CV

Welcome to my website!

I am an American Studies scholar with teaching and research experience in Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, the UK, Italy, and Brazil. I am currently working at the University of Vienna as a senior researcher.

In my research and teaching I focus on the intersections that take place between literature, media, and the arts. I believe that it is only through social interactions and self-reflective dialogue across & beyond national and institutional borders that we can strive for our best potential as scholars, students, and artists.

As senior researcher and vice PI in the FWF and ERC-funded project Poetry Off the Page (PI Julia Latja-Novak), we are currently working on a team book on British Literary History and the Spoken Word (1965-2020).

From October 2016 – September 2021 I worked as interim commissionary chair in American Studies (Kommissarische Lehrstuhlvertretung Amerikanistik; Englisches Seminar) at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany.

In November 2017, I completed my Habilitation at TU Dortmund University in Germany, where I received the venia legendi in American Literary and Cultural Studies with a Habilitation-thesis titled Ahab in Love: The Creative Reception of Moby-Dick in Popular Culture (in preparation for publication).

Previously, I have taught as Assistant Professor of American Studies at TU Dortmund University, where I completed my PhD summa cum laude with a thesis titled Poetry Goes Intermedia: U.S.-amerikanische Lyrik des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts (2010). I taught as guest lecturer at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, USA (2005-2006), as Visting Assistant Professor in the American Studies Department at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands (2009/2010). I was Visiting Researcher at Harvard University and at the Melville Society Archive in New Bedford (March 2012), aand at SUNY New Paltz (July-Aug 2000).

I received my Mag. phil. summa cum laude with a thesis titled Sounds of Poetry: Contemporary American Performance Poets (2003) at the University of Graz, Austria.

My research and teaching interests include:

• U.S. American Literature, Cultural Studies, and Media Studies: from the 19th to the 21st centuries
• U.S. Poetry and British Poetry (incl. performance poetry, poetry slams, poetryfilms, E-poetry)
• Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
• Legacies and New Trajectories in Analyzing Literature
• Transnational Studies and Transcultural Studies
• Popular Culture, Visual Culture, Sound Studies
• Adaptation Studies and Reception Studies
• Digital Archives and Digital Databases
• Identity Politics (‘race’/ethnicity, class, gender; intersectionality)

If you are interested in collaborating across and beyond cultural and institutional borders, please send an email to: martina.pfeiler@univie.ac.at