Carsten Schinko joined the staff of the American Studies department in 2019. He received his PhD in American Studies from the University of Tübingen in 2006 and his Habilitation from the University of Stuttgart in 2016. He is the author of Die Literatur der Kultur: Kommunikationstheoretische Perspektiven auf afroamerikanische Literatur- und Kulturdiskurse (WVT, 2006) as well as Sonic Fictions of America: Literature & Popular Music 1950-2010 (Winter, 2021), and has co-edited Poverty and the Culturalization of Class (special edition of American Studies on Winter, 2010; with Michael Butter) and Addressing Modernity: Social Systems Theory and U.S. Culture (Rodopi, 2011; with Hannes Bergthaller).
Carsten Schinko specializes in literary and cultural theory, systems theory, word-music relations, African American studies, the study of popular music, and the social and cultural construction of poverty. In his research, he is interested to find nuanced ways to address the complex tensions between aesthetic and social forms.