Laura Sturtz

Laura Sturtz

Department of English and American Studies
Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik, insbesondere Literaturwissenschaft (Prof. Dr. Kley)

Universitätsstraße 40
91054 Erlangen

Research Interests

  • German Conremporary Literature
  • Strategies of postmigratory and interventionistic Writing
  • Feminist and Intersectional Literary Theory
  • German-Jewish Literature

Projects

Dissertation: Literary Interventions and Re-Imagined Communities in Contemporary Postmigrant Writing

The dissertation project engages with substantial shifts in the representation and visibility of minoritized authors in the contemporary German cultural sphere and the increasing number of literary interventions that foreground the complexity and radical diversity of German identities and question the uniformity of identity itself. Literary texts such as Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s Außer Sich (2017), Olivia Wenzel’s 1000 Serpentinen Angst (2020), Shida Bazyar’s Drei Kameradinnen (2021) and Fatma Aydemir’s Dschinns (2022) re-conceive, re-define and re-write understandings of foreclosing notions of ’Germanness‘ by centering previously marginalized perspectives and challenging fixed frames of nationality, ethnicity, language, sexuality and family. Through an intersectional approach the project explores the critical endeavor of these novels to aesthetically subvert and intervene in contemporary discourses between the literary and the public sphere.

Education & Employment

  • Since 04/2023: Research Associate at the RTG 2806 Literature and the Public Sphere
  • 2018-2022: M.A. Europäische Literaturen und Kulturen/European Literatures and Cultures, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau
  • 09/2021 – 04/2022 & 04/2019 – 09/2020: Research Assistant at the Lehrstuhl for New German and Comparative Literature Studies at Albert-Ludwig-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau, Department Head: Prof. Dr. Werner Frick
  • 2020-2021: Master of Studies in Modern Languages (German), University of Oxford
  • 2013-2017: B.A. Europäische Literatur-und Kulturwissenschaften (Sprache, Literatur, Kultur), Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Focus: German and Spanish Literatures of the 20th/21st centuries)
  • 2015-2016: Semester abroad at Universidad de Alcalá (Madrid), Studium der Hispanistik

Publications

Edited Works

  • Rezgui, S., Sturtz, L., Talwar Windsor, T. (Hrsg). Re-writing Identities in Contemporary Germany: Radical Diversity and Literary Intervention. (Rochester, New York: Camden House Publishing). To be published

Included Papers

  • Sturtz, L. “The Rise of the Rhizome: Re-Negotiating Self and Other in Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s Außer sich and Olivia Wenzel’s 1000 Serpentinen Angst”. 
  • Rezgui, S., Sturtz, L. “Acting from Within: Inclusive Literature and the Power of Writing. A Conversation with Sasha Marianna Salzmann”.
  • Rezgui, S., Sturtz, L., Talwar Windsor, T. “Introduction: Re-writing Identities in Contemporary Germany: Radical Diversity and Literary Interventions”.

Workshops, Lectures, and Papers

Lectures

  • 07/2023: „Literarische Interventionsstrategien im Postmigrantischen Schreiben der Gegenwart”, Forschungskolloquium der Germanistik (NdL), Kloster Waldsassen.
  • 09/2022: „‘Wo ist Dein Platz?‘ Zugehörigkeiten-Erschreiben in Wenzel 1000 Serpentinen Angst & Salzmann Außer Sich.“, Germanistentag 2022, Paderborn.
  • 07/2021: „‘Mutter, Vater, Kind, Kind’: Re-writing Family & Belonging in Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s Außer Sich.”, Sichtbarkeiten Conference, University of Oxford.
  • 05/2021: „‘Jeder hat jemanden hier.‘ Deterritorializing Memory in Katja Petrowskaja’s Vielleicht Esther.“, Archives and Utopia (Oxford German Graduate Seminar), University of Oxford.
  • 08/2018: „’Que mi nombre no se borre en la historia’: Weibliches Erinnern und Erzählen des spanischen Bürgerkriegs in Dulce Chacóns La voz dormida.” Race, Class, Gender Revisited: Literaturwissenschaft als Kulturwissenschaft, Conference at Universität Duisburg-Essen.

Conference Organisation

  • 07/2021: Sichtbarkeiten Conference, University of Oxford: Key-Note-Lecture Professor Sarah Colvin (Cambridge)

Awards and Stipends

  • 2015-2021 Stipend from Max-Weber-Programm Bayern
  • 2016-2022 Stipend from Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes

Hosting

  • Host for readings, e.g. with Fatma Aydemir, Bettina Wilpert, Zsófia Bán and Maren Kames.
  • Organisation of book events and readings.