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Svenja Engelmann-Kewitz M.A.

Svenja Engelmann-Kewitz is a postdoctoral researcher in American Studies at Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf since October 2025. She studied Comparative Literature/English and American Studies at Ruhr-University Bochum. She finished her doctoral dissertation in American Studies at Dresden University of Technology in September 2025 with a thesis on ecocritical literature of the Circumpolar North. Her research interests include environmental humanities, ice humanities, new materialism, digital authorship and digital narratives, future studies, affect theory, and gender studies. Her postdoctoral research project investigates intersections of digital and environmental humanities in the context of imagining alternative futures in American literature and culture.

Since October 2025Postdoctoral Researcher in American Studies, Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf
September 2025PhD at Dresden University of Technology
(Title of dissertation: Melting, Mourning, Meddling. Contemporary Ecocritical Imaginaries of the Circumpolar North)
December 2021 – July 2025Doctoral Researcher
American Studies, Dresden University of Technology
Nov-Dec 2023Visiting scholar, Glacier Lab, University of Oregon, USA
October 2023 – March 2024Maria Reiche Doctoral Fellowship, Graduate Academy at Dresden University of Technology
June 2021Master of Arts, Ruhr-University Bochum
Nov - Dec 2023TU Dresden Graduate Academy Travel Grant for a research stay at the Glacier Lab, University of Oregon
Oct 2023 - Mar 2024Maria Reiche Doctoral Fellowship, Dresden University of Technology
Aug 2019 - Jan 2020PROMOS/DAAD Scholarship for a semester abroad at the University of Oklahoma
Aug 2019 - Jan 2020MAUI Utrecht Exchange Network Scholarship for a semester abroad at the University of Oklahoma
Oct 2018 - Oct 2020Deutschlandstipendium
Aug - Dec 2017ErasmusPlus Grant for a semester abroad at the University of Limerick, Ireland

Articles:

Engelmann-Kewitz, Svenja. “‘No one wants to have morning sickness and throw up on a glacier’: Precarious futures and the vulnerability of (M)otherhood,” Comparative American Studies, 1-18. DOI: doi.org/10.1080/14775700.2025.2563921

Nitzke, Solvejg, Svenja Engelmann-Kewitz, and Kirsten Jüdt. “Disruptive Encounters. Concepts of Care and Contamination out of Control. An Introduction.” Ecozon@ vol. 15, no. 2, 2024, pp. 1-8.

Book chapters:

Engelmann-Kewitz, Svenja. “Ice, Minds, Bodies: Fantastic Ecocriticism in Marie Darrieussecq’s White,” Geographies and Spaces of the Fantastic, edited by Christian Lenz et al., Cambridge Scholars 2025, pp. 162-179.

Engelmann-Kewitz, Svenja, Kirsten Jüdt. “Landschaft als Dokument. Eine Exploration alternativer Speichermedien der Gegenwart,“ Dokumentwerden. Zeitlichkeit, Arbeit, Materialisierung, edited by Marion Biet et al. Transcript 2024, pp. 189-206.

Engelmann-Kewitz, Svenja. “‘The Empire Writes Back’ – Salman Rushdies Midnight’s Children als ein Beispiel postkolonialer Literatur.” Literatur + Transfer. Tagungsband des 9. Studierendenkongresses der Komparatistik 2018, herausgegeben von Ariane Fiala et al., Danzig & Unfried, 2020, S. 59-82.

Edited Volumes and Special Issues:

Nitzke, Solvejg, Svenja Engelmann-Kewitz and Kirsten Jüdt, eds. “Disruptive Encounters. Concepts of Care and Contamination out of Control,” Special Issue of Ecozon@, vol. 15, no. 2, 2024. 

Allirand, Lise, Alina Braucks, Svenja Engelmann-Kewitz et al., eds. Literatur und das Böse. Beiträge zum Studierenkongress Komparatistik 2019, Ch. A. Bachmann Verlag, 2021.

Reviews:

Engelmann-Kewitz, Svenja. “Living with Plastic and Toxicity, Queerly”, Review of Heather Davis’ Plastic Matter for Edge Effects, 09.14.2023, https://edgeeffects.net/plastic-matter-review/ 

Other media: 

Engelmann-Kewitz, Svenja. “Kryosphäre in der Krise. Gletscherschmelze und die letzte Erhabenheitserfahrung?“ in: Klima. Special Issue of Blog des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Insituts Essen, 12.18.2023, DOI: https://doi.org/10.37189/kwi-blog/20231218-0800

Engelmann-Kewitz, Svenja. “Looking With and Beyond the Words in Tanya Tagaq’s Split Tooth,” NiCHE (Network in Canadian History & Environment), Visual Cultures of the Circumpolar North series, ed. by Isabelle Gapp & Mark A. Cheetham, 02.16.2023, https://niche-canada.org/2023/02/16/looking-with-and-beyond-the-words-in-tanya-tagaqs-split-tooth/ 

Engelmann-Kewitz, Svenja. “Eisige Einsamkeiten: Von Grenzerfahrungen und Environmental Humanities,” Forschung, Blog of the DLA Marbach, 12.05.2022, https://blog.dla-marbach.de/2022/12/05/eisige-einsamkeiten-von-grenzerfahrungen-und-environmental-humanities

Engelmann-Kewitz, Svenja. “Melting Laboratories, or: Ecocritical Readings of Icy Landscapes,” Ecological Imaginaries, 02.10.2022, DOI: https://doi.org/10.58079/o0ue.

 

01.07-02.07.2025“‘I did not wish to take a cabin passage,’ I want ‘Glamping under the Polar Lights’: Icy Cabins and the Anthropocene,”
The Cabin in the Woods and Other Utopian Confinements. Hopes and Horrors of Living in Small Houses in Remote Areas, interdisciplinary workshop, University of Gießen, invited speaker.
21.06.-22.06.2025“‘Ice itself is the object of most interest’: Investigating the Romantic Devotion to Ice-Water” 
Bodies of Water in North American Romanticism. An International Workshop, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, invited speaker.
14.02.-15.02.2025“Sublime Frontier and Climate Morgue? Cultural Renderings of the Anthropocenic Arctic”
Spuren des Anthropozän (Traces of the Anthropocene), Workshop of the DFG-Research Group “Das naturkulturelle Gedächtnis im Anthropozän,” University Vechta, invited speaker, cancelled due to sickness.
06.07.2024“‘Earth’s whispers released back into the Atmosphere can only wreak havoc’: Arctic Indigenous Cli-Fi” 
Diversity Lab 3: Politics and Perspectives of Indigeneity, Workshop at Dresden University of Technology.
22.05.2024“Cracking, Sighing, Whistling: The Sound of North America’s Icescapes” 
American Soundscapes. Annual Conference of German Association of American Studies (DGFA), University Oldenburg.
10.04.2024“Cold Care: Modes of Motherhood between Ice Loss and Future Uncertainty”
International Conference of Three Societies on Literature and Science, British Society for Literature and Science (BSLS), Commission on Science and Literature (CoSciLit) and Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSAeu), University of Birmingham.
21.03.2024“The Lure of the Liminal: Glacier Deaths and Last Chance Tourism”
Seismic Shifts. Interdisciplinary Perspectives of Mountaineering, Dresden University of Technology.
08.03.2024“Adaptive Reading Strategies for Climate Change” 
ASLE UKI seminar series “Ice Ecocriticism”, online, invited speaker.
26.10.2023“Cryosphere in Crisis: Communicating Melting Matter” 
Popular Science in Crisis, Workshop at Junge Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz.
17.08.2023“Weirding the Garden: Creative Co-Fabulations”
Disruptive Imaginations. Joint annual conference of Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) and Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung (GfF), Dresden, with Johanna Mehl.
07.07.2023“Of Floating, Dwindling, and Caring for Loss: The Arctic as Commons” 
Reclaiming the Commons. Biannual conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE), Portland.
04.11.2022“Eisige Einsamkeiten. Von Grenzerfahrungen und Environmental Humanities” 
Reflections on (Literary) Solitude. Conference of the Early Career Researchers (Junge DSG) of the German Schiller Association (DSG), German Literature Archive (DLA) Marbach.
22.09.2022“‘Nous bien entendu, mais comment nous compter?’ Ecocriticism und Fantastik in Antarktisdiskursen” 
Fantastische Geographien. 13th annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung (GfF), University of Technology, Dortmund.
06.06.2022“Landschaft als Dokument, Dokument als Landschaft. Explorationen alternativer Speichermedien der Gegenwart”
DOKUMENTWERDEN. Annual conference of the DFG-Research Training Group “Das Dokumentarische. Exzess und Entzug”, Kunstmuseum Bochum, with Kirsten Jüdt.
03.04.2022“‘Das sage ich nicht laut, das bleibt meiner inneren Stimme vorbehalten’: Voice and Narration in Ilija Trojanow’s EisTau” 
Voices: Stimmen. Rutgers University Graduate Students Conference in German Studies, online.
06.12-14.2025Planetary Archives
Workshop at the 71st annual conference Archiving America/American Archives of DGFA German Association of American Studies, University of Siegen. Organized together with Jens Temmen, Florian Wagner and Dominik Steinhilber. 
02.15.2024Doctoral Symposium: Science Communication
Workshop in relation to 4th TU DiSC Conference Myths of Disruption. Dresden University of Technology. Steering Committee.
11.16.2022“Whose Natures?” – Co-Creating Relationships between Humans and Nature through Arts and Sciences
Workshop as Part of the Exhibition Luondu Luonddus – As Part of Nature, We Are Nature at the Nordic Embassies Berlin, with Dr. habil. Solvejg Nitzke and Kirsten Jüdt. Assisted.
06.13-15.2019Literatur und das Böse – 10th Student Conference for Comparative Literature
Ruhr-University Bochum, with Lise Allirand, Alina Braucks, Rika Sakalak, Charleena Schweda, Thomas Stöck. Steering Committee.

 

  • That IS Brat. Reading the Cultural Politics of Refusal. Graduate Seminar, HHU Düsseldorf. Winter term 2025
     
  • Looking for Alaska. Literary Escapism and the last Wilderness. Undergraduate Seminar, HHU Düsseldorf. Winter term 2025
     
  • Reading Waste. Undergraduate Seminar, TU Dresden, Summer term 2025
     
  • Queerness and Radical Thought for Future Visions of America. A Podcasting Seminar. Undergraduate Seminar, TU Dresden, Summer term 2025
     
  • Pioneers! O Pioneers! Frontier Imaginations in American Literature. Undergraduate Seminar, TU Dresden, Winter term 2024
  • ASLE – Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Member, 2023 – Present.
  • DGFA – German Association of American Studies, Member, 2024 – Present.
May 2024“Kipppunkte. Ein Gespräch über die Arktis in Kunst und Literatur.“ COSMO Wissenschaftsforum im Kulturpalast Dresden