Prof. Dr. Jan D. Kucharzewski

2013 – 2019 Juniorprofessor (Associate Professor) for American Studies at the University of Hamburg

2009 – 2013 Assistant Professor/Post-Doc for American Studies at the University of Hamburg

2007 – 2009 Assistant Professor for American Studies at Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf

2004 – 2007 Research Assistant for American Studies at Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf

2011 Publication of Propositions about Life: Reengaging Literature and Science (Heidelberg: Winter) with a publication grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG)

2008 Interview with American novelist Richard Powers on the relationship between literature, science, and literary theory. Published in Propositions about Life: Reengaging Literature and Science

2008 Visiting Scholar on a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Scholarship at the Department of English and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA (Sponsor: Richard Powers)

2004 – 2009 Dissertation on Propositions about Life: Reengaging Literature and Science (Advisor: Prof. Dr. Herwig Friedl); Awarded: summa cum laude

Monographs and Edited Volumes

Ideas of Order: Narrative Patterns in the Novels of Richard Powers. Co-edited with Antje Kley. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012.

Propositions about Life: Reengaging Literature and Science. Heidelberg: Winter, 2011.

“Hello, I Say, It’s Me”: Contemporary Reconstructions of Self and Subjectivity. Co-edited with Stefanie Schäfer and Lutz Schowalter. Trier: WVT, 2009.

Articles and Contributions

“‘A Blessed Rage for Order’: The Metaphysics of Liminality in Modern American Poetry.” In preparation.

“…the Wood for the Trees: Anti-Humanist Wonder in Richard Powers’ The Overstory.” The New Politics of the Post-Millennial U.S.-American Novel. Eds. Marius Henderson, Julia Lange, and Jolene Mathieson. In preparation.

“‘If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It’: Hunting and the Regeneration of Masculinity in Post-Vietnam American Cinema.“ Hunting Without Weapons: On the Pursuit of Images. Ed. Maurice Saß. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2017. 219-239.

“‘Somewhere Out There is a True and Living Prophet of Destruction’: Chaotic Cartographies and Eroding Boundaries in Ethan and Joel Cohen’s No Country for Old Men.” Violence and Open Spaces: The Subversion of Boundaries and the Transformation of the Western Genre. Eds. Stefanie Müller, Christa Buschendorf, and Katja Sarkowsky. Heidelberg: Winter, 2017. 77-91.

“‘The Irreducible Complexity of the Analog World: Nodes, Networks, and Actants in Contemporary American Fiction.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 60.1 (2015): 121-138. (Recipient of the “Best Article Award” of the German Association for American Studies)

“‘You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat’: Männlichkeit und Homosozialität.” Der Weiße Hai Revisited: Steven Spielbergs Jaws und die Geburt eines amerikanischen Albtraums. Ed. Wieland Schwanebeck. Berlin: Bertz+Fischer, 2015. 177-189.

“‘Don’t Say Penis in this House’: (De)Constructing the Male Political Body in Oliver Stone’s Born on the 4th of July.” A Man’s World? Political Masculinities in Literature and Culture. Eds. Kathleen Starck and Birgit Sauer. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. 127-139.

“Survival of the Sickest? Cognitive Disorders and the Question of Agency in Contemporary American Literature.” American Lives. Ed. Alfred Hornung. Heidelberg: Winter, 2013. 521-536.

“‘You Do an Awfully Good Impression of Yourself’: Authorial Impostors in American Fiction.“ Fake Identity? The Impostor Narrative in North American Culture. Eds. Caroline Rosenthal and Stefanie Schäfer. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press and Campus, 2014. 99-110.

“‘Only After Disaster Can We Be Resurrected’: The Crisis of Masculinity in David Fincher’s Fight Club“. REAL Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, Vol. 27: States of Emergency – States of Crisis. Eds. Winfried Fluck, Katharina Motyl, Donald E. Pease, and Christoph Raetzsch. Tübingen: Narr, 2011. 239-258.

“Disposable Miracles: Incorporated Subjectivities in Richard Powers’ Gain.” “Hello, I Say, It’s Me”: Contemporary Reconstructions of Self and Subjectivity. Eds. Jan D. Kucharzewski, Stefanie Schäfer, and Lutz Schowalter. Trier: WVT, 2009. 173-189.

“‘From Language to Life is Just Four Letters’: Self-Referentiality vs. the Reference of Self in Richard Powers’ Galatea 2.2.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 53.2 (2008): 171-187.

“‘Reengagements with the World’s Living Concepts’: Fiktion und Referenzialität im amerikanischen Gegenwartsroman.” Co-authored with Lutz Schowalter. Amerikanisches Erzählen nach 2000. Ed. Sebastian Domsch. München: edition text + kritik, 2008. 21-38.

“Ein quantenmechanisches Netzwerk: Gertrude Stein, William James und Niels Bohr.” Netzwerke der Moderne: Erkundungen und Strategien. Eds. Jan Broch, Markus Rassiller, and Daniel Scholl. Würzburg: Forum, 2007. 341-361.

“Kubistische Klänge und Informelle Insistenz: Isomorphe Prozesse in den Werken Scelsis, Pollocks und Steins.” Dialoge zwischen Amerika und Europa: Transatlantische Perspektiven in Philosophie, Literatur, Kunst und Musik. Eds. Astrid Böger, Georg Schiller, and Nicole Schröder. Tübingen: Francke, 2007. 273-293.

“‘There is no ‘there’ there’: Gertrude Stein and Quantum Physics.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 49.4 (2004): 499-513. (Shortlisted for the “Best Article Award” of the German Association for American Studies)

Reviews

Johanna Heil, Walking the Möbius Strip: An Inquiry into Knowing in Richard Powers’s Fiction. Amerikastudien/American Studies. In preparation.

James Dorson, Counternarrative Possibilities: Virgin Land, Homeland, and Cormac McCarthy’s Westerns. Amerikastudien/American Studies. In preparation.

Saul Levmore und Martha C. Nussbaum (Eds.), American Guy: Masculinity in American Law and Literature. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 63.4 (2015): 470-472.

Stefan Horlacher and Kevin Floyd (Eds.), Post-World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture: Towards Comparative Masculinity Studies. Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 26.1 (2015): 174-175.

Cecile Sandten, Gunter Süß, and Melanie Graichen (Eds.), Detective Fiction and Popular Visual Culture. Anglia: Journal of English Philology/Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 133.3 (2015): 576-579.

David Brauner, Contemporary Fiction. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 59.3 (2011): 309-311.

Eva Zehelein, Science: Dramatic – Science Plays in America and Great Britain 1990-2007. Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 22.2 (2011): 181-184.

2019 Performance-based bonus funding from the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Hamburg

2018 Grants from the U.S. Consulate, Rowohlt Publishers, the Hamburgische Wissenschaftliche Stiftung, the Faulty for Humanities of the University of Hamburg, and the Society for the Promotion of Intercultural Activities (ICA) for the conference “Current Tendencies in Contemporary American Fiction” at the University of Hamburg. With Marius Henderson, Julia Lange, and Jolene Mathieson

2018 Grants from the University of Hamburg and the German Association for American Studies for organizing and hosting the 66th Annual Meeting of the German Society for American Studies. With Prof. Dr. Astrid Böger and Prof. Dr. Susanne Rohr

2018 Travel grant from the University of Hamburg for a research visit at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA

2018 Performance-based bonus funding from the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Hamburg

2017 Travel grant from the University of Hamburg and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for the conference “Modernisms and Modernities East, West and South: Comparing Literary and Cultural Studies” at Fudan University Shanghai, China

2016 “Best Article Award” of the German Association for American Studies for the article “‘The Irreducible Complexity of the Analog World’: Nodes, Networks, and Actants in Contemporary American Fiction”

2016 Travel grant from the University of Hamburg for a research visit at the University of Indiana at Bloomington, USA

2015 Fulbright Scholarship for a research visit at the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA

2011 Publishing grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the publication of the dissertation Propositions about Life: Reengaging Literature and Science

2009 Grants from the Bavarian America Academy (BAA), the German Association for American Studies (DGfA) and the Dr. German-Schweiger-Foundation for the international conference “Ideas of Order: Narrative Patterns in the Novels of Richard Powers” at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. With Prof. Dr. Antje Kley

2009 Publishing grant from the Fritz-Thyssen-Foundation for the volume “Hello, I Say, It’s Me”: Contemporary Reconstructions of Self and Subjectivity. With Stefanie Schäfer and Lutz Schowalter

2008 Travel grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a research visit at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

2008 Grants from the Fritz-Thyssen-Foundation and the Society of Friends and Patrons of the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf for the organization of the international conference “Hello, I Say, It’s Me: Reconstructions of Subjectivity in Contemporary Literature and Culture” at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf. With Stefanie Schäfer and Lutz Schowalter

2005 Shortlisted for the “Best Article Award” of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA) with the article “‘There is no ‘there’ there’: Gertrude Stein and Quantum Physics” 2002 Travel grant from the Society of Friends and Patrons of the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf for a research visit at the University of California at Davis, USA

2018 Visiting Scholar at the Department of History at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA

2017 Visiting scholar at Indiana University Bloomington and the Beinecke Library at Yale University

2016 Guest lectures at the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at State University of New York at Stony Brook (USA) and at Fairfield University, Connecticut (USA)

2015 Fulbright scholar at the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at State University of New York at Stony Brook (USA)

2008 Visiting scholar on a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at the Department of English and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA). Sponsor: Richard Powers

2002 – 2003 Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Davis (USA)

• 11/2019 “Within Cells Interlinked: Metropolitan Cyborg Masculinities in Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049.” Conference: “Metropolitan Masculinities: Narratives of Gender and Urban Space” at the University of Bochum. In preparation
• 07/2019 “Of Things Exactly as They Are: Painting and Poetry in Transnational Modernism.” DAAD Summer School “Global Modernisms” at the University of Hamburg
• 06/2019 Co-Organization of the 66th Annual Conference of German Association for American Studies at the University of Hamburg.
• 05/2019 “I’m the Captain Now: Hegemony and Liminality in ‘Benito Cereno’ and Captain Phillips.” Conference: “Postcolonial Oceans: Contradictions and Heterogeneities in the Epistemes of Salt” at the University of Bremen
• 12/2018 “To see what the thing looks like, sped up to the rate of human desire: Stereoscopic Scaling in the Novels of Richard Powers.” Conference: “Scales and Scaling in Texts and Textual Analysis“ at the University of Hamburg
• 11/2018 Organization of the “Hamburger Amerikanistikpreis” (Hamburg American Studies Award) for the best BA/MA theses. In cooperation with the Consulate General of the United States and the Amerikazentrum Hamburg e.V.
• 11/2018 “Let’s Keep Going: Towards an American Liminal.” Post-graduate colloquium of the Institute for English and American Studies at the University of Hamburg.
• 09/2018 “The Tale of Two Turners: Liminality vs. Teleology in Discourses of the American Frontier.” Guest lecture at the Department of History at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania (USA)
• 06/2018 “…the Wood for the Trees: Anti-Humanist Wonder in Richard Powers’ The Overstory.” Conference: “Current Tendencies in Contemporary American Fiction” at the University of Hamburg
• 05/2018 “A Cannibal of a Craft: Ships as Liminal Counter/Publics in the Works of Herman Melville.” Conference: 65th Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin
• 03/2018 Panel discussion on Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape at the Schauspielhaus Hamburg
• 07/2017 “A Blessed Rage for Order: The Metaphysics of Liminality in Modern American Poetry.” Conference: “Modernisms and Modernities East, West and South: Comparing Literary and Cultural Studies” at Fudan University Shanghai (China)
• 05/2017 “But Wherever the Truth may be: Frontiers and Boundaries in Modernist Poetry.” Conference: 64th Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies at the University of Hanover
• 05/2017 Organization of the workshop “I placed a jar in Tennessee: The Poetics and Topographies of the Frontier in American Modernism” at the 64th Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies in Hanover. With Jolene Mathieson
• 04/2017 “The Milk and Sperm of Kindness: Seamen, Oceans, and Homosocial Masculinities in American Film and Literature.” Lecture Series: “OceanoGraphies: Of Seascapes, Ships, and Sailor’s Yarns” at the University of Hamburg
• 04/2017 – 07/2017 Organization of the interdisciplinary and public lecture series “OceanoGraphies: Of Seascapes, Ships, and Sailor’s Yarns” at the University of Hamburg. With Jolene Mathieson
• 02/2017 “Sacred Idioms Shorn of Their Referents: The Apocalyptic Tradition in American Culture.” Symposium: “The End: (Post-)Apocalyptic Visions in American and British Cultures” at the University of Hamburg
• 09/2016 “Video Game Masculinities.” Guest lecture at the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at State University of New York at Stony Brook (USA)
• 06/2016 “You didn’t ask for reality, you asked for more teeth: Animal Violence, Authenticity, and the Question of Agency in the Jurassic Park Movies.” Conference: “Wilde Bestien: Bilder Tierischer Aggression, Gewalt und Brutalität” at the University of Hamburg
• 02/2016 “Nautical Masculinities in American Literature and Film.” Guest lecture at the Seminar für Englische Philologie at University of Göttingen
• 01/2016 “Playing Men: Constructions of Hyper-masculinity in European Video Games.” Conference: “20th and 21st Century Narratives of Masculinity: Commonalities and Differences in European Constructions of Masculinity” at the Center of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Bielefeld
• 11/2015 “If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It: Hunters and the Crisis of Masculinity in Post-Vietnam American Action Movies.” Conference: “Hunting Without Weapons or Animals: The Power of the Ars venationis“ at the University of Hamburg
• 09/2015 “Homosocial Masculinities in American Sea Stories from Herman Melville to Pirates of the Caribbean.” Guest lecture at the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at State University of New York at Stony Brook (USA)
• 09/2015 “Writing Technologies: Reading Technological Advances through American Literature.” Guest lecture at Fairfield University, Connecticut (USA)
• 09/2015 “Weapons, Wounds, and Wimps: Modes of Masculinity in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema.” Guest lecture at the Graduate School of Education at Columbia University, New York (USA)
• 06/2015 Organization of the workshop “From Metaphor to Matter: The New Materialism in American Knowledge Production” at the 62nd Annual Conference for the German Association for American Studies at the University of Bonn. With Prof. Dr. Laura Bieger
• 02/2015 “Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombies as Cultural Metaphors.” Public lecture at Open University (Orientation Day at the University of Hamburg)
• 11/2014 “Constructing Masculinity in American Film and Television.” Guest lecture at the University of Osnabrück
• 11/2014 “Natürlich männlich? Maskulinität, Natur und Authentizität in der amerikanischen Populärkultur.” Lecture series: “Natur-Bild-Geschichte” at the University of Hamburg organized by Prof. Dr. Frank Fehrenbach
• 05/2013 “Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction - Chaotic Cartographies and Eroding Boundaries in No Country for Old Men”. Lecture at the workshop "Violence and Open Spaces: The Subversion of Boundaries and the Transformation of the Western Genre" on the 60. Annual Conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien in Erlangen.
• 05/2013 „The Capacity for Wonder: Science and Fiction in the Novels of Richard Powers“. Guest lecture at the Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik of the Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt on invitation by Nathalie Aghoro.
• 11/2012 „Don’t Say Penis in My House – (De)Constructing the Male Political Body in the Movies of Oliver Stone”. Lecture at the Conference „Political Masculinities in Literature and Culture: From Early Modernism to Today” at the University of Koblenz-Landau. (In preparation)
• 11/2012 „Welcome to the Desert of the Real: Jean Baudrillard in American Popular Culture“. Guest lecture at the Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik of the University of Paderborn on invitation by Prof. Dr. Miriam Strube.
• 10/2012 „Fiction Is to Science as the Mind Is to the Brain: Richard Powers’ Scientifictions“. Lecture at the workshop „Science in Fiction“ at the University of Bremen.
• 10/2012 „Ein bisschen Spaß muss sein? David Foster Wallace im Kontext der amerikanischen Literaturgeschichte.“ Lecture at the Amerikazentrum Hamburg e.V.
•  07/2012 „Cool Guys Don’t Look at Explosions: Constructing Masculinity in Contemporary American Cinema”. Guest lecture at the Institut für Amerikanistik of the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg on invitation by Prof. Dr. Antje Kley.
• 05/2012: "Survival of the Sickest? Cognitive Disorders and the Question of Agency in Contemporary American Literature“. Lecture at the workshop "Healing Self-Portraits? Representing Illness in Poetry, Prose, and Film“ on the 59. Annual Conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien in Mainz.
• 04/2012: "You do an awfully good impression of yourself: Authorial Impostors in American Fiction“. Lecture at the conference "Fake Identities: Impostors, ConMen, Wannabes in North American Culture“, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. 
• 03/2012: "The Irreducible Complexity of the Analog World: Nodes, Networks, and Connections in Contemporary American Fiction“. Lecture at the conference "Networks in American Culture/America as Network“, University of Mannheim.
• 06/2011: “‘Not an attack on our whole way of life, then’: Counter-Narratives of Crisis in the (Post-)9/11 Novel.” At the Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies at the University of Regensburg.
• 05/2011: “‘We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us’: Mexikanisch-amerikanische Grenzgänge/r im zeitgenössischen Hollywood Kino.” Lecture series “Grenzgänge/r: Migration und amerikanische Kultur” at the University of Hamburg.
• 11/2010: “Passing the World’s Turing Test: SELF-Referentiality in the Novels of Richard Powers.” At the International Conference “Ideas of Order: Narrative Patterns in the Novels of Richard Powers.” University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. 
• 11/2010: Co-Organizer of the International Conference: "Ideas of Order: Narrative Patterns in the Novels of Richard Powers.” University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. In cooperation with Prof. Dr. Antje Kley (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg).
• 06/2010: “Only after disaster can we be resurrected: Hollywood’s Recent Representations of Masculinities in Crisis.” At the International Conference “States of Emergency – Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Dynamics of Crisis.” Freie Universität Berlin.
• 06/2010: “Pragmatist Physics: Niels Bohr and William James“. At the International Conference “Revisioning Pragmatism: William James in the New Millennium.” University of Hamburg.
• 07/2009: “Reengagements with the World’s Living Concepts in Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2.” Guest Lecture at the Institute for English and American Studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. 
• 06/2009: “Sex and the City und Fight Club: Geschlechterdarstellung und Konsumkultur.“ University of Hamburg.
• 04/2008:  Co-Organizer of the International Conference “Hello, I Say, It’s Me: Reconstructions of Subjectivity in Contemporary Literature and Culture.” Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf. In Cooperation with Stefanie Schäfer, M.A. (University of Heidelberg) and Dr. Lutz Schowalter (University of Trier) 
• 02/2007: “The War was Within Us: Hollywood’s Rewriting of the Vietnam War.” Guest Lecture at the Radboud Universität Nijmegen
• 11/2006: “Ein quantenmechanisches Netzwerk: Gertrude Stein, William James und Niels Bohr.“ Postgraduate Forum of the “Zentrum für Moderneforschung” at the University of Cologne.
• 11/2006: “Rediscovering the Referent in the Novels of Richard Powers.” Postgraduate Forum of the German Association for American Studies at the University of Chemnitz.
• 07/2006: “Becoming the Virtual Third Person: Implementing the Self in Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2.” Conference of the International Auto/Biography Studies Association at the University of Mainz.    
• 06/2006: Co-Organizer of the Workshop “Representation of Crisis = Crisis of Representation?” Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies at the University of Göttingen. In Cooperation with Prof. Dr. Astrid Böger, University of Hamburg.
• 07/2005: “There is no ‘there’ there: Gertrude Stein and Quantum Physics.” Guest Lecture at the Institute for Applied Physics at the University of Regensburg.