Our research

The analysis focuses on cultural, social, economic and political structures, developments, processes, events, interactions, but also movements, encounters, relationships and transfers of people, ideas and goods within the Western Hemisphere and between the Western Hemisphere and the rest of the world. Also central is the examination of the "shared" history, the experiences and ultimately the legacy that centuries of colonialism, conquest and decimation of the indigenous population, slavery as well as resistance, revolution and decolonization have left behind and which still shape the societies of the Western Hemisphere today. Other approaches consist of researching the genuine societies and cultures of autochthones and Americans of African origin as well as phenomena such as power, gender, lack of freedom, slavery, dependencies, age(ing), violence, criminalization, terrorism, discrimination, inequality, revolution, conflict, migration, flight, diaspora, exile, internment, trauma, illegality, smuggling, poverty, epidemics and surveillance.

The current core topics of this research focus include

• Internment camps in the Americas and the cultural representation of such camps.
• Ecological degradation in the Americas
• History and memories of migration and flight into American exile
• Jewish diaspora in the age of colonialism
• Afro- and Indo-America, especially enslavement, conquista, frontiers and borderlands

This research area pursues an interdisciplinary and transregional perspective on a field of research that is not only relevant to the discipline, but also has direct social, political and cultural relevance due to demographic change and gender transformations. With a focus on cultural and social representations of gender and generations in the Americas, this research focus offers to bring theory, approaches and methods from Europe and the Americas into dialog in order to negotiate transnational and global entanglements of power structures from an intersectional perspective. The academic study of the intersections of gender and generations is divided into the critical examination of gender and generations in literary and cultural representations, drawing on feminist theory, the development of new feminist approaches that provide tools for the intersectional exploration of cultural and social representations of gender and generations, and the application in the educational context through the development of inclusive didactic methods and pedagogical approaches that promote a critical engagement with intersectionality

The current core topics of this research focus include

• Cultural and social representations of gender allocation, power relations and inequalities from an intersectional perspective
• Cultural studies research on generations, age/s, and the life course
• Social movements in the Americas
• Approaches and theories of intersectionality research with regard to climate change, growing inequalities, social and cultural reproduction, digitalization and education
• Development of methods for participatory and interdisciplinary research (e.g. digital storytelling, intergenerational storytelling)

This research area pursues an interdisciplinary perspective on cultural, literary, and linguistic representations and engagements with environmental issues within Inter-American contexts. By focusing on the intersections of climate crisis narratives, environmental communication and discourses about the crisis, this research focus brings theoretical frameworks and methodologies from across the Americas and Europe into dialogue. Drawing from the environmental humanities, intersectional environmentalism, eco-feminism and eco-linguistics, our research investigates how the climate crisis is constructed, represented and narrated across various media and cultural discourses, with particular attention to the intersections of gender, race, and colonial histories. Through the analysis of diverse forms of texts and media outlets, we are engaging with key concepts, methodologies, and pedagogical approaches central to understanding the climate crisis through the lens of environmental humanities. Another focus of our Inter-American environmental research is the need to examine how environmental imaginaries are produced, circulated, and contested across diverse forms of media and discourse, which highlight that the climate crisis must be understood not only as a biophysical phenomenon but also as a linguistic, cultural, and pedagogical challenge shaped by ongoing social inequalities.

The current core topics of this research area include:

• Theoretical approaches: eco-feminism, eco-linguistics, intersectional environmentalism, post/decolonial theory, aging studies and intergenerationality, ecopedagogy
• Environmental humanities perspectives on asymmetric power constellations
• Literary and cultural analyses of climate fiction from the Americas (19th century to the present)
• Eco-linguistic research on discourse representations of the climate crisis in media across the Americas
• Guiding questions concerning epistemological violence, Indigenous knowledges, heteronormative conceptualizations, and transnational entanglements
• Interrelations between concepts of environment/territory and their sociopolitical and media representations
• Development of creative and participatory methods such as eco-(digital) storytelling, creative writing, museum-based pedagogies, speculative approaches, and imaginative futurity practices