PhD Student

Project Results

• Travel Zines And New Psychogeographies: Walking British Spaces In Self-Published Media

• Since the term was coined by the Situationists after the Second World War, the understanding of subversive journeys on foot as so-called “psychogeographies” has been established and continually modified. In British culture in particular, the past 50 years saw the processing and publication of psychogeographies in literary works. The research project looked beyond these popular works of psychogeography, turning its attention towards a homogeneous wealth of self-published texts in the form of the medium ‘zine’. In contrast to conventional publications, these printed matters express psychogeography through their media-specific representation and publication practices. The zine medium is characterized by its ephemeral and assembled form, whose affordances include intermedial, spatially functioning page architectures and sequences. Such self-publications are characterized by their proximity and convergence with other media, such as comics, magazines or blogs. An examination of a broad corpus of contemporary British travel zines identified parallels between the medium and psychogeography – or, rather, the more diverse “new psychogeographies” (Richardson 2015): Both are highly subjective and experimental, dealing with themes such as fictionality in perception and memory, space-time, physical materiality, and can be understood as subversive and therapeutic practices. In their experimental, open form, psychogeographies attempt, among other things, to spatially perceive alternative perspectives – and zines in turn make these visible. In four case studies, the dissertation analyzed this literary materialization of travel in one’s own publication practice. Among other things, it was possible to shed light on the extent to which the mutual connection between authors and readers in autographic zines authenticates the actual travel narrative.

Research interests:

• Space, Travel and Mobility in Literature
• Media Aesthetics and Intermediality Studies (Focus: Comics, Zines, TV)
• Autobiography and Life Writing
• New Materialisms and Posthumanism
• Epistemic Media

CV

• since 03/2023: Research Fellow at the English Department of the University of Tübingen
• 10/2018 – 12/2022: PhD student and Fellow at Graduate Research Group “New Travel – New Media”, University of Freiburg (Thesis submitted in Jan. 2023)
• 09/2018: Research Scholarship at the Bodleian Library and Jesus College, Oxford University
• 10/2016 – 08/2018: Master of Arts in British and North American Cultural Studies, University of Freiburg (with distinction from the Alumni Association)
• 10/2012 – 09/2016: Bachelor of Arts in English and American Studies, University of Freiburg and Ulster University, Northern Ireland

Awards & Scholarships

• The Cotter Scholarship, Gladstone’s Library (June 2023)
• Alumni Award for Outstanding MA Thesis, Freiburg University Alumni Association (January 2019)
• Research Scholarship, Bodleian Library/ Jesus College, University of Oxford (September 2018)
• Scheffel Award for Outstanding Achievement in German Studies, Literary Society Karlsruhe (June 2012)

 Publications

• “Drawing (from) Life: Reading Autobiographical Comics as a Form of Visual-Verbal Literacy.” Blog of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) Essen (2023) –> Elektronische Ressource
• “Journeying the Page: The Psychogeography of Text and Image in the Zine.” Mobile Culture Studies Vol. 8 (Graz: University of Graz, 2020) → Electronic resource
• “Imagining the Arctic: Visual-Verbal Representations of the Polar North in Periodicals of 19th-century Britain.” Tagungsband zur internationalen Konferenz Representations of West Nordic Isles: Greenland/Svalbard – Iceland – Faroes (forthcoming)
• “Binge Watching the World: Travel Television in the Age of Streaming.” In: Travel, Writing, and the Media: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives, Routledge Studies in Cultural History (2022) → Electronic resource

Papers

• “Travel(ling) Zines: DIY-Assemblages of Small Forms on the Move”, Lecture at the Research Group “Small Forms”, 3. July 2023, Humboldt University of Berlin
• “Printed Psychogeographies: Walking, Writing and Self-Publishing as Practices of Dissent”, Paper at the Conference “Key Themes in Travel Research, 1. June 2023, State Library Eutin
• “Authenticating the Journey: The Intimate Materialities of Travel Zines”, Paper in the Seminar “Comics Materialities: Towards New Possibilities of Reading, Looking, and Feeling”, Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, 16.-19. March 2023, Chicago (accepted)
• “New Travel – New Media: Medialised Forms of Contemporary Travel”, Workshop talk with Prof. Dr. Barbara Korte, 15. June 2022, State Library Eutin
• “New Psychogeography”, Paper in the form of a video-essay at the Summer School “Travel and Media Past and Present”, 20.-21. May 2021, hosted by the State Library Eutin and the Graduate Research College “New Travel – New Media”, Online
• “Imagining the Arctic: Visual-Verbal Representations of the Polar North in Mid-Victorian Britain”, Conference “Representations of the West Nordic Isles: Greenland, Iceland, Faroes”, 20.-21. September 2019, State Library Eutin
• “Feet, Street and Concrete: Expressing Corporeality through Psychogeographical City Walks in Oliver East’s Trains Are … Mint Comics”, Conference “Body in Motion, Travelling Bodies in Anglophone Literature”, 24-25 May 2019, Université Paris 8/Saint Denis
• “‘Walking Makes For Content’: Psychogeographical Walks in London between Materiality and Discourse”, Conference “Touristification of Urban Spaces”, 22-24 May 2019, University of Freiburg
• “Breaking Self-Surveillance through Psychogeography (in the Comics of Oliver East)” at the Master Student Workshop “Experiencing Surveillance in Fiction and Theory”, 9 June 2018, University of Freiburg

Teaching

• Led the Reading Group “Affect and Emotion in Literature and Literary Theory”, Winter term 2020/21, Universität Freiburg
• Session on Comics Theory in the Seminar “Gender in Contemporary Genres” of PD Dr. Nicole Falkenhayner, Summer term 2020
• Teaching Fellowship at the University College Freiburg, Course: “Imagined Spaces: Self and Place in Twenty-First Century Writing”, Summer term 2019
• Led the accompanying tutorial for the lecture “Introduction to Literary Studies” at the University of Freiburg, Winter term 2016/17

Memberships

• German Association for the Study of English
• German Association for the Study of British Cultures (BritCult)
• Work Group Comics Studies of the German Association for Media Studies
• British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies
• European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and the Environment