Upcoming Events
Research Colloquium Literature/ Culture | Nicole Waller (Universität Potsdam). “Posthumanism, Indigenous Studies, and Black Studies on Turtle Island: Conversations and Incommensurabilities”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Lecture Series "gender, sexuality, power" | Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Poet + Activist):"The Rhythm of Gray Whales Praying": Audre Lorde and the Future of Earth.
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Research Colloquium Literature/ Culture | Hunter Hargraves (California State University, Fullerton): “Democracy Dies in the Edit: American Tribalism and Late-Stage Reality Television”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Lecture Series "gender, sexuality, power" | Jeannine DeLombard (University of California, Santa Barbara): "Wife, Daughter, Spinster, Litigant: Black Women & Girls in the 1st US Civil Rights Movement"
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Research Colloquium Literature/ Culture | Stefanie Schäfer (Universität Mannheim):“Fact & Fiction, Fashion & Feminism: Towards a Critical Study of the First Lady”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture | Shane Denson (Stanford University): “Art & Artifice, or: What AI Means for Aesthetics.”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 340
Lecture Series “gender, sexuality, power”| Ela Przybyło (Illinois State University + MVBZ, FU Berlin): "Queer Little Splinters Everywhere: Asexual Challenges to Sex Scarcity Research and Queer Theory’s Continued Investment in Obligate Sex
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Research Colloquium Literature/ Culture | Maria Sulimma (Universität Freiburg): “Trivial Pursuits: Narrative, Leisure, and the Gentrifying City”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Lecture Series "gender, sexuality, power" | Nathalie Rennhack (FU Berlin):“I would descend with celebrity to posterity” - Female Authorship and Authority in the Early Republic
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Research Colloquium Literature/ Culture | Jennifer Fleissner (University of Chicago): “The Recalcitrant Self: From Collectivity to Interdependence”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 340
Conference "Dilemmas of Interdependence"
Location: JFKI for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 340
Research Colloquium Literature/ Culture | Christa Dierksheide (University of Virginia) & Nicholas Guyatt (Cambridge University): “Jefferson’s Wolf: A Founding Father’s Troubling Answer to the Problem of Slavery”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Lecture Series "gender, sexuality, power" | Anna Marta Marini (Humboldt Fellow, FU Berlin): "Disposable Lives, Ethnoracialized Bodies and Genderscapes on the U.S.-Mexican Border"
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Research Colloquium Literature/ Culture | Mark Rifkin (University at Buffalo):“Indigenous Erotics, Leaky Bodies, and Grounded Relations: Queer Native Placemaking in Joshua Whitehead’s Jonny Appleseed”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Lecture Series "gender.sexuality, power" | Annelot Prins (Independent Researcher):"Billionaire Aesthetics: Taylor Swift, Labor Extremism, and the Cultural Politics of Work and Power"
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Research Colloquium Literature/ Culture | Simon Strick (Independent Scholar):“On Fascistization, or American Culture as Bad Object”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Lecture Series "gender, sexuality, power" | Elahe Haschemi Yekani + Anne Potjans (HU Berlin: “What rises up within, between us?”: Race and Intersectionality in Literary Studies
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Research Colloquium Literature/ Culture | Günter Leypoldt (Universität Heidelberg):“Literature and Networks: A Socio-Institutional Perspective on Literary History”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
American Academy Lecture| Maaza Mengiste (Wesleyan University, Author + American Academy Berlin Fellow): Author Reading and Discussion
Location: Henry-Ford-Bau Hörsaal A Garystr. 35/37 14195 Berlin
Research Colloquium Literature/ Culture | Renae Watchman (McMaster University / Mercator Fellow, Universität Potsdam): “Re-storying Indigenous Identity Claims in Literary and Creative Arts.”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Lecture Series "gender, sexuality, power" | Birte Wege (FU Berlin): Staging Identity in American Theater: Two Case Studies
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Inaugural Ernst Fraenkel Lecture | Brook Thomas (UC Irvine): "Birthright Citizenship, Ltd.: The Controversy over Trump’s Executive Order 14610”
Location: Großer Hörsaal (Raum B.001) Arnimallee 22
Lecture Series "gender, sexuality, power" | Joanna Arnow (Filmmaker + DAAD Berlin Fellow) - Conversation with Madita Oeming
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Conversation with the author Doug Woodham
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R340
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture | Anna Marta Marini (JFKI Humboldt Fellow): "Ethnoracial Borderscapes, Latinx Assimilationism and Anti-Immigrant Sentiments in US Cinema"
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Lecture Series "gender, sexuality, power" | Film Screening “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed “ (dir. Joanna Arnow)
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture | Florian Sedlmeier (Universität Hamburg):“Free Indirect Positions: Sebastian Barry’s Historical Novels”
Location: John F Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Lecture Series "gender, sexuality, power" | Helen Gibson (FU Berlin): "Reproductive Justice as Anti-Fascist Practice"
Location: Großer Hörsaal (R B.001) Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin
Postponed: End of Term Party 2026
Location: JFK-I, Lansstr. 7-9, 2nd floor
Lecture Series S16: Wrap-Up and Overview
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S15: Frank Kelleter (FU Berlin): ”Theorizing Loss, Losing Theory: Styles of Coping in the Elegiac Humanities, 2008-2025"
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S14: Giacomo Tagiuri (University of Amsterdam): “The Governance of Loss”
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S13: Sherry Lee Linkon (Georgetown University): “Black Struggle and Resilience: LaToya Ruby Frazier’s Portraits of Deindustrialized Communities”
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S12: Stefanie Müller (FU Berlin): “Climate Change Memoirs”
Location: Different venue: Henry Ford Bau Hörsaal A Garystr. 35-37
Lecture Series S11: Tobias Becker (University of Heidelberg): “The Politics of Nostalgia and the Poverty of Theory”
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series 10: Arlie Russel Hochschildtl (University of California, Berkeley): “Loss, Shame and the Right’s Narrative of Stolen Pride”
Location: ONLINE via Webex Please not different time and place.
CANCELED - Lecture Series S09: Heike Paul (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg): “Lost Cause-Sentimentalism and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism”
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S08: Martin Lüthe (FU Berlin): “Playing Loss and Losing Play? Digital Games as Affective Agents of Loss”
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S07: Christian Lammert (FU Berlin): “Reconfiguring Welfare States: A Dynamic Approach to Loss in North America and Western Europe”
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S06: Rebecca Elliott (London School of Economics): "W(h)ither the Sympathetic State? The Dismantling of the Disaster Safety Net in the United States"
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S05: Jacob Hacker (American Academy Fellow): “Inequality, Insecurity, and America’s Democratic Crisis”
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S04: Lora Anne Viola (FU Berlin): “The Politics of Loss in US Foreign Policy and the Undoing of Multilateralism”
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S03: Discussion of Andreas Reckwitz’s "Verlust"
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S02: Sebastian Kohl (FU Berlin): “Insuring Loss”
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Lecture Series S01: Introduction: Research Questions and Projects
Location: Gr. Hörsaal (Raum B.001) (Arnimallee 22)
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S13 - Katharina Gerund (University of Zurich):"The Waiting Wives of the Forever Wars: Military Spouses in Post-9/11 US Culture"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S12 - Julia Faisst (TU Dortmund): "Disappearing Children: Border Narratives of Underage Migration"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S11 - Christa Buschendorf (University of Frankfurt): "Artists and Intellectuals in Times of Repression: A Symposium on 'Art and Morals' at Smith College in 1953"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Cyborg Writing Workshop for Students
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Seminar Room: 340
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S10 - Russ Castronovo (University of Wisconsin-Madison): “Frozen Subjectivity: Vulnerability and Aesthetics at the End of the World.”
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S09 - Katja Sarkowsky (University of Augsburg): "Writing Rivers: Water, Relationality, and Political Critique"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S08 - Alexis Salas (Terra Professor): “Plant Papi Politics: Queer Latinx Artists Re-grounding Nature"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S07 - Werner Sollors (Harvard University): "Approaches to American Literature in Cosmopolitan and Ethnic Contexts"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S06 - Andrew Hartman (Illinois State University): "Karl Marx in America"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S05 - Sianne Ngai (University of Chicago): "Inhabiting Error: From “Last Christmas” to “Senior’s Last Hour”"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S04 - Heike Paul (University of Erlangen-Nürnberg): "From Lost Colony to Lost Cause: American Beginnings Revisited"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S03 - Birte Christ (University of Tübingen): "Why Helmut Read Hemingway : American Authors and the Post-War (Re-)Construction of a Broad German Reading Public"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S02 - Dustin Breitenwischer (University of Hamburg): "You just take a look at him once in a while": Ralph Ellison’s Frederick Douglass
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture S01 - Marco Caracciolo (Ghent University): "Algorithms, Gamification, and the Ambiguities of Play in Richard Powers’s Playground"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Inauguration Watch Party and Discussion
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin Room 201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Cécile Coquet-Mokoko (Université Versailles-St Quentin) will give a talk on “Race traitors? Perceptions and Coping Strategies of Black/White interracial couples in the American South and France, 2010-2020”
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Cinzia Scarpino (Università degli Studi di Milano) will give a talk on “Introducing American Authors to Italian Readers: Transnational Trajectories and Idiosyncratic Translation Policies (1930- 1974)”
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
2024 Conference of the DFG Network Research Group Model Aesthetics - Between Literary and Economic Knowledge
Location: John F. Kennedy institute Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Karin Höpker (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) will give a talk on “Confidence and the ‘Contortions of Money’— Market Fiction & Herman Diaz’s Trust“
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Winfried Siemerling (University of Waterloo) & Karina Vernon (University of Toronto) will give a talk on “Call and Response-ability: Black Canadian Art and Audience“
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Rizvana Bradley (Terra Visiting Professor/ University of California, Berkeley) will give a talk on “The Corporeal Division of the World: On Anteaesthetics“
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Kathleen Loock (Leibniz Universität Hannover) will give a talk on “Hollywood Remaking: Memory, Nostalgia, and Generational Identities from Stella Dallas to Ghostbusters“
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Laura Bieger (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) will give a talk on “Infra-Structuring Realism“
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Andrew Gross (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen) will give a talk on “Eclogue at the End of History: The Best American Poetry of 1990“
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Martina J. Kohl (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) reading from her novel Family Matters: Of Life in Two Worlds (PalmArtPress Berlin, 2023)
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R340
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Barbara von Bechtolsheim (Yale University) will give a talk on “Passion for Life: Hannah Arendt and Heinrich Blücher”
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: David Grundy (Humboldt Fellow/ Freie Universität Berlin) will give a talk on “Survival Music: Free Jazz Then and Now”
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Lecture Series– S13: Sönke Kunkel (FU Berlin): "The Pogues: The Body of an American (1985) -- Migration and Public History in North America"
Location: HS Anorganik, Fabeckstr. 34-36, 14195 Berlin
Lecture Series: Christopher Ohge (University of London) "Mastodon: 'Blood and Thunder' (2004) - Herman Melville and Computational Literary Studies"
Location: HS Anorganik, Fabeckstr. 34-36, 14195 Berlin
Lecture Series -S12: Christian Lammert (FU Berlin): Oliver Anthony: Rich Men North of Richmond (2023) -- Inequality, Trust and Populist Mobilization in the United States
Location: HS Anorganik, Fabeckstr. 34-36, 14195 Berlin
Lecture Series -S11: Simon Voss (FU Berlin) "Bruce Springsteen: 'The Ghost of Tom Joad' (1995) California amidst Homelessness and the Fentanyl Epidemic"
Location: HS Anorganik, Fabeckstr. 34-36, 14195 Berlin
Lecture Series -S09: Kylie Crane (University of Rostock) "Beyoncé: 'Formation‘ (2016) - #BLM and Environmental Justice“
Location: HS Anorganik, Fabeckstr. 34-36, 14195 Berlin
Lecture Series -S08: Andrew Moravcsik (American Academy Berlin/Princeton) American Academy Lecture: "More Bark than Bite? The Effect of Extreme-Right Parties on Foreign Policy"
Location: Hörsaal – Anorganik (Fabeckstr. 34-36), 14195 Berlin Coffee & Cake in R340 at John F. Kennedy Institute
Lecture Series -S07: David Grundy (FU Berlin) "The Advanced Workers with the Anti-Imperialist Singers: You Was Marching Need to be Marchin So You Can Dance Some More Later on (1976) - Music and Revolution in the Age of Disco"
Location: ONLINE via Webex
CANCELED! Lecture Series -S06: Barbara Elias (Bowdoin College) "Alice in Chains 'Rooster' (1992): Local Allies and US Strategic Failure in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan"
Location: ONLINE via Webex
Lecture Series -S05: David Eisler (De Gruyter): “ Creedence Clearwater Revival: 'Fortunate Son' (1969) - Conscription and American War Fiction since Vietnam”
Location: HS Anorganik, Fabeckstr. 34-36, 14195 Berlin
Lecture Series -S04: Sebastian Kohl (FU Berlin) "Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: 'Our House' (1970) - A Historical Sociology of American Housing"
Location: HS Anorganik, Fabeckstr. 34-36, 14195 Berlin
Lecture Series -S03: Martin Lüthe (FU Berlin) "Boyz II Men: 'End of the Road' (1992) - Boyband Affectivity and North American Intersectionalities"
Location: HS Anorganik, Fabeckstr. 34-36, 14195 Berlin
Lecture Series -S02: Katharina Motyl (University of Mannheim): “‘The Maid of Monterey’ (1848) – U.S. Imperial Feminism from the Mexican-American War to the ‘War on Terror’”
Location: HS Anorganik, Fabeckstr. 34-36, 14195 Berlin
Lecture Series -S01: Welcome, Introductiom and Discussion about “Songs that Shaped our Notions of ‘North America’”
Location: Online lecture: https://fu-berlin.webex.com/fu-berlin-en/j.php?MTID=mf49ec77c523d0fa33db416b7670f6301
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture:Jesse Schwartz (City University of New York) will give a talk on "The Bolshevik Revolution, Racial Socialism, and US Print Culture, 1886-1924"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Gabriele Schwab (University of California, Irvine) will give a talk on "Transspecies Imaginaries"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Katrin Horn (Universität Bayreuth) will give a talk on "Bad Manners, Good Business: Society Columns in the Late Nineteenth Century"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Julia Rosenbaum (Bard College/ Terra Foundation Visiting Professor 2023) will give a talk on "What Means This Carnage?”: Civil War Soldiers’ Bodies and the Army Medical Museum
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Lara Langer Cohen (Swarthmore College) will give a talk on "The Underground Railroad’s Undergrounds"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R319
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Nattie Golubov (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) will give a talk on "The Pleasures of Reading Popular Romance Fiction"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Joel Pfister (Wesleyan University) will give a talk on "Partners in Crime: American Movies, Systemic Complicity, and the Big Picture"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Susan Bernofsky (August-Wilhelm-von-Schlegel-Gastprofessorin für Poetik, FU Berlin) will give a talk on "Mine or Yours? Literary Translation as Creative Writing in the U.S.-American Context"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R319
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Alexandra Ganser (Universität Wien) will give a talk on "Thinking Astrofuturism with Jacques Lacan and Hannah Arendt"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Richard Peña (Columbia University) will give a talk on "Brave New World: Yiddish Cinema in America"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Winfried Fluck (Freie Universität Berlin) will give a talk on "Critical Theories, Populist Utopias, and Unforeseen Developments: Changing Narratives about the Mass Media in American Studies"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Ruth Mayer (Leibniz Universität Hannover) will give a talk on "The Original Flapper is a Copy: Modernist Periodicals, Serial Circulation and the Modern Girl Multiplied"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201
Research Colloquium Literature/Culture: Iryna Yakovenko (Borys-Grinchenko-Universität Kyiv) will give a talk on "Chornobyl and the Exclusion Zone as a Lived Experience and a Trope in American Literature: From Nonfiction to Thrillers"
Location: John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies Lansstr. 7-9 14195 Berlin R201