Maria Kaspirek

Research Interests

• Current Ph.D. project: “(In)Sanitary Science. The Discourse of Mental Hygiene as Tacit Knowledge in Antebellum Literature”
• Literary Theory
• History of Knowledge/Knowledge Production in Literature and Science
• Mythology and Mythopoeia
• Gothic Fiction
• Medicine and Literature

CV

• Lecturer at the Department of English and American Studies (since October 2016)
• Fellow of AriadnePhil mentoring program, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg (since 2016)
• Participant of the BAA Summer Academy on “Material Cultures” (Miami, 2016)
• Doctoral fellow of the DFG graduate program 1718 “Presence and Tacit Knowledge” (since 2015)
• Studied German Philology, Comparative Literature, Book Studies, and English Literary Studies at University of Vienna, Johannes Gutenberg- University of Mainz, and University of Aberdeen (2010-2014)

Memberships

• Member of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA) and the forum for postgraduates (PGF) of the DGfA (since 2015)
• Member of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society (since 2015)

Publications

• “Hawthorne and Antebellum Theories on Hereditary Insanity.” COPAS 17 (2016).

Papers and Lectures

• “The Battle for Authority: Literary and Medical Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century America.” HCA Spring Academy 2017, Heidelberg (March 2017)
• “Timeless Madness? Temporal Strands of a Literary Topos.” (De-)Konstruktionen von Zeitlichkeit: Optimierung – Wahrnehmung – Erzählung, Konferenz des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs 1718 „Präsenz und implizites Wissen“, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg (Oct. 2016)
• “Self-Help and Self-Improvement: The Reception of Phrenology and Neuroscience.” Neurocultures: Brain Imaging and Imagining the Mind, Department of English Studies, University of Bielsko-Biala (Sept. 2016)
• “Phrenology and the Mind-Body Problem in Nineteenth-Century America.” The Body and Pseudoscience in the Long Nineteenth Century, Newcastle University (June 2016)
• “A Strange Sympathy betwixt Soul and Body“ – Material(ist) Psychiatry in The Scarlet Letter.” Material Cultures, BAA Summer Academy, Miami (June 2016)
• “The Politics of Madness – Psychiatry as a Tool of Social and Self-Control.” Defining and Defying the Concept of Deviance and Degeneration in the British Isles and North America in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Journée d’études, Université Lyon II (Jan. 2016)
• “Heredity and Insanity in The Scarlet Letter.” Annual Postgraduate Conference of the German Association of American Studies, University of Bamberg (Nov. 2015)
• “Domesticity as a Cure for Mental Illness in The House of the Seven Gables.” Homeliness, Domesticity, and Security in American Culture, Polish Association for American Studies, University of Warsaw (Sept. 2015)

Teaching

• Antebellum (Pseudo) Science and Literature (Undergraduate Seminar)