Prof. Dr. Barbara Buchenau
Biobibliography
Barbara Buchenau is Professor of North American Studies: Literary and Cultural Studies. She served as UDE’s Vice-Rector of Social Responsibility, Diversity and International Affairs from April 2018 to March 2022, and has directed the inter-university research group Scripts for Postindustrial Urban Futures: American Models, Transatlantic Interventions funded by the Volkswagen Foundation from 2018 to 2023. As a principal investigator in the DFG Research Unit 2600 Ambiguity and Distinction: Historical and Cultural Dynamics (2019 – 2023) she investigates prominent figures of thought bridging divides of faith, race, and belonging that have accompanied the slow transition from colonial settings to national rule in North America. As a member of the Aurora European University Alliance and lead of its work package 3 on Learning for Societal Impact (2020-2023) she is invested in internationalizing the curricula and improving academic contributions to the sustainable development goals. Her teaching and research are concerned with the fields of cultural theory, cultural history, urban studies, multilingual early Americana, historical forms of popular culture, cultural pluralism and multiculturalism. She is also interested in Canadian and Caribbean literature and cultural history. She is inviting student research in three fields in particular: the era of pluralization in North American writings, the diverse intersections between literature and the land in North America, and the cultural and political work of stereotypical and typological representations of minority groups in texts, maps and visual art. Before joining the faculty of Duisburg-Essen, she taught Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Bern in Switzerland (Assistenzprofessorin). She received her academic training in American literature and culture at the University of Göttingen.
Geisteswissenschaften/Anglisik/Amerikanistik
45141 Essen
Functions
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Professor/in, Anglistik: Nordamerikastudien II - North American Cultural Studies
Current lectures
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SoSe 2026
- Theses in American Studies
- Founding Myths and Ownership
- Doctoral Colloquium in Literary and Cultural Studies
- Figures, Matters, Images: Inventions of America in the Age of Enlightenment
- Healthy Cities
- Aurora Blended Intensive Programme: "Rising Voices: Emerging Scholars Forum"
- RUDESA 2026: Transnational American Studies in the Era of Neo-Imperialism
Past lectures (max. 10)
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WiSe 2025
- Sustainable Urbanities in North America and Europe
- Doctoral Colloquium in Literary and Cultural Studies
- Empires of Ambiguity
- American Studies: Areas, Approaches, Methods
- A Survey of American Literature Gr. 3
- Theses in American Studies
- E3 - GeiWi_Angl - A Survey of American Literature - Cr. 3-3
- RUDESA 2026: Transnational American Studies in the Era of Neo-Imperialism
-
SoSe 2025
The following publications are listed in the online university bibliography of the University of Duisburg-Essen. Further information may also be found on the person's personal web pages.
Error in source processing- colonial and early national literary and cultural history of North America
- urban transformations, urbanity and anti-urbanism
- politics and poetics of cultural pluralism and multiculturalism
- early modern scholarship and its arts
- historical fiction
- religious typology, figuration, scripting
- ethnic and racial stereotyping: sounds, sights, verbal features
- Inter-American studies
- comparative cultural and literary geography
Since October 2012
Full Professor of North American Studies: Cultural and Literary Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
02/2010 – 09/2012
Assistant Professor (Assistenzprofessorin) of Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Studies, Department of English, University of Bern, Switzerland
2001 – January 2010
Assistant Professor (wissenschaftliche Assistentin), American Studies Program, University of Göttingen, Germany
2004 – 2005
Visiting Scholar, Stanford University, U.S.A.
2000
Postdoctoral researcher, Inter-American research collaboration, Göttingen
1997 – 1999
Researcher, Collaborative Research Center SFB 529 Internationality of National Literatures, University of Göttingen
1994 – 1996
Research Assistant, Collaborative Research Center SFB 309 Literary Translation and Transcoop Project “Contacts and Transfers in the Construction of National Literatures” (Proffs. A.P. Frank, K. Mueller-Vollmer)
Education
June 2010
Habilitation (Post-Doctoral Degree), University of Göttingen, Germany. venia legendi for American Studies. Postdoctoral thesis on the literary and scientific construction of the Iroquois in colonial North America.
February 1999
Dr. phil., University of Göttingen, Germany. Doctoral thesis (summa cum laude) on the transatlantic literary and cultural politics of early U.S. American historical fiction (published in 2002)
July 1994
1. state exam in Geography and English, University of Göttingen, Germany. Thesis paper on “certainty” in the fiction of William Faulkner and George Washington Cable
Spring 1988
Intensive Language and Culture Studies at the Colegio de España, Salamanca, Spain
2023
Thyssen Lesezeit, a research fellowship jointly awarded with Dr. Alexander Starre, FU Berlin (Az. 20.22.0.026TL)
2001 – 2009
Dorothea-Erxleben Fellow, Department of Science and Culture, Lower Saxony, Germany
2004 – 2005
Feodor Lynen Fellow, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, for research at Stanford University
1999
Publication Award of the Göttingen School of the Humanities