Supervision

Prof. Dr. Ina Bergmann

Dissertations

Supervisor

Stefan Hippler, "New American Adams: Establishing Gay Identity in the Contemporary Novel" (completed WS 2017/18)

Anne-Sophie Hornung, "TBA" (work in progress)

Co-supervisor

Dorothea Bühler, "'There's a Way to Alter the Pain': Biblical Appropriation and New Fictional World Order in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day and Bailey's Cafe" (completed SS 2011; supervisor Prof. Dr. Jochen Achilles, University of Würzburg)

Stefanie Hafner, "The Location of Chinese North American Ethnicity in Vancouver and San Francisco Fiction" (completed SS 2012; supervisor Prof. Dr. Reingard M. Nischik, University of Konstanz)

Sophie Renninger, "Room Tours: A Material History of the U.S. American Home" (work in progress; supervisor Prof. Dr. MaryAnn Snyder-Körber, University of Würzburg)

MA-Theses

WS 2010/11

Ann-Kathrin Rebhan, "The Literary and Journalistic Documentation of the Great Depression: F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited" (1931), Clifford Odets's Waiting for Lefty (1935), and Carl Sandburg's "The People, Yes" (1936) vs. The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Washington Post"

SS 2011

Julia Götze, "Expatriates in American Literature: Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (1926) and Arthur Phillips's Prague (2002)"

Stefan Hippler, "Female Coming of Age in the American Novel: Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868), Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding (1946), and Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones (2002)"

Mira-Viola Kröber, "Character Depiction in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)"

WS 2011/12

Isabell Bamberger, "American Patriotism in David E. Kelley's TV Series Boston Legal (2004-2008)"

Kristina Baudemann, "Metafiction in Contemporary North American Indigenous Literature: Tomson Highway's Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998) and Eden Robinson's Monkey Beach (2000)"

Ann-Kristin Fröhlich, "National/Cultural Identity: TV Commercials in the US and Germany"

Katharina Köster, "The Changing Images of Women in the TV Series Star Trek (1966-2005)"

Èva Weiretter, "German-American InterRelationships: W.G. Smith's Novel The Last of the Conquerors (1948) and Billy Wilder's Movie A Foreign Affair (1948)"

SS 2012

Katharina Billinger, "Female Rebellion in Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest (1894/95) and Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899)"

Sarah Döll, "A Quest for Self-Realization? Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899) and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything (2006)"

Jane Goltzsch, "'Only Fantasy Books can Make Sense of the Skewed Reality in Which I Live': Comic Books, Narrating Trauma and New Identities in Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) and Junot Díaz' The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)"

Sophie Kunze, "American Women at the Turn of the 20th and the 21st Century: Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899) and the TV Series Sex and the City (1998-2004)"

WS 2012/13

Sonja Bonneß, "Coming Out in America in the 21st Century: The TV Show Glee (2009-2011) and Emily Horner's Novel A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend (2010)"

Lisa-Marie Dertmann, "Finding Identity in a Postmodern World: Nick McDonell's Novel Twelve (2002) and Josh Schwartz's TV Series Gossip Girl (2007-2010)"

SS 2015

Miriam Eckardt, "Reclusiveness, Transcendentalism, and Social Critique: Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' (1853) and Willa Cather's The Professor's House (1925)"

Stefanie Heigold, "Liminality and Limbo in Fictional Afterlives: Richard Matheson's What Dreams May Come (1978) and Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones (2002)"

SS 2022

Antonios Smyrnaios, "Transatlantic Quest: Immram and Initiation in Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea (2002), Mary Pat Kelly’s Galway Bay (2009), and Colum McCann’s TransAtlantic (2013)"

WS 2022/23

Anne-Sophie Hornung, "'I'll Always Be Irish': Transatlantic Acculturation in Twentieth-century American Film Musicals"

SS 2024

Elisa Raab, "Hybrid and Liminal Identities in Colum McCann’s Novels Zoli (2006), Let the Great World Spin (2009), and TransAtlantic (2013)"

BA-Theses

WS 2013/14

Rebecca Peterson, "Race and Gender in Kathryn Stockett's The Help (2009)"

SS 2014

Stefanie Haas, "Reclusiveness and Madness in 19th-Century Women's Writing: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's 'A New England Nun' (1891) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' (1892)"

WS 2014/15

Fabian Sattler, "Trapped in the Sex and Gender Binary: Intersex Identity in Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex (2002) and Abigail Tarttelin's Golden Boy (2013)"

Sebastian Suttner, "Postmodernism – and Beyond? The TV Series Community (2009-present)"

SS 2015

Mais Al-Sabti, "Juvenile Historical Fiction: Puritanism and Witchcraft in Celia Rees's Witch Child (2000) and Sorceress (2002)"

WS 2016/17

Christof Schlesinger, "Disease and Decomposition: A Socio-Cultural Approach to Bodily Decay in the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe"

SS 2019

Falco Eckhof, "Liminality in Science Fiction Novels of the 1960s: Kurt Vonnegut's Cat’s Cradle and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness"

Antonios Smyrnaios, "The Forms and Functions of Gossip in Kate Chopin's Short Stories"

SS 2020

Lea Brosig, "Her Mother's Daughter? The Portrayal of Mental Illness and Female Family Dynamics in Girl, Interrupted, Grey Gardens, and Prozac Nation"

Adriano Sostaric, "From Rags to Riches and from Pen to Paper: Benjamin Franklin's and Anthony Robbins' Self-Help Books as Representations of the American Dream"

SS 2021

Lutz Ziegler, "Magic Realism in Neil Gaiman's American Gods (2001) and Anansi Boys (2005)"

SS 2022

Leonie Vogel, “Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian (2005) as a Transatlantic, Feminist Rewrite of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897)”

SS 2024

Anna Grehn, "Humour in Contemporary Irish Life Writing: Jason Byrne’s Adventures of a Wonky-Eyed Boy (2016), Seamas O’Reilly’s Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? (2020) and Patrick Freyne’s Ok, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea (2020)"

Theses - State Exam for Teachers

SS 2011

Stefan Hippler, "Female Coming of Age in the American Novel: Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868), Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding (1946), and Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones (2002)"

Rebecca Kreßmann, "Cultural Identity in T.C. Boyle's Tortilla Curtain (1995) and Sandra Cisneros's Caramelo (2002)"

Viktoria Kröner, "The Appeal of Evil: The Serial Killer as Cultural Phenomenon in Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City (2003), and James Manos, Jr.'s Dexter (2006-today)"

WS 2011/12

Isabell Bamberger, "American Patriotism in David E. Kelley's TV Series Boston Legal (2004-2008)"

Harry Hölzli, "The Reversal of Gender Roles in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), and The Garden Eden (1986)"

SS 2012

Katharina Billinger, "Female Rebellion in Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest (1894/95) and Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899)"

Sarah Döll, "A Quest for Self-Realization? Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899) and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything (2006)"

Jessica Kauth, "The American Civil War in the Contemporary American Novel: Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain (1997), Jeffrey Lent's In the Fall (2000) and Geraldine Brooks's March (2005)"

Susann Kupijaj, "The Female Künstlerroman: Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868/69), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's The Story of Avis (1877), and Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark (1915)"

Verena Lohdal, "'A Creole Bovary': French Influences in Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899)"

Nina Zaricor, "'The Literature of Becoming': J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero (1985), and Nick McDonell's Twelve (2002)"

WS 2012/13

Fabia Krusenotto, "'Setting the Record Straight' – Polygamy in Mormon Life-Writing: Carolyn Jessop's Escape (2007) and Joe, Alina, Vickie, and Valerie Darger's Love Times Three: Our True Story of a Polygamous Marriage (2011)"

WS 2013/14

Sarah Müller, "Novella to Film: Gender in Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and Blake Edwards' Film Adaptation (1961)"

SS 2014

Stefanie Haas, "Reclusiveness and Madness in 19th-Century Women's Writing: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's 'A New England Nun' (1891) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' (1892)"

WS 2014/15

Fabian Sattler, "Trapped in the Sex and Gender Binary: Intersex Identity in Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex (2002) and Abigail Tarttelin's Golden Boy (2013)"

SS 2015

Mais Al-Sabti, "Juvenile Historical Fiction: Puritanism and Witchcraft in Celia Rees's Witch Child (2000) and Sorceress (2002)"

Anika Josefs, "Novel to Film: David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife (2008) and Rod Holcomb's TV Adaptation (2010)"

WS 2016/17

Christof Schlesinger, "Disease and Decomposition: A Socio-Cultural Approach to Bodily Decay in the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe"

SS 2019

Isabel Odeh, "The Contemporary Reception of the Native American Trickster Figure: Gargoyles (1994-97) and The Lone Ranger (2013)"

WS 2019/20

Hedda Grebenkämper, "Victorian Gender Roles Continued? A Feminist Reading of Dead Until Dark (2001) and Twilight (2005), with Reference to Carmilla (1872) and Dracula (1897)“

WS 2022/23

Sophie Bördlein, "Crossing Borders: Liminality in Pete Hamill's The Invisible City: A New York Sketchbook (1980) and Jan Carson's Postcard Stories (2017)"

Sina Klemm, "The Impact of the Catholic Faith: The Fictional and Historical Portrayal of Irish Women in Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture (2008) and Martin Sixsmith's The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (2009)"

SS 2023

Bianca Minxolli, "New Irish Identities: Breaking Taboos in New Irish Literature"

Nico Winkmann, "Women Writers Writing Women Writers: Female Authorship in the 19th Century"

WS 2023/24

Marie-Isabell Hennicke, “The Art of Keeping ‘the Essence’: Female Representation in the Adaptations of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist (1994) and The Angel of Darkness (1997)”

SS 2024

Laura Pfister, “The Portrayal of Non-Traditional Gender Roles in Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing”