Prof. Dr. Stefanie Schäfer
Anglistik III
L 10, 11–12 – Room 322
68161 Mannheim
Monday 4- 5 pm and by appointment
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Biographic Information
Stefanie Schäfer holds an MA and state teacher’s degree in English and French Philologies from the University of Trier and a PhD in English from the University of Heidelberg. She completed her postdoctoral research and habilitation with a venia legendi in North American Literature and Culture at the University of Jena in 2017. Stefanie Schäfer was a visiting professor of American Studies (Lehrstuhlvertretung) at the Universities of Erlangen and Augsburg and visiting professor of North American and British Media Studies at the University of Marburg. From 2020 to 2023, she was a Marie-Skłodowska-Curie research fellow at the University of Vienna, and in 2024, was named professor and chair of American Studies (Literature and Culture) at the University of Mannheim.
Professional positions and academic career
Since 08/ 2024 Chair of American Literature and Cultural Studies, University of Mannheim 2018–2024 Chair of American Studies (Culture), FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg and University of Augsburg; Chair of British and North American Media Studies, Philipps-Universität Marburg 2020–2023 Executive Director, Centre for Canadian Studies/ Centre d’Études Canadiennes, Universität Wien 2020–2023 Marie-Curie Fellow, Universität Wien (Projekt TACOMO) 2017 Habilitation; Venia legendi: Nordamerikanische Literatur und Kultur; Philosophische Fakultät der FSU Jena 2015–2016 Maternity and parental leave 2011–2013 Research residencies, Library of Congress, Washington DC, and Harvard University/ Harvard Theater Collection 2010–2020 Research Assistant, American Studies, FSU Jena 2009 Dr. phil. (English Studies), University of Heidelberg 2007–2010 Research assistant and doctoral candidate, University of Heidelberg, English Literature and Cultural Studies 2006–2007 Teacher of English and French, Helmholtz-Gymnasium Heidelberg 2002–2003 Study abroad, University of Minnesota, USA 2005 MA and 1st state examination in English and French Philology, University of Trier Memberships, Affiliations, service to the profession
Editor, Amerikastudien/
American Studies (2025-) Executive Director, Center for Canadian Studies, University of Vienna (2020–2023)
Co-Organiser, European Summer School in Canadian Studies, 2022 (Vienna, Innsbruck)
German Association for American Studies (DGfA)
Society for Canadian Studies (GKS)
Bavarian American Academy (BAA)
“Research Platform Mobile Cultures and Societies”, University of Vienna (affiliated member)
Research interests
North American Studies and Canadian Studies
Visual and Popular Culture
Celebrity Politics and First Ladies
The Transnational Western Myth
Teaching: Projects and International Affairs
Awards, Projects, International Affairs
International “European Summer School in Canadian Studies”, (ESSCS) Vienna and Innsbruck, summer 2022, co-organization; https://canada.univie.ac.at/esscs/ Lectureships, University of Vienna, 2021 and 2022 Erasmus Guest Lectureship, Department of Angloamerican Literature, Università l'Orientale, Naples, 2014 Organization of student excursions: “The Calgary Stampede” (excursion to Calgary, with Caroline Rosenthal, 2013); “Counterculture in New York City” (excursion to New York, with Philipp Löffler, 2010) Good practice award, Prorectorate for Teaching at FSU Jena (with Caroline Rosenthal), 2015 Best practice award, Hochschuldidaktik Heidelberg (HDZ), 2009 Organization of the university didactics conference “Learning 9/ 11: Key Competencies in Higher Education”, English Department Heidelberg University / Heidelberg University Didactics Center Certificate for University Didactics (200h), University Didactics Center Heidelberg, 2008 Teacher training
- “Cowboys all! Rodeo Culture and the Western Myth in North America.” Teacher Training/
Teacher Seminar, November 20, 2020, Amerikahaus Munich. - “Transcultural Black Womanhood in Trey Anthony's Da Kink in My Hair.” Workshop teacher training “Fachtag Transcultural Learning”, Jena. November 2, 2017.
- “Reading First Nations Literatures: Thomas King's Short Story “Borders”- Workshop, Teacher Training “Literature in the English language classroom” Thüringer Landesinstitut für Lehrerfortbildung, Jena, September 16, 2017.
- “Black Femininities: From Slave Narrative to Popular Culture” – Teacher training 2016, Leucorea Wittenberg, November 18, 2016.
Publications on didactics, higher education, and the EFL classroom
“’The Importance of Being the First’: Bürgerrechte und black womanhood im Film Hidden Figures—Unerkannte Heldinnen (2016).“ Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 153 (2018): 44–48. (with Charlott Falkenhagen).
“The Calgary Stampede through a Cultural Studies Perspective: A Teaching Project.” In: Cultural Studies, Critical Methodologies 16.1 (2016): 48–57. Special issue The Calgary Stampede, Ed. Brian Rusted (with Caroline Rosenthal)
Learning 9/
11: Teaching for Key Competences in Literary and Cultural Studies. Ed. with Irina Bauder-Begerow, Heidelberg: Winter, 2011. “Lern- und Memorierungstechniken.” Schlüsselkompetenzen. Qualifikationen für Studium und Beruf. Ed. Vera Nünning. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2008. 140–149.
- “Cowboys all! Rodeo Culture and the Western Myth in North America.” Teacher Training/
Courses in the Fall Semester 2024
- Lecture American Literature and Culture
- PS CanLit or Can’tLit? The Contemporary Canadian Novel
- PS/
HS First Ladies in American Literature and Culture - HS The Western/
Der Western (together with Prof. Dr. Thomas Wortmann) - Reserach Colloquium American Studies
- Schwarz, M. and Schäfer, S. (2024). If we're saying, this is a cigar, don't tell us it's a tulip: A conversation with Chelsea Vowel. Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien, 75, 129–137.
- Schäfer, S. (2023). “Grief became my friend, my work:” Mary Todd Lincoln’s uneasy union with memory in LeAnne Howe’s Savage Conversations (2019). New American Studies Journal, 2023, 1–17.
- Schäfer, S. (2021). The Donald, FLOTUS, and the gendered labors of celebrity politics at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Amerikastudien : AmST = American Studies, 66, 302–307.
- Schäfer, S. (2020). Knots and knowledges : the Canadian West, settler colonial intimacies, and Aritha Van Herk’s Calgary Stampede. Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien : ZKS, 40, 163–178.
- Schäfer, S. (2025). Emotions and Keywords on 'The Long 2020': A view of pandemic reckonings from cultural studies. HEPP5, 5th Helsinki Conference on Emotions, Populism and Polarisation, Helsinki, Finland.
- Schäfer, S. (2023). Vanguard wheel estate: property, grief, and the American road myth in Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland (2020). 69th Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (DGfa/GAAS): America and Ownership: Territory, Slavery, Jubilee, Rostock, Germany.
- Schäfer, S. and Hiergeist, T. (eds.) (2024). Ladies in arms : women, guns, and feminisms in contemporary popular culture. Bielefeld: transcript.
- Schäfer, S. (2021). Yankee Yarns : storytelling and the invention of the national body in nineteenth-century American culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Vosters, H. (2021). Canada is… what?! : a meditation on the diasporic threads of settler colonialism. Wien: Universität Wien.
- Schäfer, S. (2024). Cowgirling in Thuringia : the German police procedural Tatort goes Western. In Ladies in arms : women, guns, and feminisms in contemporary popular culture (S. 181–196). Bielefeld: transcript.
- Schäfer, S. (2023). 'Not form which you see, but emotion which you feel' : crisis, time, and hyperempathy in Octavia Butler’s Earthseed Novels. In The transformative power of literature and narrative : promoting positive change : a conceptual volume in honour of Vera Nünning (S. 53–63). Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto.
- Schäfer, S. (2022). Jackie (2016). In Lexicon of global melodrama (S. 353–355). Bielefeld: transcript.
Further publications
Portraits: Ines Grabner – www.ines-fotografie.berlin