Seminar für Englische Philologie

Phillip James Grider, M.A.

Phillip James Grider, M.A.

Wiss. Mitarbeitende




  • Early American Studies
  • Postcolonial Studies
  • More-Than-Human Studies
  • (Postcolonial) Landscapes
  • Early American Botany
  • Agency

Current Project (Ph.D.)

Non-Human Agency in Early North American Media

  • Since 10/2022 Wissenschaftliche*r Mitarbeiter*in/Research Assistant, English Department/American Studies, University of Göttingen
  • 02/2022-08/2022 Lecturer, American Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, NL
  • 08/2021-09/2022 Student Assistant (WHK) GRK “Scripts for Postindustrial Urban Futures: American Models, Transatlantic Interventions,” University of Duisburg-Essen
  • 04/2021-08/2021 LfbA/Lecturer (Parental Leave Substitute), Department of Anglophone Studies/American Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen
  • 05/2020-03/2021 Student Assistant (WHF), Department of Anglophone Studies/American Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen
  • 07/2019-03/2021 Student Assistant (WHF) in DFG FOR 2600 “Ambiguität und Unterscheidung: Historisch-Kulturelle Dynamiken,“ TP 02: “‘Neophytes,‘ ‘Renegadoes,‘ ‚Creoles:‘ Dynamiken der (Dis-)Ambiguierung in nordamerikanischen Dikussionen des Wandels vom Kolonialismus zur Nationalstaatlichkeit,“ University of Duisburg-Essen

  • Since 10/2022 Ph.D. Studies, English Department/American Studies, University of Göttingen
  • 10/2018-02/2021 M.A. Studies: Anglophone Studies (American Studies)/German Studies (Language and Culture), University of Duisburg-Essen
  • 10/2015-01/2019 B.A. Studies: Anglophone Studies (Literature and Culture)/German Studies (Language, Literature, Culture, and Communication), University of Duisburg-Essen

  • 10/2017 – 10/2021
    Deutschlandstipendium Scholarship
  • 2023/24
    Christoph Daniel Ebeling Fellowship of the German Association of American Studies at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester MA, USA

  • Furlanetto, Elena and Phillip James Grider. “Rather Pretty Legends: The Vanishing Gardens of Lafcadio Hearn and George Washington Cable.” Stadt: Eine gebaute Lebensform zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft, edited by Jens Beutman et al., WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2022, pp. 291-309.
  • Grider, Phillip James. “’There is a Beast They Call Aroughcun:’ Raccoons and Colonial North America.” European Journal of American Studies, Special Issue: Interspecies Harmony in North American Literature and Culture, edited by Jack Harrison (forthcoming January 2024, abstract accepted)

  • DGfA/GAAS Annual Conference 2023
    “America and Ownership: Territory, Slavery, Jubilee,” Rostock University, June 1-3, 2023
    Panel: “[En]Closures: Spatial Confinement and Discursive Delineation in Early America”
    Paper Title: “’pro pelle cutem:’ Animal Skin and Otherness in Settler Colonial America”
  • Voices and Agencies: America and the Atlantic, 1600-1865 Workshop I: “Voices: Self-Writing in the Age of Un-Selfing.” FU Berlin, February 24-25, 2022
    Paper title: “Non-Human Agency in Early North American Media”
  • PopMec Association for US Popular Culture Studies Virtual Conference: “Animals in the American Popular Imagination.” Online, September 12-16, 2022.
    Paper title: “The Raccoon as Agent of Colonialism in Early North America.”

  • Member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien/German Association for American Studies (DGfA/GAAS)
  • Member of the Society of Early Americanists (SEA)
  • Member of the DFG research network “Voices and Agencies: America and the Atlantic, 1600-1865”

Current Course

University Göttingen

  • Nature, Landscapes, and People in Early American Literature (SoSe 23)

Past Courses

University Göttingen

  • America Through the Lens: Narratives from the Margins in North American Photography (WiSe 22/23)

Radboud University Nijmegen, NL

  • Survey American Literature (summer term 2022)

University of Duisburg-Essen

  • “A Land Hung in Mourning:” The Work of George Washington Cable (SoSe 2021)
  • A Survey of American Literature (SoSe 2021)