Englisches Seminar

WS 2023/2024

  • Emily Dickinson's Poetry in Context 
  • Introduction to Literary Studies

SS 2023

  • Women Writing Women: 19th-Century American Short Fiction
  • Introduction to Literary Studies

WS 2022/23

  • Race and Gender in 19th Century American Writing (before & after the Civil War)
  • Imag(in)ing Indigeneity in North America Today (after the Civil War)
  • Introduction to Literary Studies

SS 2022

  •  "Scribbling Women" and 19th Century American Short Fiction
  • Introduction to Literary Studies 

Previous Courses

2023

  • Emily Dickinson's Poetry in Context
  • Women Writing Women: 19th-Century American Short Fiction
  • Introduction to Literary Studies 

 

Dr. Isabell Klaiber

Associate Professor for American Culture and Literature

Isabell Klaiber joined the staff of the American Studies department in 2005. After maternity leave for her kids, she returned in spring 2016. Currently, she works part-time. She received her PhD in American Studies from the University of Tübingen in 2003. She is the author of Gender und Genie: Künstlerkonzeptionen in der amerikanischen Erzählliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts.

Isabell Klaiber specializes in Gender studies, African American studies, Native American cultures and literature, 19th-century American literature and culture, cultural iconicity, modern American drama, narratology, and digital fiction. Her current research project is “Shared Minds: Collaborative Fiction in the U.S. from the 19th Century to Online Writing Projects” (working title, habilitation).

Teaching

WS 2024/25

SS 2024

  • Growing Up Indigenous in North America
  • Introduction to Literary Studies

WS 2023/24

  • Emily Dickinson's Poetry in Context
  • Introduction to Literary Studies

SS 2023

  • Women Writing Women: 19th-Century American Short Fiction
  • Introduction to Literary Studies

WS 2022/23

  • Race and Gender in 19th Century American Writing (before & after the Civil War)
  • Imag(in)ing Indigeneity in North America Today (after the Civil War)
  • Introduction to Literary Studies

SS 2022

  • "Scribbling Women" and 19th Century American Short Fiction
  • Introduction to Literary Studies

Previous Courses

Current Project

Shared Texts, Shared Minds: Collaborative Literary Fiction in the U.S. from the 19th Century to Online Writing (Habilitation, working title)

Publications

Books

2019 

  • Ed. with Oliver Scheiding, and Jan Stievermann. Simplify, simplify! Brevity, Plainness and Their Complications in American Literature and Culture: Festschrift for Bernd Engler on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Beiträge zur englischen und amerikanischen Literatur, vol. 37, Schöningh, 2019.

2007

  • Kulturelle Leitfiguren: Figurationen und Refigurationen. Eds. Bernd Engler, and Isabell Klaiber. Schriften zur Literaturwissenschaft, vol. 30. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007.

2004

  • Gender und Genie: Künstlerkonzeptionen in der amerikanischen Erzählliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts. Mosaic: Studien und Texte zur amerikanischen Kultur und Geschichte, vol. 22. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2004.

Articles & Essays

2024

  • “A Meeting of Minds: Narrative Co-Construction in Collaborative Literary Fiction.” Narrative Co-Construction: Author-Audience Interactions and Narrative Theory, ed. Margarida McMurray, Malcah Effron, and Virginia Pignagnoli, Theory and Interpretation of Narrative Series, Ohio University Press, forthcoming in 2024.

2023

  • “Collaborative Fiction Writing Off- and Online: Toward a Genealogy.” Routledge Companion to Literary Media, ed. by Astrid Ensslin, Julia Round, and Bronwen Thomas, London: Routledge, 2023, pp. 221-232.

2019 

  • "Joking Her Way into Suffrage: Irony in Alice Duer Miller’s ‘Are Women People?’” Simplify, simplify! Brevity, Plainness and Their Complications in American Literature and Culture: Festschrift for Bernd Engler on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Ed. Isabell Klaiber, Oliver Scheiding, and Jan Stievermann. Beiträge zur englischen und amerikanischen Literatur, vol. 37, Schöningh, 2019, pp. 85-102.

2014

  • "Wreading Together: The Double Plot of Collaborative Digital Fiction." Analyzing Digital Fiction. Ed. Alice Bell, Astrid Ensslin, and Hans Kristian Rustad. London: Routledge, 2014. 124-40.

2013

  • "Feminine Intellectuals in 19th-Century Domestic Fiction." Intellectual Authority and Literary Culture in the US, 1790-1900. Ed. Günter Leypoldt. American Studies Monograph Series vol. 242. Heidelberg: Winter, 2013. 185-204.

2011

  • "Multiple Implied Authors: How Many Can a Single Text Have?" Style 45.1 (Spring 2011), Implied Author: Back from the Grave or Simply Dead Again? Ed. Brian Richardson: 146-60.

2010

  • "Making Black Icons: Pauline E. Hopkins' 'Famous Men of the Negro Race.'" American Cultural Icons: The Production of Representative Lives. Ed. Günter Leypoldt, and Bernd Engler, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neuhaus, 2010. 171-92.

2009

  • "Women's Roles in American Society: Difference, Separateness, and Equality." Key Concepts in American Cultural History: A Study Guide. Eds. Bernd Engler, and Oliver Scheiding. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2009. 303-30.

2007

  • (with Bernd Engler) "Kulturelle Leitfiguren: Prozesse und Strategien ihrer Funktionalisierung." Kulturelle Leitfiguren: Figurationen und Refigurationen. Eds. Bernd Engler, and Isabell Klaiber. Schriften zur Literaturwissenschaft, vol. 30. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007, 9-27.
  • "Fanny Fern: Konstruktion und Demontage einer 'True Woman'." Kulturelle Leitfiguren: Figurationen und Refigurationen. Eds. Bernd Engler, and Isabell Klaiber. Schriften zur Literaturwissenschaft, vol. 30. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007. 239-64.
  • "Gender und Ethnizität in der amerikanischen Erzählliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts." Ins Wort gesetzt, ins Bild gesetzt: Gender in Wissenschaft, Kunst und Literatur. Eds. Ingrid Hotz-Davies, and Schamma Schahadat. Bielefeld: transcript, 2007. 207-33.
  • "Women's Roles in American Society" (introduction to section and selection of documents). Key Concepts in American Cultural History: From the Colonial Period to the End of the 19th Century. Eds. Bernd Engler, and Oliver Scheiding, 2nd ed. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2007. 475-77 (introduction), 478-551 (documents).

2005

  • "Erzählte Exilerfahrung - Hans Sahls Die Wenigen und die Vielen." Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 46 (2005): 259-75.

2004

  • "'A Woman Could (Not) Do It' - Role Play as a Strategy of 'Feminine' Self-Empowerment in L.M. Alcott's 'Behind a Mask,' 'La Jeune,' and 'A Marble Woman.'" Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 52 (2004): 213-30.

Reviews

2013 

  • "Elizabeth J. West, African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction: Threaded Visions of Memory, Community, Nature and Being." Amerikastudien/American Studies 5.2 (2013): 308–309

2011

  • "Rachel Farebrother, The Collage Aesthetic in the Harlem Renaissance." Anglia: Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 129.3-4 (2011): 548-550.

2003

  • Dietmar Schloss. Die tugendhafte Republik: Politische Ideologie und Literatur in der amerikanischen Gründerzeit. American Studies: A Monograph Series, vol. 103. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2003. In: Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 45 (2004): 370-74.