About
Dr. Alexander Starre
John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies
Department of Culture
Freie Universitaet Berlin
http://www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/faculty/culture
Research Interests:
American Literature and Culture (esp. contemporary and late 19th/early 20th century), Cultural and Media Theory, Book Design and Textual Materiality, Contemporary Print Culture and Digitization, Knowledge Creation, Ecocriticism
Education
Doctor of Philosophy (Dr. phil.) in English / American Studies at Georg-August-University Göttingen (2012)
Master of Arts (M.A.) in English and Media/Communication Studies at Georg-August-University Göttingen (2008) Work Shared in CORE
Book chapters
Other Publications
Monograph
Edited Volumes
- with Heike Schäfer. Medium, Object, Metaphor: The Printed Book in Contempory American Cultures (in preparation).
- with Frank Kelleter. Projecting American Studies: Essays on Theory, Method, and Practice. Heidelberg: Winter, 2018.
Publisher’s Website
Essays
- with Ruth Mayer. “Media/Knowledge: American(ist) Epistemic Formats 1900/2000”. Projecting American Studies: Essays on Theory, Method, and Practice. Ed. Frank Kelleter and Alexander Starre. Heidelberg: Winter, forthcoming.
- “Buchwerke: Paratext und post-digitale Materialität in der amerikanischen Gegenwartsliteratur.” Das Werk: Verschwinden und Fortwirken eines grundlegenden literaturwissenschaftlichen Begriffs. Ed. Lutz Danneberg, Annette Gilbert and Carlos Spoerhase. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2017 (forthcoming).
- “Social Texts: How to Account for the Cultural Work of Carrier Media.” Writing Matters. Ed. Irene Berti et al. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. 27-42.
Full Text Download
- “Professionelle Kondensierung: Die Annotation als Wissensformat im Catalog der American Library Association (1893-1926).” Kurz & Knapp. Erzählen und Wissen in kleinen Formen. Ed. Michael Gamper and Ruth Mayer. Bielefeld: transcript, 2017. 119-129.
- “Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.” The American Novel of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. Ed. Timo Müller. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. 401-413.
- with Julia Leyda, Kathleen Loock, Thiago Pinto Barbosa, and Manuel Rivera. “The Dystopian Impulse of Contemporary Cli-Fi.” IASS Working Paper. Postdam: Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, 2016.
Full Text Download
- “Building Knowledge: Carnegie Libraries as Epistemic Spaces.” Knowledge Landscapes North America. Ed. Christian Kloeckner, Simone Knewitz, and Sabine Sielke. Heidelberg: Winter, 2016. 67-84.
- “Organic Book Design from Dwiggins to Danielewski: The Metamedial Aesthetics of Embodied Literature in American Trade Publishing.” Publishing as Artistic Practice. Ed. Annette Gilbert. Berlin: Sternberg, 2016. 74-87.
[Review: The Brooklyn Rail, 1 April 2017]
- “The Pleasures of Paper: Tethering Literature to Obsolete Material Forms.” Cultures of Obsolescence in North America: History, Materiality, and the Digital Age. Ed. Babette B. Tischleder and Sarah Wasserman. New York: Palgrave, 2015. 127-144.
- “Normative Kanontheorien: Kontextbezogene Modelle;” “Genreliteraturen: Das Beispiel Comics.” Handbuch Kanon und Wertung. Ed. Gabriele Rippl and Simone Winko. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013. 58-66; 345-50.
- with Andreas Jahn-Sudmann. “Die Experimente des ‘Quality TV’ – Innovation und Metamedialität in neueren amerikanischen Serien.” Transnationale Serienkultur. Theorie, Ästhetik, Narration und Rezeption neuerer Fernsehserien. Ed. Susanne Eichner, Lothar Mikos, and Rainer Winter. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2013. 103-119.
- “Teaching the Comics Anthology: The Readers, Authors, and Media ofMcSweeney’s 13.” Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives: Essays on Theory, Strategy and Practice. Ed. Lan Dong. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012. 40-52.
- “American Comics Anthologies: Mediality—Canonization—Transnationalism.”Transnational American Studies. Ed. Udo Hebel. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. 541-60.
- “The Materiality of Books and TV: House of Leaves and The Sopranos in a World of Formless Content and Media Competition.” The Metareferential Turn in Contemporary Arts and Media: Forms, Functions, and Attempts at Explanation. Ed. Werner Wolf. Studies in Intermediality 5. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2011. 195-215.
- “‘Little Heavy Papery Beautiful Things’: McSweeney’s, Metamediality, and the Rejuvenation of the Book in the USA.” Representational and Literary Futures: American Writing in the New Millenium. Ed. Tatiani Rapatzikou and Arthur Redding. Spec. issue of Writing Technologies 3 (2010): 25-41.
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- “Always already green: Zur Entwicklung und den literaturtheoretischen Prämissen des amerikanischen Ecocriticism.” Ökologische Transformationen und literarische Repräsentationen. Ed. Maren Ermisch, Ulrike Kruse, Urte Stobbe. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag, 2010. 13-34.
Full Text Download
- “(Forced) Walks on the Wild Side: Precarious Borders in American Captivity Narratives.” Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment 1.2 (2010): 22-37.
Full Text Download
- “Wilderness Woes: Negotiating Discourse and Environment in Early American Captivity Narratives.” Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment. Ed. Stefan L. Brandt, Winfried Fluck, and Frank Mehring. REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 26. Tübingen: Narr, 2010. 273-293.
Encyclopedia Articles
- “Chris Ware, Building Stories,” “John D’Agata/Jim Fingal, The Lifespan of a Fact,” “James Salter, All That Is.” Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. 3rd ed. (Online Supplement) Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2014.
- “Timothy Donnelly, The Cloud Corporation”; “Karen Russell, Swamplandia!.” Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. 3rd ed. (Online Supplement) Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013.
- “Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding;” “Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad“; “Philip Roth, Nemesis.” Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. 3rd ed. (Online Supplement) Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2012.
- “Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor.” Kindlers Literatur Lexikon 3rd ed. (Online Supplement) Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2011.
- “Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days and The Intuitionist; “Nathan Englander, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges.” Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. 3rd ed. (Online Supplement) Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2010.
- “Nella Larsen, Passing” (Vol. 9, 658-659), “Thomas Harriot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia” (Vol. 7, 106-107), “Abraham Lincoln, Das Prosawerk” (Vol. 10, 165), “Thomas Morton, New English Canaan” (Vol. 11, 516-517), “Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America” (Vol. 17, 454-455).Kindlers Neues Literatur Lexikon. Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2009.
- 9 additional revised and co-authored articles and biograms for Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. 3rd ed. 18. Vols. Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2009.
Reviews
- Pressman, Jessica. Digital Modernism: Making It New in New Media. Review of English Studies 273 (2015): 200-01.
- Bergthaller, Hannes, and Carsten Schinko, eds. Addressing Modernity: Social Systems Theory and U.S. Cultures. Amerikastudien/American Studies 59:1 (2014): Web.
Full Text Download
- “‘Serielle Formen’ – Internationale Tagung am Seminar für Filmwissenschaft der Universität Zürich, 4.-6.6.2009” (Tagungsbericht). Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft Online (2009): Web.
Blog
Book History and Print Culture Network: Interdisciplinary Perspective from German-Area Scholars. (Founder and Administrator, with Corinna Norrick-Rühl, Doris Lechner, and Simone Zweifel).
Memberships
MLA
DGfA
SHARP