Biographical Information

Sandra Meyer read English and German at the universities of Heidelberg and Duisburg-Essen. She finished her studies in March 2007 with an M.A. thesis on Magical Realism in two novels by Kate Atkinson and Zakes Mda. During her studies she gave tutorials for first-year students and gained teaching experience at a comprehensive school in Andover, GB.

Areas of Teaching and Research

Sandra Meyer is currently working on her dissertation on postmodern identities in the works of Kate Atkinson. Her research interests are Postmodernism, Postcolonialism, Modernism and Literary Theory.

Classes


WS 2010/11

PS: A Survey of British Literature

PS: A Survey of British Literature

HS: More than Novels: Texts and Contexts of 18th century Literature

HS: “The Story that gave this Land its life”: Depictions of India in 20th and 21st century novels

HS: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”: Texts and Contexts of 19th century British Literature

HS: “Writing […] is but a different name for conversation” – The art of story-telling from the 18th to the 21st century

 

SoSe 2010

 PS: A Survey of British Literature

PS: A Survey of British Literature

HS: Victorian Literature and Culture: A Survey

HS: Victorian Literature and Culture: A Survey

HS/BS: Alice, Baloo, Black Beauty and Co.: Children’s Literature in the Victorian Age

HS: “As if by Magic”: Magical Realism in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction

 


WS2009/10

PS: A Survey of British Literature

HS: “Trust me, I’m telling you stories”: The Role of the Narrator in 18th to 21st Century Novels

HS/BS: Alice, Baloo, Black Beauty and Co.: Children’s Literature in the Victorian Age

 

SoSe 2009

PS: A Survey of British Literature

 

 

WS 2008/09

HS: Fiction and Film: Narrative Techniques

HS: Victorian Literature and Culture: A Survey

 

WS 2007/08

PS: Contemporary Short Stories

 

Publications

 

Papers given at conferences

"'But the sun knew otherwise' - The construction of Identities through Magical Realism in Zakes Mda's She plays with the Darkness and Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet." Innaugural Conference of the PSA (Postcolonial Studies Association) Re-Imagining Identity: New Directions in Postcolonial Studies, 6-8 May 2009,Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford, Republic of Ireland

"The Story that gave this Land its Life": The Translocation of Rilke's Duino Elegies in Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide. 20th Annual GNEL/ASNEL conference, Postcolonial Translocations. 21-24 May 2009, University of Münster, Germany

"'I'm a shadow of my former self'- The Dissolution of Character Identities in the Works Kate Atkinson". Identity and Form in 20th and 21st Century Literature, Sheffield Hallam University, UK, 3rd - 4th July 2009

"The Role of Intertextuality in Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide". Reading after Empire: Local, Global and Diaspora Audiences,University of Stirling, Scotland, 3-5 September 2008

“Current trends in contemporary fiction: Rajaa Alsanea, Amitav Ghosh,  Ian McEwan, Zakes Mda and Kate Atkinson.” Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft Duisburg, Kulturzentrale HundertMeister Duisburg, 1 October 2009

 

Essays

Accepted for publication:

"The Quest for Identity and its Literary Representation through Metafictional and Metanarrative Elements in Kate Atkinson's Emotionally Weird and Human Croquet". In: English Studies. A Journal of English Language and Literatue (2010)

"No Rhymes, No Embellishments?":  Narrative Techniques in Joe Wright's film adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement, in: LWU, Literatur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht. Kiel, 2009 

Currently under review or in preparation:

“The Globalisation of Magical Realism as a Paradigm for Expanding Postcolonial Studies: A Reading of Zakes Mda and Kate Atkinson”, in: New Directions in Postcolonial Studies (Proceedings of the PSA Inaugural Conference) Routledge

"Memory demands poetic license" - The reconstruction of home and belonging in Bapsi Sidhwa's novels Cracking India and An American Brat

)"The Story that gave this Land its Life": The intertextual significance of Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies in Amitav Ghosh's novel The Hungry Tide, In:  Postcolonial Translocations Conference of ASNEL [Association for the Study of New English Literatures]

Psychoanalytic concepts in Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden and Andrew Birkin's film adaptation

 

Memberships:

Postcolonial Studies Association (PSA)

Association for the Study of the New Literatures in English (ASNEL)