Marius Henderson, M.A.

 

Research Interests

Literary and Cultural Theory (esp. Feminist Theory, Black Diasporic Theory, Queer Theory, “New Materialisms”)
Public Feeling, Affect and Trauma Theory
Poetry (esp. North American Poetry of the 20th and 21st centuries)
African American Studies
Gender Studies
Experimental Literature and Art
Historical and Contemporary Avant-Gardes

Education

PhD studies in American Studies, University of Hamburg (2013-2018); Title of the dissertation: “Writing during the Disasters: Modes of Rendering Suffering in Contemporary North American Experimental Poetry”
M.A. in English and American Studies, University of Hamburg (2012)
B.A. in English and American Studies and Gender Studies, University of Hamburg (2009)

Employment

• 2018-present: research associate and lecturer in American Studies at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
• 2012-2017: research associate and lecturer in English and American Studies at the University of Hamburg

Fellowships, Grants & Awards

• 2017: Travel Grant by the Department of International Affairs, University of Hamburg
• 2016: Fellowship by the Fulbright Commission for Participation in the American Studies Institute, Topic: “Why Black Lives Matter: Race and Politics in the U.S.,” San Francisco State University
• 2015: Travel Grant by the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
• 2013: American Studies Award of the Amerikazentrum Hamburg for the most outstanding MA thesis
• 2009-2010: Gilman Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
• 2009: STIP-OUT Scholarship by the University of Hamburg

Service to the Profession

• Founding member (since 2014) and co-spokesperson (2017-2018) of the interdisciplinary doctoral student network “Perspektiven in der Kulturanalyse: Black Diaspora, Dekolonialität, Transnationalität” (“Perspectives in Cultural Analysis: Black Diaspora, Decolononiality, Transnationality”) (affiliated with the University of Bremen)
• member of the 2016/17 PGF team; co-organizer of the 2016 Postgraduate Forum of the GAAS at the University of Hamburg and of the “Meet the Speakers” workshop at the 64^th Annual Conference of the GAAS at the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University Hannover, June 2017 (with Paula von Gleich, Samira Spatzek, Jasmin Humburg, Julia Lange, Mariya Dimitrova Nikolova, and Samira Spatzek); co-editor of COPAS (2017)
• member of the ICA e.V. (Society for the Promotion of Academic Inter-Cultural Activities)

Publications

Workshops & Conferences

• Current Tendencies in Contemporary American Fiction. Symposium and Festakt honoring Susanne Rohr. Warburg-Haus Hamburg, June 2018 (with Julia Lange and Jolene Mathieson).
• Co-organization of a workshop with the title, “Performative Dimensionen von Rassismus und seiner Kritik sowie performative Gegenentwürfe: Ein theatraler Workshop für Nicht-Schauspieler*innen” (on performative dimensions of racism and its critique), conducted by Lara-Sophie Milagro, artistic director of Label Noir, University of Bremen, January 2018 (in collaboration with and as a member of the doctoral student network “Perspektiven in der Kulturanalyse: Black Diaspora, Dekolonialität, Transnationalität” [“Perspectives in Cultural Analysis: Black Diaspora, Decoloniality, Transnationality”]).
• “Meet the Speakers.” Workshop at the 64^th annual conference of the German Association of American Studies (GAAS). Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University Hannover, June 2017 (with Paula von Gleich, Samira Spatzek, Jasmin Humburg, Julia Lange, Mariya Dimitrova Nikolova, and Samira Spatzek).
• Organization of the annual conference of the Postgraduate Forum (PGF) of the GAAS. University of Hamburg, Oct. 2016 (with Paula von Gleich, Samira Spatzek, Jasmin Humburg, Julia Lange, Mariya Dimitrova Nikolova, and Samira Spatzek).
• “Writing Experimentally in the 21^st Century: A Transatlantic Dialogue on Contemporary Experimental Poetry.” International symposium and workshop for early career scholars. Warburg-Haus and Amerikazentrum Hamburg, April 2016 (supervised by Susanne Rohr).
• Entangled Memories: Remembering the Holocaust in a Global Age. International and transdisciplinary conference. University of Hamburg, Oct. 2014 (with Julia Lange).
• “The Right to Urban Farming and a Rooftop Garden? Ecological Urbanism and (the End of) Politics.” Workshop at the 61^st annual conference of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS). University of Würzburg, June 2014 (with Dennis Büscher-Ulbrich).
• Help with the organization of the interdisciplinary lecture series, “Life/Rupture: Conflict Resolution and the Poetics of (Dis-)Continuity.” Organized by Verena Keidel and Janina Wierzoch and colleagues at the Institute of English and American Studies, University of Hamburg, Winter Semester 2014/2015.
• Organization of a symposium on scholarly and poetic approaches to William S. Burroughs’ works. Deichtorhallen Hamburg August 2013 (with Isabel Abele and Alescha Abendroth).
• Organization of the transdisciplinary gender and queer studies lecture series, “Jenseits der Geschlechtergrenzen” (“Beyond Gender Boundaries”), as a member of the AG Queer Studies, University of Hamburg 2006-2009.

Conference Papers & Invited Guest Lectures (Selection)

• “Notes on the Alluring Weirdness of (Materialist) Rumination and Regurgitation.” International conference “The American Weird: Ecologies & Geographies,” Georg-August U Göttingen, April 2018.
• “Travelling Lusting Palates: On the Transcontinental and Transhistorical Mobilization of Modernist Formations of Desire, from Dada, to Flarf Poetry, ‘Cloud Rap’ and back.” International conference “Modernisms and Modernities East, West and South: Comparing Literary and Cultural Experiences,” Fudan U, Shanghai, July 2017.
• “Reparative Reading ‘& and’ Conjunctive Poetics.” International conference “The Environment and Human Migration: Rethinking the Politics of Poetry,” Nov. 2016.
• “Alongside Similarity, Contiguity and Extimacy: Synecdoche? – Tropes and Grammars of Suffering in Contemporary Poetry.” Symposium “Reading and Writing Experimentally in the 21st Century,” U of Hamburg, April 2016.
• “Between Monasticism and Excess; or, Your Body Is a Temple and a Landfill.” International conference “Doing the Body in the 21^st Century,” U of Pittsburgh, April 2016.
• “Still not Feeling Well: Dithering in Negativity and the Failure to Move On.” International conference “The Failed Individual,” U of Mannheim, Nov. 2015.
• “Plastic Writing: Materializations of PoieticLanguage in the Anthropocene.” Annual conference of the GAAS, U of Bonn, May 2015.
• “How the Words Undo: Reflections on the Poetical Undoing of the Hegemonically ‘Human.’” International conference “Doing Human,” WITS Centre for Diversity Studies, U of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, April 2015.
• “Disruptive Encounters with Non-Life and Death in Life: Enmeshments of ‘Necro’ (Non-)Aesthetics and Queer Sensibilities.” Lecture series “Life/Rupture: Conflict Resolution and the Poetics of (Dis-) Continuity,” U of Hamburg, Dec. 2014.
• “(An Anagram of) Notes on Queer ‘Necro’ Practices and Sensibilities.” International “Summer School for Sexualities, Cultures and Politics,” IPAK Center, Singidinum U, Belgrade, Aug. 2014.
• “‘Undead’ and Kicking: Exploring Queer, Post-Pornographic and Necro Practices.” International conference “Life Matters: Affect, Sex, and Control,” Linköping U, May 2014.
• “Wuchernde Wunden & Wunder: Notizen zum ‘Affective Turn’ in queer-feministischen Theorien.” Lecture series “Jenseits der Geschlechtergrenzen [“Beyond Gender Boundaries”],” U of Hamburg, May 2014.
• “Poems as Little Monsters: Exploring Materializations of (Poetic) Language in the Anthropocene.” International conference “Anthropocene Feminism,” U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, April 2014.
• “Reflections on the Shift from Trauma to Affect in Contemporary Cultural Theory.” Postgraduate Forum of the GAAS, FAU, Oct. 2013.
• “‘Burroughs’ Töchter’?: Burroughs’ Einfluss auf jüngere, radikale Schriftstellerinnen.” Symposium “William S. Burroughs: Kulturwissenschaftliche und poetische Annäherungen an William S. Burroughs’ Werk und Wirken,” Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Aug. 2013.
• “Juggling with Uncertainties and Impasses: How Experimental Poetry Manages to Generate Spaces of Dissent and Retreat amidst Contemporary Scenarios of Crisis.” conference: “Claiming Space: Reconfigurations in Times of Crisis,” John F. Kennedy Institute Berlin, Free U Berlin, May 2013.

Courses

• Grundseminar Literature
• An Introductory Survey of North American Poetry in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries (PS)
• Abstraction and Abjection (HS/PS, Hamburg)
• What Was and/or Is the Avant-Garde? (HS/PS, Hamburg)
• Writing about Art (together with Jolene Mathieson) (PS, Hamburg)
• Writing about Art” (together with Jolene Mathieson) (HS/PS, Hamburg)
• The Madwoman in the Attic Revisited: The Emily Dickinson Cosmos (PS, Hamburg)
• From the Harlem Renaissance to Post-Soul Aesthetics: African American Literature and Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries (PS, Hamburg)
• Is this the End of the Book as We Know It?: Cutting-Edge Experiments in Contemporary North American Literature (PS, Hamburg)
• Slavery and Literature (PS, Hamburg)
• Introduction to American Literature and Culture (Hamburg)