Englisches Seminar

Dr. Tanja Kapp

Assistant Lecturer

  • since 03/2023: Assistant Lecturer at the English Department of the University of Tübingen
  • 07/2023: PhD (English Literature), University of Freiburg
  • 10/2018 – 12/2022: PhD student at Graduate Research Group “New Travel – New Media”, University of Freiburg
  • 09/2018: Research Scholarship at the Bodleian Library and Jesus College, Oxford University
  • 10/2016 – 08/2018: Master of Arts in British and North American Cultural Studies, University of Freiburg (with distinction from the Alumni Association)
  • 10/2012 – 09/2016: Bachelor of Arts in English and American Studies, University of Freiburg and Ulster University, Northern Ireland

Research Interests

  • Space, Travel and Mobility in Literature
  • Kinship and Modes of Being-In-Relation
  • 19th-Century Poetry
  • Media Aesthetics and Intermediality
  • Autobiography and Life Writing
  • New Materialisms and Posthumanism
  • Ephemera (Zines, Digital Ephemera, etc.)

Teaching

  • University of Tübingen (Seminars)
    • Poetics of Kinship and Coexistence in the Long Nineteenth Century (2024/25 Winter term)
    • Aquatic Environments in Postcolonial Literature (2024/25 Winter term)
    • Victorian Poetry (2024 Summer term) 
    • Writing Neighbourhood (2024 Summer term) 
    • Internet Aesthetics and Digital Subcultures (2023/24 Winter term) 
    • Sensations, Sideshows, Spectacles: Victorian Popular Culture (2023/24 Winter term)
    • Real and Imagined Geographies: Literatures of the Environment (2023 Summer term)
    • The Intimate Materiality of the Medium ‘Zine’: Methods, Theories, Topics (2023 Summer term)
  • University of Freiburg
    • Reading Group: Affect and Emotion in Literature and Literary Theory (2020/21 Winter term)
    • Seminar: Imagined Spaces: Self and Place in Twenty-First Century Writing (2019 Summer term)
    • Tutorial: Introduction to Literary Studies (2016/17 Winter term)

Awards and Scholarships

  • The Cotter Scholarship, Gladstone’s Library (June 2023)
  • Alumni Award for Outstanding MA Thesis, Freiburg University Alumni Association (January 2019)
  • Research Scholarship, Bodleian Library/ Jesus College, University of Oxford (September 2018)
  • Scheffel Award for Outstanding Achievement in German Studies, Literary Society Karlsruhe (June 2012)

Publications

  • Self-Published Psychogeographies: Zines, DIY Communities and the 21st Century Drifter. Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2024.
  • “Imagining the Arctic: Visual-Verbal Representations of the Polar North in Periodicals of 19th-century Britain.“ IN VIA. Zeitschrift für historische Reisekulturforschung, vol. 1, no. 1, forthcoming 2024.
  • “Drawing (from) Life: Reading Autobiographical Comics as a Form of Visual-Verbal Literacy.” Blog of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) Essen (2023)
  • “Binge Watching the World: Travel Television in the Age of Streaming.” In: Travel, Writing, and the Media: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives, Routledge Studies in Cultural History (2022)
  • “Journeying the Page: The Psychogeography of Text and Image in the Zine.” Mobile Culture Studies Vol. 8 (Graz: University of Graz, 2020)

Papers

  • “Travel(ling) Zines: DIY-Assemblages of Small Forms on the Move”, Lecture at the Research Group “Small Forms”, 3. July 2023, Humboldt University of Berlin
  • “Printed Psychogeographies: Walking, Writing and Self-Publishing as Practices of Dissent”, Paper at the Conference “Key Themes in Travel Research, 1. June 2023, State Library Eutin
  • “Comics and Zines as Refugee Literature”, Guest lecture in the Seminar “Refugee Literature in the 21st century” (Prof. Dr. Miriam Nandi), 13. April 2023, University of Leipzig
  • “New Travel – New Media: Medialised Forms of Contemporary Travel”, Workshop talk with Prof. Dr. Barbara Korte, 15. June 2022, State Library Eutin
  • “New Psychogeography”, Paper in the form of a video-essay at the Summer School “Travel and Media Past and Present”, 20.-21. May 2021, hosted by the State Library Eutin and the Graduate Research College “New Travel – New Media”, Online
  • “Imagining the Arctic: Visual-Verbal Representations of the Polar North in Mid-Victorian Britain”, Conference “Representations of the West Nordic Isles: Greenland, Iceland, Faroes”, 20.-21. September 2019, State Library Eutin
  • “Feet, Street and Concrete: Expressing Corporeality through Psychogeographical City Walks in Oliver East’s Trains Are … Mint Comics”, Conference “Body in Motion, Travelling Bodies in Anglophone Literature”, 24-25 May 2019, Université Paris 8/Saint Denis
  • “‘Walking Makes For Content’: Psychogeographical Walks in London between Materiality and Discourse”, Conference “Touristification of Urban Spaces”, 22-24 May 2019, University of Freiburg
  • “Breaking Self-Surveillance through Psychogeography (in the Comics of Oliver East)” at the Master Student Workshop “Experiencing Surveillance in Fiction and Theory”, 9 June 2018, University of Freiburg

Memberships

  • German Association for the Study of English
  • German Association for the Study of British Cultures (BritCult)
  • Work Group Comics Studies of the German Association for Media Studies
  • British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies
  • European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and the Environment