Anna Berger
Contact
Englisches Seminar
Universität Tübingen
Wilhelmstraße 50
72074 Tübingen
Office: 462 b)
Email: anna-s.berger[at]gmx.de
Office hour during the summer term 2018:
- Tuesdays, 11:30-12:30 h
Academic Pathway
- Since 06/2016: Scholarship Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes
- Since 06/2016: Freelance Journalist (Deutsche Presseagenturdpaand Hohenloher Tagblatt/Südwest Presse)
- 02/2016 – 05/2016: Editor Hohenloher Tagblatt/Südwest Presse
- 09/2013 – 08/2015: Trainee Hohenloher Tagblatt/Südwest Presse
- 06/2013: Participant 15. taz-Panter-Workshop
- 08/2011 – 09/2011: Work experience at BILD-Zeitung
- 06/2010 – 07/2010: Work experience at Frankfurter Rundschau
- 10/2009 – 05/2010: Teaching Assistant, Colchester County High School for Girls, UK
- 10/2007 – 08/2013: English and German Studies, Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, State Exam
- 09/2006 – 09/2007: Cultural Studies, Leuphana University, Lüneburg
- 06/2006: Abitur, Schloss-Schule Kirchberg
PhD Project: “The Spectres of Masculinity: Manhood in Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories, 1860 – 1914”
In the golden age of the ghost story, which began in the early Victorian period and ran until Word War I, the ghost story has served as a means to address unconformable topics and contemporary taboos.Women writers used the genre to criticise their gender role restrictions in the patriarchal society which saw marriage and motherhood as the only proper occupations for women. For this reason, critics have often focused on how the genre was used to contest Victorian hegemonic ideas about women and their place in society.
However, there has been a blind spot in the perception of the genre. To what extent the form was used to erode gender expectations confronting men is a question which has received only little critical attention – even though many of the protagonists are, in fact, men.There are, of course, stories, in which the visitation of a ghost bolsters rather than undermines masculinity. More often, however, the appearance of a spectre has a feminising effect on men. Instead of standing their ground, they become nervous and helpless, attributes usually assigned to women in these days. Accordingly, the boundaries between what was supposed to be male and female are blurred in the genre. My dissertation focuses on this dualism. It further shows that the genre was used in order to interrogate male sexual identities and to mediate a new concept of masculinity which highlights the importance of emotion and sensitivity.
Fields of Academic Interests and Research
- Queer and Gender Studies
- Gothic Fiction
- Ghost Stories
- 19th Century English Literature and Culture
- British Imperial Literature
- New Imperialism
Recent Courses
- Summer term 2017: PSII "The Gender Struggle: The Battle Against the New Woman Movement"
- Winter term 17/18: PSII "Sex and Gender in Victorian Ghost Stories"
- Summer term 2018: PS II "Homosexuality and Homophobia in Gothic Fiction"
Publication List
- Berger, Anna. “Imperial Masculinity under Attack: The Ghost Stories of Amelia B. Edwards, Margaret Oliphant and Vernon Lee.” Masculinity in Women’s Literature, edited bySusmita Roye (forthcoming).
- Berger, Anna. “Haunted Oppressors: The Deconstruction of Manliness in the Imperial Gothic Stories of Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle.” Humanities, Special Issue on “Entangled Narratives: History, Gender and the Gothic.” (forthcoming).
Conference Papers
- “Guilty Desire: The Male Sexual Body in the Ghost Stories of the Victorian Period”, Britcult Conference 2017, Technische Universität Dortmund