Research Activity

Postdoctoral Projects

  • Rebekka Rohleder - "Working Bodies: Performing Work in Contemporary British and Irish Culture" (EUF)
  • Michelle Witen - Vice, Scandal, and the News in the Victorian Periodical (EUF)

Doctoral Projects

  • Jule Marei Matzen - "Visual Art in Shakespeare and Joyce: The Interplay of Literature and Contemporary Art" (PhD Thesis, EUF, in progress since Oct 2023)
  • Marissa McMahon - "Between Fact and Fiction: The Good Friday Agreement, Land Justice, and Government Housing Policies in Northern Irish Post-Troubles Literature" (PhD Thesis, EUF, in progress since May 2023)
  • Kathrin Behrends - "Victorian Spinsters, Bluestockings, and the New Woman: Unmarried Women and Liminality in 19th-century Irish and British Literature" (PhD Thesis, EUF, in progress since Nov 2022)
  • Dilâra Yilmaz "Conditions of Contemporary Irish Women's Fiction Writing" (PhD Thesis, CAU-Kiel, in progress since Sept 2022)

2024

  • Witen, Michelle. "‘When the Undead sleep at home": Bram Stoker’s Dracula meets the Irish Home Rule Bill in Punch Magazine," Invited Lecture, St Andrews University, Scotland, UK, 21 October 2024.
  • Witen, Michelle. "The Culture of Material: Fabric and Fashion in L. T. Meade’s Serialized Fiction," International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures, Gakushuin University Tokyo, Japan, 5-9 August 2024.
  • Rohleder, Rebekka. "Re-Imagining Nineteenth- Century British-Irish History: Emma Donaghue’s The Wonder (2016) and its 2022 Film Adaptation," Invited Lecture, Irish Studies and Cultural Theory Summer School: Irish Cultures in Contact, EUF, Flensburg, DE, 14-20 July 2024.
  • Witen, Michelle. "‘Unlock[ing] the secrets of the human heart’ in The Woman at Home: L. T. Meade’s Stories from the Diary of a Court-Dressmaker," Invited Lecture, Irish Studies and Cultural Theory Summer School: Irish Cultures in Contact, EUF, Flensburg, DE, 14-20 July 2024.
  • Witen, Michelle. "Two Tenors at Twilight: An Evening on Joyce and Music," Invited Commentary to musical evening, International James Joyce Symposium, University of Glasgow, UK, 17 June 2024
  • Rohleder, Rebekka. "'Another supernatural reference?' Making and Unmaking an Irish Gothic Countryside in Emma Donoghue’s The Wonder (2016)." Re-Reading British and Irish Landscapes in the 21st Century: Nature, Networks, Identities. International Workshop. University of Mannheim, 14-15 June 2024
  • Yilmaz, Dilâra. "Presenting the Irish pen-to-publication pipeline: Being a (female) writer in Ireland's contemporary creative economy", Irish Literature and the Global Marketplace, KU Leuven, Belgium, 12-14 June 2024.
  • Yilmaz, Dilâra. "Irish Animals in the Anthropocene: Nonhuman Voices in Contemporary Irish Literature", International Symposium "The Animal in Ireland, Real and Imagined", University of Würzburg, 21-23 February 2024
  • Witen, Michelle. "Ulysses as Irish and Modernist Text." Invited Lecture in Stephanie John's Survey: Irish Literature. Technische Universität Braunschweig, DE, 23 January 2024.

2023

  • Rohleder, Rebekka. "Work, Utopia, and Communal Emotions in Morris and Wilde." Victorian Affects. Fifth Digital DACH Victorianists Workshop. 8 December 2023. Online.
  • Yilmaz, Dilâra. "Der Nordirlandkonflikt im Spiegel zeitgenössischer Irischer Literatur," Irland im Umbruch, Die "grüne Insel" nach dem Brexit, Akademie Sankelmarkt, DE, 1-3 December, 2023
  • McGrory, Marita. "Was bedeutet der Brexit für Irland und Nordirland?", Die "grüne Insel" nach dem Brexit, Akademie Sankelmarkt, DE, 1-3 December, 2023.
  • Witen, Michelle. "The Irish Vampire: Dracula and Punch," In-between Islands: Intra-relations between Britain and Ireland, Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of British Cultures (Britcult), Kiel, DE, 23-25 November 2023.
  • Yilmaz, Dilâra. "No Britain, no bestsellers? The market dominance of British publishers and the BBC over contemporary Irish novels along with their TV adaptations", In-between Islands: Intra-relations between Britain and Ireland, Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of British Cultures (Britcult), Kiel, DE, 23-25 November 2023.
  • Yilmaz, Dilâra. "Narratives of no community: Longing for belonging as a female experience and literary mode in contemporary Irish fiction since 2017", Anglistentag, Siegen, 24-27 September 2023.
  • McMahon, Marisa. "Between Fact and Fiction: 25 years post Good Friday Agreement," Unions and Partitions in Ireland, EFACIS International Conference, Belfast, GB-NIR, 24-27 August 2023.
  • Witen, Michelle. "From ‘Flat’ to ‘Piercing’: The Alterity and Solidarity of Accents in Dubliners," Unions and Partitions in Ireland, EFACIS International Conference, Belfast, GB-NIR, 24-27 August 2023.
  • Witen, Michelle. "Dracula and Victorian Politics," Invited Lecture, Irish Studies and Cultural Theory Summer School, Vienna, AU, 10-14 July 2023.
  • Witen, Michelle. "Banshees of Inishirin: Iconic or Iconoclastic," Invited Lecture, Irish Studies and Cultural Theory Summer School, Vienna, AU, 10-14 July 2023.
  • Witen, Michelle. "‘Poor old Balfe’: Joyce, Musical Performance, and Popular Music," Invited Lecture, Trieste Joyce School, Trieste, IT, 25-30 June 2023.
  • Witen, Michelle. "Darby O’Gill, Irish Folklore, and the Nonhuman," Guest Seminar, Irish Film Studies, KSM, Flensburg, DE, 18 April 2023. 

2022

  • Witen, Michelle. "James Joyce and Popular Music," Invited Lecture, Lecture Series: "James Joyce: Works, Contexts, Impact," Zürich, CH, 9 Nov 2022.
  • Witen, Michelle. "The ‘Eastern’ and ‘Irish’ Questions: Bram Stoker’s Dracula in the Periodicals," Invited Research Talk, Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium, EUF, Flensburg, DE, 27 Oct 2022.
  • Witen, Michelle. "Introducing James Joyce’s Ulysses," James Joyce Lecture Series: "21st-Century Joyce: Ulysses 100 Years On," EUF, Flensburg, DE, 13 Oct 2022.
  • Witen, Michelle. "‘Cheap, Healthful Literature’: Political Bias and Irish Home Rule in the Strand," British Association of Victorian Studies, Annual Conference, Birmingham, UK, 1-3 Sept 2022.
  • Witen, Michelle. "Irish-German Studies Today – Challenges and Chances," Roundtable at Intersectional Irelands: International Association for the Study of Irish literatures (IASIL) Annual Conference, University of Limerick, IE, 25-29 July 2022.
  • Witen, Michelle. "From Epiphany to Degradation: Intersections of Inner Experience in Joyce and Musil," Musil, Modernism and Europe, Flensburg, DE, 6-9 July 2022.
  • Witen, Michelle. "Irish Border Narratives and Irish Studies in Germany," Final Round Table Panel. Irish Border Narratives. EFACIS Centre for Irish Studies and the Centre for Narrative Research, University of Wuppertal, DE, 16-17 June 2022.
  • Witen, Michelle. "Ulysses at 100," SAUTE Jubilee Invited Talk (Keynote), University of Basel, CH, 20 May 2022.

2021

  • Witen, Michelle. "‘Raddled sheep bleating with fear’: Sheepish Developments in Ulysses," Omniscientific Joyce: 2020/21 International James Joyce Symposium, Online, Trieste, IT, June 14-18, 2021. 
  • Witen, Michelle. "James Joyce’s Ulysses," Invited Lecture, Lecture Series: "Großer Bücher: Wie funktioniert der literarische Kanon?" (Big books: How does the Literary Canon Function?), Kiel, DE, 21 Jan 2021.

2020

  • Witen, Michelle. "A Small Island of Great Literature: The Irish Literary Revival," Invited Lecture as part of Schleswig-Holstein’s "Literatursommer Irland 2020," Akademiezentrum Sankelmark, DE, 25 August 2020.
Semester Course or Event Title
FS 2024 BA Proseminar: "Twenty-First-Century Irish Historical Fiction" (Rohleder, EUF)
  KSM Seminar: "Travelling Villains: Contact and Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Gothic Fiction" (Rohleder, EUF)
  BA Cultural Studies Proseminar: "Urban Cultures: Depicting the City in UK Film and Television" (Rohleder, EUF)
  M.Ed. Seminar: Remembering the Troubles in Irish Literature, Film, and Culture (Allen, EUF)
WS 2023/24 "Eerie Éire: Eerie Irish Literature" (Yilmaz, CAU-Kiel)
  "Contemporary Female Irish Voices" (Yilmaz, CAU-Kiel)
HS 2023 BA Cultural Studies Proseminar: "Key Documents and Concepts in British and Irish History" (Witen, EUF)
FS 2023 BA Proseminar: The Irish Modernist Short Story (Witen, EUF)
  BA Proseminar: Writing the World: Travel in British Fiction, 1680s to 1790s (Rohleder, EUF)
  M.Ed. Seminar: Rethinking Children’s Literature (Rohleder, EUF)
WS 2022/23 "Irish Literature" (Yilmaz, CAU-Kiel)
HS 2022 BA Cultural Studies Proseminar: "Key Documents and Concepts in British and Irish History" (Witen, EUF)
  BA Project Work: "Governesses in 19th-Century Fiction" (Witen, EUF)
FS 2022 BA Proseminar: The British Novel in the Early Nineteenth Century - Genre and Gender (Rohleder, EUF)
  KSM Seminar: "Reading like a Victorian" (Witen, EUF)
  M.Ed Seminar - James Joyce's Ulysses (Witen, EUF)
HS 2021 BA Cultural Studies Proseminar: "Key Documents and Concepts in British and Irish History" (Witen, EUF)
FS 2021 M.Ed. Seminar: "British and Irish Victorian Children’s Literature" (Witen, EUF)
  BA-EUCS: Transnational Perspectives on European Cultures: "Staging Irishness" (Witen, EUF)
  Proseminar: Performing Ireland: Early Twentienth-Century Irish Drama (Rohleder, EUF)
HS 2020 BA Vorlesung: Literature: History and Theory — "A History of British and Irish Literature" (Witen, EUF)
  KSM Seminar: Urban Encounters: The City and the Other in Modernist Fiktion (Rohleder, EUF)
HS 2019 BA Project Work: "The Supernatural in British and Irish Gothic Fiction" (Witen, EUF)
  KSM Seminar: "Technologies of Identity: Narrative Tactics in 19th-Century British and Irish Literature" (Witen, EUF)
FS 2019 Proseminar Literature: Wilde and Shaw as Dramatists (Rohleder, EUF)

Completed

  • Astrid Rathjen. "Trauma, Identity, Bereavement and Loss in Irish Literature: A Comparison of the Writings of Banville, Enright and Keegan" (M.Ed., English)
  • Lea Josefine Dittmann. "What is Home? Where is Home?: Concepts of Home in Works of Edna O’Brian, Anne Enright, and Other Female Irish Authors" (KSM, English)
  • Letje Burmeister. "‘Will you not have faith in me’ - Gods and Devils in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and H. Rider Haggard’s She" (M.Ed., English)
  • Alicia Holtorf. "Women at Work - The Shift in Female Professions in James Joyce’s and Jane Austen’s Works" (M.Ed., English)
  • Geena Marie Kunz. "‘There are kisses for all of us’— Sexuality and Gender in 19th Century Vampire Gothic Fiction" (M.Ed., English)
  • Lona Vogt. "‘You are my creator, but I am your master’: The Racial Other in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula" (B.A., English)
  • Helen Radtke. "Chronotopes, the Grotesque and Mythology: Thresholds in Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant novels" (B.A., English)
  • Lena Bahnsen. "Decentering the ‘Centre of Paralysis’ - The Inner and Outer Experience of Wandering in Joyce’s Works" (M.Ed., English)
  • Melanie Gdanitz. "The Current Perception and Usage of Irish in Galway" (M.A., KSM)
  • Jessica Wilhelm. "Vanquishing the Feminine Evil: The Witch and the lady of the Green Kirtle as Portrayals of Dangerous Womanhood in The Chronicles of Narnia" (B.A., English)

In Progress       

  • Louisa Anna Sophie Preuß. "Going Up: An Analysis of the Portrayal of First-Generation College Students in NW (2012) by Zadie Smith and Normal People (2018) by Sally Rooney" (B.A., English)
  • Lenke Tabea Petersen. "‘Poor Bridget Found it Necessary to Emigrate’ - The Portrayal of Irish Women in the Fiction of Susan Meissner, Kate Kerrigan and Alice McDermott" (M.Ed., English)
  • Witen, Michelle. "‘Singsigns to Soundsense’: Music as Nonhuman in Finnegans Wake." Finnegans Wake: Human and Nonhuman Histories. Ed. Richard Barlow and Paul Fagan. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024. 180-95.
    Witen, Michelle and John Morgenstern, eds. Modernism in Wonderland: Legacies of Lewis Carroll. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.
  • Yilmaz, Dilâra. Review of Trauma, Memory and Silence of the Irish Woman in Contemporary Literature: Wounds of the Body and the Soul, M. Armie & V. Membrive (eds.). Literatur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (LWU) Neue Folge 2.1. Milton 2023.
  • Witen, Michelle. "The ‘Eastern’ and ‘Irish’ Questions: Bram Stoker’s Dracula in the Periodicals." Transnationale Literaturen und Literaturtransfer im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert. Ed. Matteo Anastasio, Margot Brink, Lisa Dauth, Andrew Erickson, Isabelle Leitloff, Jan Rhein. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2023.
  • Witen, Michelle. "James Joyce, Sylvia Beach, Ulysses, and everything in between," Radio Interview with Ms. Lena Reimers for couchFM, Berlin DE, 9 May 2022 
  • Witen, Michelle. "James Joyce. Ulysses. A Novel." Lexikon Schriften über Musik, Band 2: Schriften zur Musikästhetik. Ed. Hartmut Grimm, Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann, and Felix Wörner. Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 2022. 415-18
  • Witen, Michelle. "Object Lessons and Staged Ireland in Darby O’Gill and the Little People." Stage Irish: Performance, Identity, Cultural Circulation. Ed. Paul Fagan, Dieter Fuchs, and Tamara Radak. Spec. Issue of Irish Studies in Europe 10 (2021): 149-69. 
  • Ebury, Katherine and Michelle Witen, eds. James Joyce and the Non-Human. Spec. Issue of James Joyce Quarterly 58.1-2 (2020- 2021).
  • Witen, Michelle. James Joyce and Absolute Music. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018. (Paperback 2019)