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Statement on Graduate Student Advising

I am an Assistant Professor of German and my research and teaching interests range broadly from beguine mysticism of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to Afro- and Black German hip hop, poetry, and activism. I received my BA in German studies and History with a minor in Medieval studies from the University of Minnesota, as well as an MA in German/ Germanic Medieval studies. I completed my PhD in German from the University of California Berkeley in 2018. The core of my research is the question of identity and cultural production by marginalized voices from the medieval through current societies. My work is interdisciplinary鈥攆ocusing on historical and philological methodologies as well as sociology and cultural anthropology鈥攁nd crosses linguistic and modern national borders.

My current research focus is Black and Afro-German cultural production, poetics, worldbuilding, activism, and questions of identity performance and formulation. Central to my research is two concepts: 1) the ways in which Black-created works imagine new worlds through hip hop tracks, art installations, and other cultural production to dream new possible futures for society; 2) Black cultural production as a means of dual purpose communication, both within Afro- and Black German-speaking communities and across the Diaspora, that seeks to both name oneself and speak out against forms of systemic and institutional racism, discrimination, bigotry, etc. I am currently developing two monograph-length projects.听

• The first, tentatively titled A Playlist for Black Germany: Hapticity, Future Worlds, and Joy, which focuses on the focuses on cultural production by Black diasporic artists and scholars in German-speaking countries and the ways in which their process of creation opens up the possibility for imagining new worldviews while also attending to the lived reality in a world preoccupied with Black necropolitics.听
• The second project, Haunted Heimats: Reading Germany Otherwise, looks at the figure of the vampire and undead in German fiction read through the lens of Black radical theory and feminism to explore the ways in which fear of the Other and racialization have played out in the German cultural landscape since the premodern periods.

I am also working on the translation of the Resonanzen Schwarzes Literaturfestival: Eine Dokumentation (Spektor Books 2022) through funding from the President鈥檚 Fund for the Humanities.

As an avid consumer of pop culture, gamer, and graphic novel reader, gaming and storytelling (DnD/Pathfinder, LARPing, table top, etc.), I integrate aspects of gaming and storytelling into courses I develop, as well as research-based creative interpretation/ introspection of broad topics such as modernity, identity, and legacies of coloniality.

Publications:

Peer Reviewed Articles

鈥淚magining Otherwise: Wake Work in/as German studies.鈥� MLN, Special Issue 鈥淕erman Studies Dossier on Decolonization,鈥� vol. 138, no. 3, Apr. 2023, pp. 1189鈥�1201,

鈥淔eeling Beyond Words: Ineffability and Haptic Translational Praxis of Black German Writings.鈥� Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Special Issue 鈥淐entering Black Cultural Production in Translation,鈥� vol. 47, no. 1, Jan. 2023,.

鈥淏lack German Poetic Ecologies: Joy and Diasporic Homecoming in Megaloh鈥檚 鈥極yoyo鈥� and Leila Akinyi鈥檚 鈥極yoyo // Nyumbani.鈥欌�� The German Quarterly, Special Issue 鈥淏lack German Studies,鈥� vol. 95, no. 4, 2022, pp. 372鈥�95. .

鈥淭he Queer Temporalities of Sadomasochism in Robert Musil鈥檚 T枚rless.鈥� Monatshefte, Special Issue 鈥淩upture, Slowness, Untimeliness: Queer Time and History in German Studies,鈥� vol. 114, no. 3, Sept. 2022, pp. 384鈥�406. mon.uwpress.org,.

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Chapters in Edited Volumes

鈥淎 Question of Inclusion: Pedagogical Methods, Systematic Racism, and the US German Classroom鈥� in Diversity and Decolonization of the German Curriculum, eds. Regine Criser and Erwin Malakaj. Palgrave Macmillian, 2020.

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Translations

Sharon Dodua Otoo, 鈥淟ove,鈥� transl. by Adrienne Merritt, in Transit: Your Homeland is My Nightmare special issue, eds. Jon Cho-Polizzi and Michael Sandburg, Dec. 2021 () Reprinted as physical book with Literarische Diverse, 2022.

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Blog Entries and Podcasts

鈥淭eaching German and Germanic Languages in the Age of White Supremacy,鈥� DDGC Blog, co-authored with Adam Oberlin, David Gramling and Maureen Gallagher, March 2021 ()

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Publications in Progress

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鈥淭he Haunting Poetics of May Ayim鈥檚 鈥渄ie zeit danach鈥� (1995) and Ada Diagne鈥檚 鈥淒er Sturm鈥� (2021).鈥� Poetics Today 46:1, special issue 鈥淭ime Loops, Temporal Uncertainty, and Problem-solving in Narrative鈥� (Forthcoming January 2025).听

鈥淪pectral Legacies: Decentering Germanness as Whiteness in the German Curriculum.鈥� Chapter for Teaching German in the 21st Century. MLA Options for Teaching Series. (Forthcoming 2025).

鈥淪oliloquy and Soundtrack: A Desire / Love 笔濒补测濒颈蝉迟.鈥� Thinking with Lauren Berlant edited volume, eds. Carrie Smith, Hester Baer, Ervin Malakaj, and Simone Stirner.听

鈥淭he Quietly Quotidian Call of Cthulhu.鈥� Fascist Fantasies: Aesthetics and the Ambivalent Reception of Popular Fiction and Film in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Lever Press (Forthcoming 2025)

鈥淔lirting with the Text: Black Queer Reading Practice and the Coquetry of Meaning.鈥� Queer and Trans German Studies volume as part of a new book series with De Gruyter.听

"Stichwort: Leib / 鈥淓mbodiment.鈥� Die Gegenw盲rtigkeit der Courasche. Grimmelshausens Roman im Kontext aktueller Theoriedebatten. Eds. Daniela Fuhrmann (Universit盲t Z眉rich) & Ervin Malakaj (University of British Columbia). University of Z眉rich Press. (Forthcoming 2024/25)

鈥淭ranslation and Belacane鈥檚 Haunting Blackness in Wilhelm von Eschenbach鈥檚 Parzival.鈥� Special Issue 鈥淐oncepts of Race in Premodern German Studies鈥� in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies. Projected publication December 2025.

鈥淟amenting Dido in Castlevania Nocturne.鈥� Revision of PCA conference paper. Special Issue 鈥淢onsters and the Monstrous鈥�, Journal of Popular Culture. Eds. U. Melissa Anyiwo, David Hansen, Amanda Jo Hobson, Colleen Karn, and Lisa Nevarez. (Forthcoming late 2025 / early 2026).