernism in American Centuries: Henry James, T.S. Eliot, Djuna Barnes, James Baldwin (Habilitation)


University Education and Degrees

2004PhD/Dr. phil. in Comparative Literature, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany; dissertation title: "Ästhetische Geschlechterspannung: der weibliche Körper im Diskurs des Erhabenen"
1999Magister artium (MA) in Comparative Literature, German Studies, and American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. Germany
1993Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Comparative Literature, German Studies, and Gender Studies, University of California at Irvine (Studies at UC Irvine and Georg-August-University, Germany)
1992-1993Scholarship at Freie Universität Berlin (by the Fulbright Commission)


Professional Employment

since 04/2014 Wissenschaftliche Mtarbeiterin/Assistant Professor of American Studies, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany
2005-2013Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin/Assistant Professor of American Studies, Section Literary Studies, John F. Kennedy-Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany (chair: Prof. Ulla Haselstein)
SoSe 2012Substitute Professorship, American Studies, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany (chair: Prof. Ruth Mayer)
2000-2005Lehrbeauftragte/Adjunct Lecturer, English Department/American Studies, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany
1994-1999Translator and Language Coach at Berlitz School of Languages, Berlin and Hannover, Germany
1992-1993Employee at the International Office at the University of California, Irvine


Academic Administration

2008-2013 Member of the Willi-Paul-Adams Prize Committee for Best Thesis in North American Studies at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
2009-2010 Member of the Gender Equality Committee at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies and Co-Author of the Institute's Gender Equality Plan, Freie Universität Berlin
2008 Member of the Faculty Administrative Council (Institutsrat) of the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
2006-2008Co-Chair of the Public Relations Committee and Co-Editor of the John F. Kennedy Institute Newsletter, Freie Universität Berlin
2006-2013Member in Multiple Hiring, Dissertation, Habilitation, and Service Committees at the Freie Universität Berlin


Awards, Grants, and Research Abroad


2010Travel Stipend from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for Participation in the American Studies Association Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas
2007Travel Stipend from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for Participation in the American Studies Association Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2006-2007Annual Prize for Excellence in Teaching at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
2000-2003Dissertation Fellowship of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes)
1993-1994Study and Research Fellowship of the Fulbright Commission
1991Membership in Phi Beta Kappa National Honors Society



Publications

Monograph:


  • Das weiblich Erhabene. Sappho bis Baudelaire. München: Fink, 2007.



Edited Volumes:


  • Machine: Bodies, Genders, Technologies. Ed. with M. Michaela Hampf. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012.
  • Trauma's Continuum: September 11th Reconsidered. A Special Issue of Amerikastudien/American Studies. Ed. with Andrew S. Gross. 55.3 (2010).
  • The Pathos of Authenticity: American Passions of the Real. Ed. with Ulla Haselstein and Andrew S. Gross. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2010.



Journal and Book Articles


  • "Untimely: Obsolescence, Late Modernism, and the View out of Giovanni's Room." Cultures of Obsolescence in North America: Aesthetics, Materiality, History. Ed. Bärbel Tischleder and Sarah Wasserman. Forthcoming.
  • "Cyberoptik: alte Blasphemien, neue Öffentlichkeiten." Diversity Trouble. Ed. Peter Pohl and Hania Siebenpfeiffer. Berlin: Kadmos. Forthcoming 2014.
  • "Replaying The Waste Land: Memory, Maneuver, Modern Times." Recovery and Transgression: Memory in American Poetry. Ed. Kornelia Freitag. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. Forthcoming 2014.
  • "Breaking Your Historical Neck: Interdisciplinary Reflections and Introduction" (with M. Michaela Hampf). Machine: Bodies, Genders, Technologies. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012. 9-64.
  • "Apocalypse Not Quite Yet: Cyborg Variations, 1960-2000." Machine: Bodies, Genders, Technologies. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012. 67-106.
  • "Teaching Machines" (with M. Michaela Hampf and Jasper Verlinden). Machine: Bodies, Genders, Technologies. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012. 297-322.
  • "Gift Money: Nightwood and the Funding/Form Logics of Late Modernism." American Economies. Ed. Eva Boesenberg, Reinhard Isensee and Martin Klepper. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012. 364-87.
  • "Introduction: Trauma's Continuum: September 11th Reconsidered" (with Andrew S. Gross). Amerikastudien/American Studies 55.3 (2010): 369-84.
  • "Lost and Found Lives: The Portraits of Grief and the Work of September 11th Mourning." Amerikastudien/American Studies 55.3 (2010): 451-78.
  • "Amerikanischer Untergrund: Charles Brockden Brown, George Lippard, Edgar Allan Poe." Der Schauer(roman). Ed. Mario Grizelij. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2010. 195-229.
  • "Sexual/Textual Iconicity: From Henry to Master, Queer, and Other Jameses." American Cultural Icons: Configurations, Re-Figurations. Ed. Bernd Engler and Günter Leypoldt. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2010. 155-170.
  • "Introduction: Returns of the Real" (with Ulla Haselstein and Andrew S. Gross). The Pathos of Authenticity: American Passions of the Real. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2010. 9-31.
  • "And Susan Sontag Wept: Portraits, Grief, and the Gritty Grain of the Real." The Pathos of Authenticity: American Passions of the Real. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2010. 93-113.
  • "The Real Thing." Critical Companion to Henry James: A Literary Reference to his Life and Work. Ed. Kendall Johnson and Eric Haralson. New York: Facts on File, 2009. 279-82.
  • "Ground Zero/s der amerikanischen Literatur: vom neuen zum hysterischen Familienroman." Amerikanisches Erzählen nach 2000. Ed. Sebastian Domsch. Munich: Edition Text + Kritik, 2008. 39-55.
  • "Das Leben ins Bild bringen: Einsatz und Erweiterung des Auto/Biographischen in Anne Nelsons Theaterstück The Guys." Ästhetische Verarbeitungen des 11. Septembers. Ed. Ingo Irsigler and Christoph Jürgensen. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter 2008. 143-166.
  • "'Die alte Einfachheit': Nostalgie, Nähe und die Familienwerte des Neo-Realismus." Schreibverfahren der Jahrtausendwende. Ed. Susanne Krones and Evi Zemanek. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2008. 57-68.
  • "Building the Better Book: Conversation, Complication, and the Constitution of the Medium in The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." American Studies as Media Studies. Ed. Frank Kelleter and Daniel Stein. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2008. 27-37.
  • "Perilous Performances: Picturing Occult Inheritance and Staging the Melodrama of the Mind in Wieland ." Melodrama! The Mode of Excess from Early America to Hollywood. Ed. Frank Kelleter and Ruth Mayer. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2007. 55-72.
  • "Ermittlungen in Sachen Moderne: T.S. Eliots Tippmamsell und die Substanz des Waste Land." Working Girls. Zur Ökonomie von Liebe und Arbeit in der Moderne. Ed. Sabine Biebl, Verena Mund and Heide Volkening. Berlin: Kadmos, 2007. 55-76.
  • "Asthetisches 'Gender Bending' in Richardsons Clarissa." Körperproduktion. Zur Artifizialität der Geschlechter. Ed. Alexandra Karentzos, Birgit Käufer and Katharina Sykora. Marburg: Jonas Verlag, 2002. 80-88.
  • Perilous Navigations in the Postmodern: Donna Haraway, bell hook and Feminist Rethinking of Identity. Berlin 1997 (Working Papers of the John F. Kennedy-Institute for North American Studies, No. 105).



Miscellaneous


  • "Edmund Burke." Lexikon der Poetiken. Ed. Manfred Schmeling, Monika Schmitz-Emans and Uwe Lindemann. De Gruyter: Berlin, 2009. 67-68.
  • "Spivak: das kulturtheoretische Werk." Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. 3rd edition. Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2009.
  • Review: Birgit Högn: Alttestamentarische Frauengestalten in US-amerikanischen Romanen von Autorinnen seit 1990. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 56 (2008): 205-206.
  • "Das Trauma einer Nation. Ein Gespräch über das amerikanische Erinnern an den 11. September 2001" (MaryAnn Snyder-Körber and Andrew S. Gross). FUndiert. Das Wissenschaftsmagazin der Freien Universität Berlin 2 (2007): 66-74.
  • "Was kommt nach dem 11. September?" Tagesspiegel .1 September 2007.



Translations


  • "Can't Simulate Freedom." Hannah Arendt Denkraum. Exhibition Berlin and Halberstadt, 2006.
  • Schmid, Joachim: Sinterklaas ziet alles /Sinterklaas Sees All. Photos und Text. Rotterdam: Nederlands Foto Instituut, 1998; "Sinterklaas Sees All". PhotoWork(s) in Progress II/Constructing Identity. Ed. Linda Roodenburg. Rotterdam: Nederlands Foto Instituut, 1998. 46-49.
  • Fricke, Adib: The New Word. Volume III. Berlin: The Word Company, 1997.



Conferences, Panels, Workshops, and Cultural Events


  • Organization of the Symposium "Liberty's Loss: North American Narratives of Dis_Possession." John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. February 2013.
  • Cooperation between the Kunstfestspiele Hannover, the "Edgar Allan Poe Project," and the English Seminar of the Leibniz Universität Hannover. June 2012.
  • Organization of the Workshop "Obsolescence: The Economics and Aesthetics of American Wastelands" (with Bärbel Tischleder and Sarah Wasserman). American Studies Association Annual Meeting "Crisis, Chains, and Change: American Studies for the 21st Century." San Antonio, Texas. November 2010.
  • Organization of the Symposium "Writing the Self" (with Laura Bieger). John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. July 2010.
  • Organization of the Workshop "Family Values: The Politics of Private Representation" (with Vanessa Künnemann). Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien). Heidelberg. May 2008.
  • Organisation of the International and Interdisciplinary Conference "[machine]body.gender.technology" (with M. Michaela Hampf). John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. February 2008.
  • Organization of the Workshop "Cosmopolitanism and Its Discontents: States and Statelessness in the Writings of the Early Republic" (with Andrew S. Gross). American Studies Association Annual Meeting "América Acquí. Transhemispheric Visions and Community Connections." Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. October 2007.
  • Organization of the International Conference "The Pathos of Authenticity: American Passions of the Real" (with Andrew S. Gross and Ulla Haselstein). John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. June 2007.
  • Organization of the Research Colloquium "Perspectives in American Studies" of the Departments of Literature and Culture at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. Summer Semester 2012 (with Florian Sedlmeier), Winter Semester 2009/2010, Winter Semester 2007/2008, and Winter Semester 2005/2006.



Conference Papers and Invited Lectures


  • "American Modernism after the Avant-Garde." International Conference "Cultures of Obsolescence in North America: Aesthetics, Materiality, History." Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. June 2013.
  • "Modernism in American Centuries: T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land." Leibniz Universität Hannover. May 2013. Invited Lecture.
  • "Apocalypse Not Quite Yet': Cyborg-Variationen seit der Jahrtausendwende." Lecture Series "Diversity Trouble." Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald. December 2012. Invited Lecture.
  • "Modernist Machinations: Replaying The Waste Land." International Conference "Memory, the United States, and Transnational Poetry." Ruhr-Universität Bochum. June 2012.
  • "Gift Money: Nightwood and the Funding/Form Logics of Late Modernism." Research Colloquium for American Studies. Leibniz Universität Hannover. May 2012.
  • "Real Things: Misuse and American Modernism at the End of the Poetic Production Line." American Studies Association Annual Meeting "Crisis, Chains, and Change: American Studies for the 21st Century." San Antonio, Texas. November 2010.
  • "Aesthetic, etc.: Cosmopolitan Calculation and the Making of the American Modernist." Research Colloquium of the Departments of Literature and Culture. John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. June 2010.
  • "Gift Money: Nightwood and the Funding/Form Logic of Late Modernism." Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien). Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. May 2010.
  • "Ressentiment as Style." The American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting "Creoles, Diasporas, Cosmopolitanisms." New Orleans, Louisiana. April 2010.
  • "Converting Shylock: Arthur Mervyn and the 18th-Century American Gothic." International Conference "Gothic Renaissance." Universität zu Köln. December 2009.
  • "(Trans)national Trouble and the Undercover Jew: The Converso in the Literature of the Early Republic." International Conference "Transatlantic American Studies." Universität Potsdam/Humboldt Universität zu Berlin/Freie Universität Berlin. October 2008.
  • "Bad Modernism: Cosmopolitan Calculation from Henry James to James Baldwin." W.E.B. DuBois Lectures. Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. May 2008. Invited Lecture.
  • "US Embassy Literature Series: Amy Bloom." Museum THE KENNEDYS. Berlin. March 2008.
  • "Lost and Found Images: September 11th and the Media of National Mourning." Vortragseinladung im Symposium for Prof. Dr. Peter Drexler "Bewegte Bilder/Bewegende Bilder/Bilder der Bewegung." Universität Potsdam. November 2007.
  • "White Slavery, Wandering Jews, and 'the Cause of America': Cosmopolitan Complications in Royall Tyler's The Algerine Captive." American Studies Association Annual Meeting "América Acquí. Transhemispheric Visions and Community Connections." Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. October 2007.
  • "Internationalizing the International Theme: From Henry James's The American to Thomas Mann's Royal Highness." International American Studies Association World Congress "Trans/American, Trans/Oceanic, Trans/lation." Universida de Lisboa. September 2007.
  • "And Susan Sontag Wept: Portraits, Grief, and the Gritty Grain of the Real." International Conference "The Pathos of Authenticity: American Passions of the Real." John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. June 2007.
  • "The Ethical Turn of the Inversion: From Henry James to James Baldwin." Conference for Literature and Film "Cosmopolitanism: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation." Florida State University at Tallahassee. February 2007.
  • "Why Casper Isn't Really A Friendly Ghost: The American Gothic Explained." Schwarzmarkt für nützliches Wissen und Nicht-Wissen: "Amerikanische Nahaufnahmen in 440 Dialogen." HAU I (Hebel Theater), Berlin. November 2006. Invited Presentation.
  • "Blaues Licht und ovale Portraits." Philologisches Film-Forum "Leni Riefenstahl: Mythen des Erhabenen." Freie Universität Berlin. February 2007. Invited Presentation.
  • "Elegaic (Self)Portraits: Mourning, Memorialization, and Diane Schoemperlen's The Names of the Dead." Conference of the International Auto/Biography Association. Johann-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. July 2006.
  • "Poetry Talks with C.K. Williams." Internationales Literaturfest Berlin. Literaturhaus Berlin. September 2005.
  • "Das Tippfräulein wird zum Diktat bestellt: Eliots 'Typist' und die Substanz des Waste Land." International Conference "Working Girls: zur Ökonomie von Liebe und Arbeit in der Moderne." Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität München. February 2005.
  • "Konfigurationen des Kontinuität: Europäische Philologie bei Ernst Robert Curtius" (with Marcel Lepper). Colloquium "Ein Kontinent wird vermessen: europäische Selbstthematisierungen im 20. Jahrhundert." Universität Augsburg. December 2004.
  • "Der praktische, theoretische und fiktionale Cyborg." Colloquium "Personale und kollektive Identität." Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung/ Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität München. December 2002.
  • "Der weibliche Körper im Zeichen des Erhabenen: 'Gender Bending' der anderen Art in Richardsons Clarissa." Interdisciplinary Conference "Körperproduktionen: zur Artifizialität der Geschlechter." Ruhr-Universität Bochum. April 2001.




Memberships and Other Academic Offices


  • American Studies Association
  • German Association for American Studies (DGfA)
  • Deutsche Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft / German Association for Comparative Literature



Teaching Experience

Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany, 2014-2015


  • Introduction to American Literature and Culture, WS 14/15
  • Modernity and American Modernism (Proseminar), WS 14/15
  • Academic Writing, WS 14/15
  • Kolloquium (BA & MA): Current Issues in North American Studies, WS 14/15
  • Narrating Slavery / Envisioning Emancipation (Proseminar), SoSe 14
  • Introduction to American Cultural History I, SoSe 14



John F. Kennedy-Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, 2005-2013

Vorlesungen/lecture classes:


  • Understanding North America: An Overview of North American Literary History from the 17th to the 21st Century; Literary History in a dialogue with Cultural Studies and Sociology (SoSe 2007 and 2008)
  • Cultural Studis and History (WS 2009/10, 2011/12, 2012/13 )


Master-Seminare/Graduate Level:


  • Liberty's Loss: North American Narratives of Dis_Possession (WS 2012/13)
  • Writing the Self: from Benjamin Franklin to the Blog (SoSe 2010)
  • Bad Modernism (WS 2009/10)
  • City Texts II: Los Angeles (SoSe 2008)
  • City Texts I: Writing the City in Theory, Space, and Literary Practice (WS 2007/08)
  • Body, Gender, Technology: Perspectives in Literature and History (with M. Michaela Hampf, WS 2007/08)
  • The New Woman: Femininity at the fin de siècle (SoSe 2007)


Bachelor-Seminare/Undergraduate Level:


  • The African-American Novel at the Midcentury (WS 2011/12)
  • Bachelor Colloquium (Literature and Culture) (WS 2009/10)
  • The Perils of Nationhood: Seduction, Madness, and Espionage in the Literature of the New Republic (SoSe 2006)
  • Poetiken des Neuen in der literarischen Moderne (SoSe 2006)
  • The International Theme: Travelers, Tourists, and Potential Cosmopolitans (WS 2005/06)
  • Einführung in die Literaturwissenschaft und die Analyse literarische Texte (WS 2006/07; WS 2007/08)
  • American Gothic: Form und Funktion einer Gattung (SoSe 2005)
  • Trauma and Memory: Responses to September 11th" (SoSe 2005)


American Studies, Englisches Seminar, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany, 2002-2005; 2012

Master-Seminare/Graduate Level:


  • The African-American-Novel at Midcentury (SoSe 2012)
  • Photo-Realisms: Entanglements of Image and Text (SoSe 2012)
  • Trauma and Memory: Responses to September 11th (SoSe 2005)


Bachelor-Seminare/Undergraduate Level:


  • American Gothic (SoSe 2012)
  • Los Angeles: Street Views and Screen Images (SoSe 2012)
  • The Gothic Sublime (WS 2002/03)
  • The American Cyborg (SoSe 2002)