Former Members

Jonas Ahmad was an associate doctoral student until August 2024.

Wesley Moore was a fellow of the Research Training Group from 2022 to 2025.

Research Interests

• 21st Century US Literature
• Fictions of Attention
• Globalization and Neoliberalism
• Narratology

Research Projects

PhD Dissertation: Blurring Boundaries: Virtual Structures and the Role of Art and Literature in the Work of Jennifer Egan, Ben Lerner, and Ruth Ozeki

Previous projects                             

MA Thesis: Exploring Expatriation: Character, Setting, and Cognitive Mapping in Leaving the Atocha Station and A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism

Education & Employment

• Oct 2022 – Sept 2025: Research associate in the research training group “Literature and the Public Sphere in Differentiated Contemporary Cultures” (GRK2806)
• July 2021: MA North American Studies: Culture and Literature (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)
• Nov 2020 – July 2021: Student assistant for Department of American Literary Studies (PD Dr. Harald Zapf)
• July 2020 – July 2021: Department of Islamic Religious Studies (Prof. Dr. Abbas Poya)
• May 2015: M.A. Linguistics (University of South Carolina)
• May 2014 – June 2015: Student Services Assistant at English Programs for Internationals (University of South Carolina)
• Aug. 2013 – May 2014: German Teaching Assistant
• May 2008: B.A. German Studies, Minor in Art History (University of South Carolina)

Workshops, Lectures, and Papers

• “Mediating Material Space: Art, Literature, and the Limits of Neoliberalism in Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04.” The Spatial Imagination in Postwar and Contemporary American Literature and Art, University of Strasbourg 21.-22. Mar. 2024.
• “Affective Boundaries: Death, Trauma, and Digital Space in the fiction of Ben Lerner and Jennifer Egan.” PGF Conference (DGfA)– Spaces of Affect in the Americas, Hannover University, 9.-11. Nov. 2023.
• “Blurring Boundaries: Late-Modern Structures, Authenticity, and the Role of Fiction in the Work of Jennifer Egan and Ben Lerner” Post Ben Lerner Conference Post Graduate Workshop, Université Paris Cité, 28. June 2023.

Miscellaneous

• Member of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS/DGfA)

Teaching

• Speaking Skills/Conversation Practice (WS 23/24, Sprachenzentrum der FAU)
• Writing/Grammar B1 (Summer Semester 2015, EPI at the University of South Carolina)
• German Level A2 (Spring Semester 2014, University of South Carolina)
• German Level A1 (Fall Semester 2013, University of South Carolina)

We were very saddened to be informed on April 9^th 2024 of the sudden death of our coordinator Dr. Jochen Venus. The thoughts of the members of the Kolleg are with Jochen’s wife and family.

Jochen Venus was an important contact person for all the members of our Kolleg. As a media scholar who researched and taught at the University of Siegen for many years, he was the academic coordinator of the RTG “Literature and the Public Sphere in Different Contemporary Cultures” at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg from October 2022. In this role, he supported the development of the research group. His death leaves an abrupt gap.

Jochen holds a doctorate in media studies. After pushing degrees in media studies, literary studies, sociology and philosophy at the University of Siegen, he continued to work there for many years as a lecturer and as a project staff member and scientific coordinator in two DFG collaborative research centers on popular media genres and helped shape interdisciplinary research on popularity. Beyond the research training group’s research topic and the exciting individual projects, he is thrilled that his interest in aesthetic theory is given so much material support in Erlangen’s vibrant cultural life.

Jochen was coordinator from November 2022 to April 2024.

Studentische Hilfskraft

Nina Weiß supported the RTG public relations (mainly website and graphic design)