Curriculum Vitae
- Hannes Koberg (they/he) is lecturer and PhD candidate at the chair of American Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum. After obtaining an MA in English/American Studies from Ruhr-University with a thesis on “Nation/Gender: Third Space in Arab American Fiction,” they joined the Ruhr Center of American Studies as a doctoral candidate. In the fall semester of 2024, they were a visiting researcher at American University in Washington, D.C., and conducted archival research at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYC, and at Spelman College, Atlanta. Their research stay was supported by RUB Research School, funded by Germany’s Excellence Initiative.
Hannes is currently working on a PhD thesis tentatively titled “The Body in Decolonial Times: Performative Matter in Life Writing of the Americas.” Examining life writing at the intersection of Decolonial Studies and Queer Studies, it asks how American autobiographers rewrite dominant conceptions of the human body to construct decolonial modes of belonging. Besides their research, Hannes has also translated pieces of the autobiographical works of American writer Kenny Fries. Further research and teaching interests include: Contemporary US Literature, 19th Century US Fiction, Narratives of Same-Gender Love before Gay Liberation, Critical Phenomenology, Diversity Studies.
Courses
- WiSe 2024/25: Prude Victorian America? Romantic Friendship and Love in U.S. Literature before Gay Liberation
- SoSe 2024: The Gothic in U.S. Culture
- SoSe 2024: Introduction to Cultural Studies (US)
- WiSe 2023/24: The Material Self in U.S. Literature
- WiSe 2023/24: Introduction to Critical Phenomenology
- WiSe 2022/23: Queer American Life/Writing
- SoSe 2022: Transnational Life Writing: American Selves beyond Borders
- SoSe 2022: Introduction to Cultural Studies (US)
- WiSe 2021/22: Introduction to Cultural Studies (US) (Hybrid Course)
- SoSe 2021: Ecocritical Approaches to the U.S. South (Online Course)
- WiSe 2020/21: Introduction to Cultural Studies (Online Course)
- SoSe 2020: The Body in Transnational Autobiography (Online Course)
- WiSe 2019/20: Introduction to Cultural Studies (US)
Publications
- Koberg, Hannes.“The Body on the Page: Writing Queer Chicanx Subjectivity Through the Performative Body in Rigoberto González’s Autobiography of My Hungers.” A/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 39(3), 2024, pp. 671-695.
- Fries, Kenny. "Das Verhalten der Delinquenten." Literarisches Colloquium Berlin. Trans. Hannes Koberg. 2023.
kenny-fries-uebersetzung - Fries, Kenny. "Körper aus Wasser." Alle Uns: Differenz, Identität, Repräsentation. Eds. Simon Dickel and Rebecca R. Ramershoven. Trans. Hannes Koberg. Münster: assemblage, 2022. 35-40.
Research Interests
- Contemporary U.S. Literature, Transnationalism, Autobiography Studies, Intersectionality, Body and Gender Studies
Conference Papers and Lectures
- “’Les amies:’ Critical Phenomenology, the Erotic Living Body, and the Imagination of a Transnational, Feminist Women of Color Community in Audre Lorde’s Zami,” American Studies Association 2024 Annual Meeting “Grounded Engagements in American Studies,” Baltimore, November 2024.
- “Feelings of Fragmentation: The Living Body in Transnational American Life Writing,” International Auto/Biography Association World "Fragmented Lives," hosted by the University of Iceland, June 2024.
- “The Body in Time: Reading Audre Lorde’s Zami as Erotohistoriography,” International Auto/Biography Association World "Life-Writing: Imagining Past, Present and Future," hosted by the University of Turku, Finland, June 2022
- "Pushing the Corporeal Limits of a Nation: The Body in Rigoberto González's Autobiography of My Hungers", International Auto/Biography Association Asia-Pacific "Life Writing: Transnationalism, Translingualism, Transculturalism", hosted by the University of Adelaide, in collaboration with the University of South Australia and Flinders University, November 2021
- "Why the Body Matters in Transnational Life Writing", Life Narrative Futures, Virtual International Networking Event at Flinders University, Australia, with Ricia Chansky, October 2021
- "Body/Nation: Embodying Hybrid Selves in Transnational Life Writing" Narrated Lives – Remembered Selves: Emerging Research in Life Writing Studies, Virtual International Workshop at the University of Regensburg with Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, May 2021
- "'I got this under the bridge:' Embodying Hybrid Selves in Transnational Life Writing" PhD-Forum of the RuhrCenter of American Studies, hosted by the University Duisburg-Essen/Technical University Dortmund, February 2021
- "(Dis)embodying the Nation: The Self at the Intersections of Disability/Gender/Nation in Kenny Fries's Memoirs" Designing the Self, HUGSA Virtual Conference at the Department of Humanities, York University (Toronto), July 2020
- "(In)visibility and the Nationalist Gaze in Hida Viloria's Born Both" PhD-Forum of the RuhrCenter of American Studies, hosted by the Ruhr-University Bochum/Technical University Dortmund, January/February 2020
Conference Organization
- Co-organizer of the annual PhD-Forum of the RuhrCenter of American Studies since 2019.
Grants/Scholarships
- PR.INT Scholarship RUB Research School, funded by Germany’s Excellence Initiative [DFG GSC 98/3], July 2024
- DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Grant for an international conference stay, March 2024
- DigiPhil funding programme of the faculty of philology (RUB) for the digitalization of teaching and learning, Sep 2023
- Faculty of Philology (RUB) Grant for an international conference stay, June 2022.
- English Seminar (RUB) Grant for an international conference stay, June 2022
- DAAD scholarship for assistant teaching at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, 2011-2012.
