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Dr. habil. Michael Basseler

Basseler
Basseler
Background and Research

I'm a student of American literature and culture. In my PhD dissertation I tackled questions of cultural memory and trauma in the contemporary African American novel, especially in works by Toni Morrison, Charles Johnson, Colson Whitehead, Edward P. Jones, and Paul Beatty. My postdoctoral dissertation (Habilitationschrift) then dealt with notions of literature as a form of "life knowledge" by focussing on North American short stories from the late 19th to early 21st century. In my recent work I'm dealing with the concept of (cultural) resilience, with issues of race and racism, and with current developments in US literature. 

 

Research interests:

  • Literary and Cultural theory
  • African American literature and culture
  • Literature and knowledge
  • Narrative theory and cultural narratology
  • Interdisciplinary resilience studies
  • genre theory and history

 

Contact

International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC)

Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Room 123
Otto-Behaghel-Str. 12
35394 Gießen

Phone: +49 641- 99-30 040

Email: Michael.Basseler@gcsc.uni-giessen.de

ORCID-ID: 0000-0002-2825-8578

Presentations

Recent Publications (Selection)

  • Monographs

2019. An Organon of Life Knowledge: Genres and Functions of the Short Story in North America. Bielefeld: transcript. (For reviews, see here and here.) 

2008. Kulturelle Erinnerung und Trauma im zeitgenössischen afroamerikanischen Roman. Theoretische Grundlegung, Ausprägungsformen, Entwicklungstendenzen. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.

 

  • Edited Volumes and Journal Issues

2020. Europe's Crises and Cultural Resources of Resilience: Conceptual Explorations and Literary Negotiations. Trier: WVT 2020. (with Imke Polland, Sandro Moraldo, and Ansgar Nünning)

2019. The American Novel in the 21st Century: Cultural Contexts – Literary Developments – Critical Analyses. Trier: WVT (Series: WVT-Handbücher zum literaturwissenschaftlichen Studium, Vol. 21) (with Ansgar Nünning)

2015. "Reframing the Modernist Short Story", special section in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Short Story in English 64, p. 21-187 (with Mathijs Duyck, Anne Levita, Christine Reynier & Bart van den Bossche).

2015. Emergent Forms of Life in Anglophone Literature: Conceptual Frameworks and Critical Analyses. Trier: WVT. (Reihe ELCH, Band 66, with Daniel Hartley & Ansgar Nünning.

2013. The Cultural Dynamics of Generic Change in Contemporary Fiction: Theoretical Frameworks, Genres, and Model Interpretations. Trier: WVT (Series: English Literary and Cultural History, Vol. 56, with Ansgar Nünning & Christine Schwanecke)

2011. A History of the American Short Story: Genres – Developments – Model Interpretations. Trier: WVT. (Series: WVT-Handbücher zum literaturwissenschaftlichen Studium, Vol. 14). (with Ansgar Nünning)

 

  • Articles in journals and edited volumes 

2022. “Mimesis of Remembering.” In: Journal of Literary Theory 16.2 (with Dorothee Birke). https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2022-2023

2022. " ‘Not just as it was, but better, far better': Redemption und Resilience in Dave Eggersʼ Zeitoun." Comparatio 13.2: 297-312. 

2022. "Mixed-Genre Fiction.” Encyclopedia of American Fiction, 1980-2020. Ed. Stephen Burn, Patrick O’Donnell and Lesley Larkin. Wiley-Blackwell: 

2022. "Current Approaches to the American Short Story." In: Erik Redling & Oliver Scheiding (eds.), Handbook of the American Short Story. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 55-72.

2021. "The Value of Literature and the Role of the Reader in 21st Century Fiction: Listening to the Ghosts of George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo." In: Ansgar Nünning & Vera Nünning (eds.), The Value of Literature. REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature Vol. 36. 277-295. 

2020. "Rassismus als Katalysator von Krisen: Krisennarrative, Krisenszenarien und kulturelles Gedächtnis in der US-amerikanischen Kultur des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts am Beispiel der 'Central Park Five'". In: Germanisch Romanische Monatsschrift 70.3: 357-372.

2019. "Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post-Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience." In: Astrid Erll & Roy Sommer (Hg.), Narrative in Culture. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. 15-36.

2019. "The Post-Civil-Rights Novel: Re-negotiating African American Identities, Racism, and Cultural Memory in Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (2016) and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout (2015)." In: M. Basseler & A. Nünning (eds.), The American Novel in the Twenty-first Century: Cultural Contexts – Literary Developments – Critical Analyses. Trier: WVT 2019. 101-16. (with Isabel Kalous)

2019. "Lebens-Experimente und generisches Lernen: Mark Twains Autobiography als Lern-/Lehrstück für die Performativität von Genres." In: M. Basseler & A. Nünning (eds.), Fachdidaktik als Kulturwissenschaft: Konzepte – Perspektiven – Projekte. Trier: WVT. 113-126.

2018. "Short-Short Fiction" In: Paul Delaney & Adrian Hunter (eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to the Short Story in English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 147-59.

2017. "Literary Canons and the Dynamics of Generic Change." In: Philipp Löffler (ed.), Reading the Canon. Literary History in the 21st Century. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. 71-101.

2017. "Narrative Empathy in George Saunders's Short Fiction." In: Steve Gronert Ellerhoff & Philip Coleman (eds.), Critical Perspectives on the Works of George Saunders. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 153-72.

2015. "Legacies of Modernism: Robert Hayden’s 'Middle Passage' and Melvin B. Tolson’s 'Dark Symphony'" In:  René Dietrich, Clemens Spahr & Oliver Scheiding (eds.), A History of American Poetry. Trier: WVT. 301-318.

2015. "Emerging Forms of Life in Literary Fiction: From Narrative Techniques to Genres." In: M. Basseler, Daniel Hartley & Ansgar Nünning (Eds.), Emergent Forms of Life in Anglophone Literature: Conceptual Frameworks and Critical Analyses. Trier: WVT, 2015. 75-96.

2015. "A Normal Biography Reversed: The Temporalization of Life in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'". In: Journal of the Short Story in English 64 (Spring 2015). 105-17.

2015. "Cognitive Liminality: Short Stories as Epistemological Fiction." In: Jochen Achilles & Ina Bergmann (eds.), Liminality and the Short Story. London: Routledge. 77-91.

2013. "Literary Studies as a Form of 'Life Science': The Knowledge of Literature." In: Ansgar Nünning & Greta Olson (eds.), New Theories, Models and Methods in Literary and Cultural Studies: Theory into Practice. Trier: WVT. 189-212 (with Ansgar Nünning).

2009. "Literatur – Erfahrung – Lebenswissen. Perspektiven einer pragmatischen Literaturwissenschaft." In: Ottmar Ette & Wolfgang Asholt (Hg.), Literaturwissenschaft als Lebenswissenschaft. Programm – Projekte – Perspektiven. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 205-222.

 

  • Reviews

2021. Jon Baskin, Ordinary Unhappiness: The Therapeutic Fiction of David Foster Wallace. Stanford: Stanford UP 2019. In: American Literary History Online Review, Series XXVI. https://static.primary.prod.gcms.the-infra.com/static/site/alh/document/ALH+Online+Review+Series+26/26basselerGH_copyright.pdf?node=13df5a2d88a9cea0b1b2&version=465652:ccbcb072b5302cff467a

2020. Ana Maria Fraile Marcos (ed.), Glocal Narratives of Resilience. London/New York: Routledge, 2020. European Journal of English Studies 24. 2. 192–196.

2016. Claudia Holler & Martin Klepper (eds.), Rethinking Narrative Identity: Persona and Perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2013. Amerikastudien/American Studies 61.1. http://dgfa.de/claudia-holler-and-martin-klepper-eds-re-thinking-narrative-identity-amsterdam-philadelphia-john-benjamins-2013-209-pp/

2014. Christof Mauch & Sylvia Mayer (eds.), American Environments: Climate – Cultures – Catastrophes. Heidelberg: Winter. Amerikastudien/American Studies 59.2). (http://dgfa.de/christof-mauch-and-sylvia-mayer-eds-american-environments-climate-cultures-catastrophes-reviewed-by-michael-basseler/)

2013. Martin Klepper, The Discovery of Point of View:
 Observation and Narration in the American Novel 1790-1910. Heidelberg: Winter 2011. In: Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 63.1: 161-65.

2012. "The Past, Present, and Future of African American Literary History: Kenneth W. Warren: What Was African American Literature? Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2011.  &  Maryemma Graham and Jerry W. Ward (eds.): The Cambridge History of African American Literature. Cambridge: CUP, 2011." In: Kult_online 31 (http://kult-online.uni-giessen.de/wps/pgn/home/KULT_online/31-4/)



Current Projects

  • Narrating Resilience, Achieving Happiness? (since 2021) 
    International Research Group funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation: https://naresh.usal.es
  • Short Forms Beyond Borders (EU Strategic Partnerships, 2020-2023) 

    With the "Short Forms Beyond Borders (SFBB)" project, we intend to work collaboratively on short forms as a tool for cultural, educational and social mediation in Europe. The relevance of short forms is becoming more and more visible in today's society. Brevity is becoming a way of doing things, a question of time and style, indeed of thinking. Examples of short forms include short videos, text messages, short stories, Instagram stories, sound fragments, television series, short speeches, sales pitches, news briefs, slogans etc. 

    PARTNERS:

    Specialists of short forms from six European universities (Angers, France; Athens, Greece; Szeged, Hungary; Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Giessen, Germany; Leuven, Belgium) and a private firm, Baludik (Nantes), will work together to develop short forms as both tools and objects of pedagogical innovation and cultural mediation.

PhD Supervision

Completed Dissertations

  • Winkler, Robert A.: "Generation Reagan Youth: Representing and Resisting White Neoliberal Forms of Life in the U.S. Hardcore Punk Scenes (1979-1999)" (completed June 2019)
  • Hülsen, Lea: „Caribbean Literary Interventions: Critiques of Humanism in the Works of Beryl Gilroy, Claudia Jones and Sylvia Wynter“ (completed July 2020) 
  • Kalous, Isabel: "Contemporary Black Travel Narratives: Tracing Roots/Routes to Africa and beyond" (completed December 2020)
Ongoing Dissertations

  • Völker, Nicola: „(Un)real Estate: A Cultural Narratology of Gentrification in Central Brooklyn, 2003-2018“

  • Goodrich, Candace: "Ecosemiotic constructions - An analysis of the contemporary use of visual and narrative signs in non-western and western eco-art and eco-fiction"
  • Rezaei, Somaye: "The Laughing Chorus: Anti-racist humor in Contemporary American Late-night Shows" 
  • Ravi, Archana: "Re-remembering the Second World War: Examining Guilt, Trauma and Resilience in
    Contemporary Representations of the War." 
  • Presago, Marco: "Literary Circulation and the Role of Institutions: A Focus on the Contemporary Players of the Industry of Culture" 
  • Peters, Dzifa: "Tropes of Polarity: Visual Representation and Afrodiasporic Identities" (Cotutelle with Catholic University Lisbon)

 

Memberships

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