Dr. Svenja Hohenstein
Research Fellow
Svenja Hohenstein worked as a research fellow for the American Studies department from October 2014 until September 2018. She finished her dissertation entitled “Girl Warriors: Feminist Revisions of the Hero’s Quest” in June 2018. She received an M.A. in British and North American Cultural Studies and a B.A. in English and American Studies and Sociology from the University of Freiburg. Ms. Hohenstein has taught various introductory and advanced seminars in literary and cultural studies on a variety of subjects such as young adult fiction, African-American women’s poetry, feminist theory, and popular culture both at the universities of Tübingen and Freiburg. She has worked as a research assistant at the English Department of the University of Freiburg and as an English teacher in Xing’an, China and is an associated member of the Collaborative Research Center 948: Heroes, Heroizations, Heroisms. Her research interests include feminist theory and gender studies, media studies (esp. film and television studies), popular culture, heroism, and fan studies.
Classes Taught
- PS: American Gothic (WiSe 2017/18)
- PS: Margaret Atwood (SoSe 2017)
- PS: Introduction to Cultural Studies (WiSe 2016/17, WiSe 2017/18)
- PS: Girl Power (SoSe 2016)
- PS: Feminism and Popular Culture (SoSe 2016; Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg)
- PS: African-American Women's Poetry (WiSe 2015/16)
- PS: Introduction to Literary Studies (SoSe 2015)
- PS: Young Adult Fiction (WiSe 2014/15)
Publications
Monographs
2019
- Girl Warriors: Feminist Revisions of the Hero's Quest in Contemporary Popular Culture. Jefferson: McFarland, 2019.
Articles
2019
- (with Katharina Thalmann). "Difficult Women - Changing Representations of Female Characters in Contemporary Television Series." Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik – A Quaterly of Language, Literature and Culture 67.2 (2019): 109-29.
2016
- "The Heroine and the Meme: Participating in Feminist Discourses Online.” COPAS 17.1 (2016). Web.
Reviews
2016
- Rezension zu Ahu Tanrisever: Fathers, Warriors and Vigilantes: Post-Heroism and the US Cultural Imaginary in the Twenty-First Century. European Views of the United States, Vol 10. Heidelberg: Winter, 2016, in: Amerikastudien/American Studies 63. https://dgfa.de/wp-content/uploads/Hohenstein_zu_Tanrisever.pdf
Conference Presentations & Talks
2018
- "The Heroization of Alexander Hamilton." Heroism and the Heroic in American History. Annual Conference of the Historians in the German Association for American Studies. Akademie für Politische Bildung, Tutzing, Feb. 2018. (with Katharina Thalmann)
2016
- "'It's a Television Show': Spectacle, The Hunger Games, and Political Activism." Spectacular Now: The Politics of the Contemporary Spectacle, TU Dortmund, 12 November 2016.
- "Fan Fiction and Female Heroes." Fan Studies Network Conference, University of East Anglia, 25 June 2016.
- "Don’t Be a Bella, Be a Katniss": Weibliche Helden und ihre Fans.” Interdisziplinäres Arbeiten: Doktorandenkonferenz und Workshop, LMU München, 8 April 2016.
2016
- "The Heroine and the Meme: Creating a Feminist Discourse Online." Postgraduate Forum of the German Association for American Studies, University of Bamberg, 8 November 2015.
2014
- "Female Warriors in Contemporary American Culture: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Hunger Games." Talk given in the seminar "Violent Women in Contemporary Culture", Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, July 2014.
- "The Disney Princess Revised." Pop Narratology: Social, Historical and Political Perspectives on Pop Cultural Narratives. 5. Wuppertaler Graduiertenforum Narratologie, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, June 2014.