Prof. Dr. Birte Christ

Prof. Dr. Birte Christ

Lehrstuhl Nordamerikanistik

• birte.christ@anglistik.uni-freiburg.de
• +49 761 203-3335
• Raum 01-011
  Werthmannstraße 6
• Office Hours
  Dienstag: 14:00–15:00
  Terminvereinbarung: https://calendly.com/birte-christ-anglistik/15min

Mehr zur Person

Profil

Curriculum Vitae

Since 2025                                                                                             Full Professor for North American Literature and Cultural Studies 
                                                                                                                   English Department | University of Freiburg
                                                                                                                   Heisenberg Professor

2025                                                                                                         Offer of the University of Gießen (Professorship of American Literary, Culture, and Me                                                                                                                       dia Studies) declined; offer of the University of Freiburg accepted

2024 – 2025                                                                                            Interim Professor and Heisenberg Position
                                                                                                                    English Department | University of Tübingen
                                                                                                                    Chair of Prof. Dr. Michael Butter

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  CV

  Complete Curriculum Vitae

  CV_Christ April 2026 (4 MB), 15. April 2026

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Lehre im SoSe 2026

Hauptseminar The American Death Penalty in Film

Projekte

2025 – 2030 Heisenberg Professorship (DFG-funded) on “The Politics of Popular Forms: Transnational and Intersectional Perspectives in American Studies”
Project 1: Before and Beyond the Great Divide: Theorizing Popular Literatures as a History of Intersections and Exclusions
Project 2: Transnational Middlebrow Reading Cultures after 1945: (De-)Canonization, Mediation, and the Market
Project 3: Representing Solitary Confinement: Contemporary Forms, Popular Audiences, and the Limits of Critique

Publikationen

Monographien

• Imagining the American Death Penalty: The Cultural Work of Popular Visual Representations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025.
• Modern Domestic Fiction: Popular Feminism, Mass-Market Magazines, and Middle-Class Culture, 1905–1925. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. 

Herausgeberschaften/besondere Ausgaben

• Embracing Postnational English Studies. Open-Topic Issue, European Journal of English Studies 2025: 28.3 2025.
• (ed. with Wibke Schniedermann) Towards Affect and Legality. Sonderheft Law, Culture, and the Humanities. (Online First, July 2023; Print, 2024)
• (ed. with Ève Morisi) Death Sentences: Literary Language and State Killing. Reihe Studies in Comparative Literature. Oxford: Legenda 2019.
• (In collaboration with; eds. Jan Alber and Greta Olson)How to Do Things with Narrative: Cognitive and Diachronic Perspectives. Reihe Narratologia Bd. 60. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017.
• (ed. with Stefanie Müller) Law and Poetry. Sonderheft Amerikastudien/American Studies 62.2 (2017).
• (ed. with Dorothee Birke) Paratext and Digitized Narrative. Essay Cluster for Narrative 21.1 (2013): 65–124. 
• (ed. with Greta Olson) Obama and the Paradigm Shift: Measuring Change. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. 
• (ed. with Michael Butter and Patrick Keller) 9/11: Kein Tag, der die Welt veränderte. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2011.
• (ed. with Christian Kloeckner, Elisabeth Schäfer-Wünsche and Michael Butter) American Studies/Shifting Gears. Heidelberg: Winter, 2010.

Aufsätze – Peer Review

• “The Whitewashed Scaffold: A.H. Baker’s Polemic “Hang the Black Rascal!” (1849) in the Context of Antebellum Anti-Gallows Poetry”. The Place of Race in Law and Literature, Eds. Andrew Bricker, Cedric Essi and Elise Wang, Sonderheft EJES: European Journal of English Studies 2025: Vol. 29. (forthcoming in 2025) 
• “Rallying Reformers and Summoning Sympathizers: The Affective Work of Anti-Gallows Poetry of the 1840s and 1850s”. Law & Literature (accepted; forthcoming in 2025)
• “The Death Penalty in Germany”. Companion on Capital Punishment and Society. Eds. Austin Sarat and Benjamin Fleury-Steiner. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024. 322-333.  
• “On missing out on ‘the real George W. Bush‘: Die Radikalisierung der Republikaner und die Polarisierung der Politik nach 9/11“. Der 11. September 2001 und die Folgen. Eds. Tim Epkenhans and Maurus Reinkowski, Sonderheft Asiatische Studien 76.2 (2022): 213-230.
• “Launching a Culture of Middlebrow Reading: RO-RO-RO Newspaper Editions and the Role of US American Literature in Post-War Germany, 1946-1949“. Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 63 (2022): 205-240. 
• “‘The real feel of hard time’: Lyrico-Carceral Temporalities in C. D. Wright’s One Big Self (2007)“. Law and Literature, Sonderheft von Symbolism. Hrsg. Franziska Quabeck. Symbolism 21 (2021): 115-134.
• “National Identity and Literary Culture after 9/11: Pro- and Anti-Americanism in Frédéric Beigbeder’s Windows on the World (2003) and Thomas Hettche’s Woraus wir gemacht sind (2006)“. 9/11 in European Literature. Eds. Svenja Frank. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017: 207-251.
• “The Bildung of a Reformer: Mary Livermore’s Poetic Involvement in the Anti-Gallows Campaign of the 1840s“. Legacy 34.2 (2017): 356-376. 
• (with Stefanie Mueller) “Towards a Legal Poetics“. Poetry and Law, Sonderheft von Amerikastudien/American Studies. Eds. Birte Christ and Stefanie Mueller, 62.2 (2017): 149-68.
• “State Killing and the Poetic Series: George Elliott Clarke’s Execution Poems and Jill McDonough’s Habeas Corpus“. Poetry and Law, Sonderheft von Amerikastudien/American Studies. Eds. Birte Christ and Stefanie Mueller, 62.2 (2017): 279-300.
• “The Aesthetics of Accessibility: John Irving and the Middlebrow Novel after 1975“. Sonderheft Post-45 “Inventing the Middlebrow“. Eds. Tom Perrin and Cecilia Konchar-Farr. 07.01.2016. http://post45.research.yale.edu/2016/07/the-aesthetics-of-accessibility-john-irving-and-the-middlebrow-novel-after-1975/
• “‘What kind of man are you?’: The Gendered Foundations of U.S. Conspiracism and Recent Conspiracy Scholarship“. Conspiracy Theories in the Middle East and in the United States. Eds. Michael Butter and Maurus Reinkowski. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2014. 311-32. 
• (with Dorothee Birke) “Paratext and Digitized Narrative: Mapping the Field“. Narrative 21.1 (2013): 65-87. 
• “‘If I Were a Man’: The Counterfactual as Feminist Analytic“. Counterfactual Thinking/Counterfactual Writing. Eds. Dorothee Birke, Michael Butter and Tilmann Köppe. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2011, 190-211. 
• “More Trouble with Diversity: Re-Dressing Poverty, Masking Class in Middlebrow Success Fiction“. Beyond the Culturalization of Class. Sonderheft Amerikastudien/American Studies. Eds. Michael Butter and Carsten Schinko. 55.1 (2010): 19-44. 

Weitere Aufsätze

• “All About Electability: Women, Power, and the Presidential Elections”. Diversity Issues in the USA: Transnational Perspectives on the 2024 U.S. Presidential Elections. Eds. Melanie Kreitler and Grgeta Olson. Bielefeld: transcript, 2024. 141-164.
• “Kinder denken. Elternschaft als analytische Identitätskategorie“. Politiken der Reproduktion. Eds. Marie Fröhlich, Ronja Schütz and Katharina Wolf. Bielefeld: transcript, 2022. 113-126.
• “Stephen King’s Poetic Justice: Seriality, Narrative Framing, and Intertextuality in The Green Mile“. Death Sentences: Literary Language and State Killing. Reihe Studies in Comparative Literature. Eds. Birte Christ and Éve Morisi. Oxford: Legenda, 2019. 208-226.
• “The New Poverty Studies: Current Concerns and Challenges“. Key Concepts and New Topics in English and American Studies. Eds. Ansgar Nünning and Elizabeth Kovach. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2014. 31-54.
• “Michelle Obama, the Good American and Icon of Global Power Femininity: Gender Politics and National Boundary-Making in German News Coverage“.Obama and the Paradigm Shift: Measuring Change. Eds. Birte Christ and Greta Olson. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. 167-95.
• (with Michael Butter) „Teaching Reading in Installments: An Experiment“. Proceedings: Anglistentag 2011 Freiburg. Eds. Monika Fludernik und Benjamin Kohlmann. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2012. 253-60.
• “Hillary Clinton’s Municipal Housekeeping: It Takes a Village (1996) as a Claim to Female Public (Presidential?) Office“. The American Presidency: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Eds. Dietmar Schloss, Wilfried Mausbach und Martin Thunert. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. 255-69.
• „Männer“. 9/11: Kein Tag, der die Welt veränderte. Hrsg. Michael Butter, Birte Christ und Patrick Keller. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2011. 90-105.
• (with Michael Butter and Patrick Keller) „Einleitung“. 9/11: Kein Tag, der die Welt veränderte. Hrsg. Michael Butter, Birte Christ und Patrick Keller.Paderborn: Schöningh, 2011. 6-12. 
• (with Christian Kloeckner) “Introduction: What’s in Two Names? – From ‚The Futures of (European) American Studies’ to ‚American Studies / Shifting Gears’“. American Studies/Shifting Gears. Eds. Birte Christ et al. Heidelberg: Winter, 2010. 1-19.
• (with Vanessa Künnemann) “Middlebrow Studies and the Turn to Economic Inequality“. American Studies/Shifting Gears. Eds. Birte Christ et al. Heidelberg: Winter, 2010. 397-418.
• “Capital Punishment and the Citizen-Subject“. American Literary History 27.1 (2015): 114-27. 

Beiträge zu Handbooks und Enzyklopädien

• “Exploring Selves in the Social Media: Anglophone Gen Z Women’s Poetry” The Handbook of Life Writing. Eds. Alfred Hornung and Helga Schwalm. Berlin: deGruyter. (forthcoming in 2025)
• “The Death Penalty”.  Handbook North American Literatures and the Legal Humanities. Eds. Mita Banerjee, Stefanie Mueller, Katja Sarkowsky. Berlin: deGruyter. (forthcoming in 2025)
• (with Stefanie Mueller) “Poetik und Recht”. Literatur und Recht. Reihe Handbücher zur kulturwissenschaftlichen Philologie. Eds. Hania Siebenpfeiffer, Peter Schneck and Claudia Lieb. Berlin: de Gruyter. (2023).
• “36. Death Penalty”. The Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Law and Literature. Eds. Simon Stern and Robert Spoo. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004. 137-140.  
• “John Irving”. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction, 1980-2020. Eds. Stephen Burn und Lesley Larkin. Wiley-Blackwell, 2022.
• “John Irving”. Twentieth Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context. Eds. Linda DeRoche. ABC’CLIO, 2021.
• “Ida Boy-Ed“, “Hedwig Courths-Mahler“, “Verena Stefan“. Dictionnaire des femmes créatrices. Eds. Antoinette Fouque, Mireille Calle-Gruber und Béatrice Didier. Paris: Des femmes, 2013.
• “Lydia Sigourney: Das Lyrische Werk“. Kindler Literatur-Lexikon. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2009.
• (with Michael Butter.) „Orpheus“. Antike Mythen und ihre Rezeption. Ed. Lutz Walther. Leipzig: Reclam, 2003: 180-86.

Didaktische Materialien

• (with Michael Butter) Die Geschichte hinter dem Bild: 9/11 – Der 11. September 2001. Erfurt: Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2021.
• „Did You Ever Have the Feeling…?“: Nonsens-Gedichte fühlen, sprechen, erfinden und performen lernen mit Dr. Seuss’ There’s a WOCKET in my POCKET!“ Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch: Performing Poetries 168 (2020): 12-17.
• „Iconic Kids: Kontexte und Rezeption von weltbekannten Kinderfotos recherchieren“. Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch: Bilder Lesen – Photography 158 (2019): 42-48. 
• (ed. with Michael Butter) The American Presidency. Sonderheft (mit Michael Butter) „Image Politics: Die politische Kultur der USA kennenlernen, visual literacy erwerben“. The American Presidency. Hrsg. Michael Butter und Birte Christ. Sonderheft Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 141 (2016): 2-7. 
• (with Michael Butter) „Methode im Fokus: Bilder kritisch lesen“. The American Presidency. Hrsg. Michael Butter und Birte Christ.Sonderheft Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 141 (2016): 8-11. 
• „The Ideal First Family: Fotos von Präsidentenfamilien lesen und inszenieren“.The American Presidency. Eds. Michael Butter und Birte Christ.Sonderheft Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 141 (2016): 12-17.
• (with Greta Olson) “Writing Academic Papers in English“.  http://www.greta-olson.com/docs/ Christ_and_Olson-Writing_Academic_Papers_in_English-A_Guide_for_German_BA_Students.pdf. 2015.
• „Special: Presidential Elections“. Einhefter Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 46.119 (2012): 1-16.
• (ed. with Marion Gehlker) Caroline Link: Jenseits der Stille. Contemporary German Texts and Contexts Vol. II. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. [Peer-Review]
• (ed. with Marion Gehlker) Barbara Honigmann: Eine Liebe aus Nichts. Contemporary German Texts and Contexts Vol. I. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. [Peer-Review]