Prof. Dr. Regina Schober
Lehrstuhlinhaberin
Etage/Raum: 02.84
Regina Schober is Professor of American Studies at Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf. She teaches American literature and culture from the early colonial period to the 21st century, with a focus on literary negotiations of digital culture, intermediality, gender, and theories of the global information age. She is author of Spider Web, Labyrinth, Tightrope Walk: Networks in American Literature and Culture (DeGruyter, 2023), of Unexpected Chords: MusicoPoetic Intermediality in Amy Lowell’s Poetry and Poetics (Winter, 2011), and co-editor of The Failed Individual: Amid Exclusion, Resistance, and the Pleasure of Non-Conformity (with Katharina Motyl, 2011) as well as of Data Fiction: Naturalism, Numbers, Narrative, special issue of Studies in American Naturalism (with James Dorson, 2011). She was visiting scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara (2017) and at Harvard University as well as at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (2008). Her research interests include transformations of subjectivity in the information age, network concepts, the quantified self, theories of reading, and discourses of failure. She is part of the DFG research network The Failure of Knowledge/Knowledges of Failure, of the DFG research project Probing the Limits of the Quantified Self, of the DFG research network Model Aesthetics: Between Literary and Economic Knowledge, as well as of the BMBF project AI4All.
Since April 2020 | Professor of American Studies, Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf |
May 2019 | Habilitation at Mannheim University (Title of manuscript: Spider Web, Labyrinth, Tightrope Walk: Networks in American Literature and Culture) |
Feb 2014--March 2020 | Senior Lecturer (Akademische Rätin), American Studies, Mannheim University |
Jan-Dec 2017 | Visiting scholar, English Department, UC Santa Barbara, USA |
Oct 2010-Jan 2014 | Postdoctoral researcher (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin), American Studies, Mannheim University |
Jan-Sep 2010 | Scientific advisor, Studienstiftung des dt. Volkes, Bonn |
Dezember 2009 | PhD at Leibniz University Hanover (Title of dissertation: Unexpected Chords: Musico-Poetic Intermediality in Amy Lowell’s Poetry and Poetics) |
June 2006-May 2007 | Doctoral researcher at School of Humanities at Leibniz University, Hanover |
November 2005 | First State Exam (Erstes Staatsexamen, Lehramt Gymnasium) English and Music, Leibniz University of Hanover & Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media |
Jan-Dec 2017 | Visiting scholarship, German Research Foundation (DFG), UC Santa Barbara |
2015 | Travel grant, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), ACLA conference, Seattle |
Aug 13 | Emory Elliott Award for best conference paper, 6th international conference, International American Studies Association |
Juni 2007-Oct 2009 | PhD scholarship, Foundation of German Business (SDW) |
March-May 2008 | Travel grant by SDW for a research stay at Harvard University/University of Virginia, Charlottesville |
- Member of DFG Network Model Asthetics: Between Literary and Economic Knowledge (since 2021)
- The Failure of Knowledge – Knowledges of Failure (DFG-Research Network, with Katharina Motyl, Feb 2020-Jan 2023)
- Probing the Limits of the Quantified Self: Human Agency and Knowledge in Literature and Culture of the Information Age (DFG-Research Project, with Ulfried Reichardt, Nov 2015-Oct 2018)
- Member of DFG Network Narrative Liminality and/in the Formation of American Modernities (2018-2020)
- Transformationen von Subjektivität (Research group at Mannheim University, with Ulfried Reichardt, Stella Butter, Sarah Heinz, Jens Eder, Julia Angster, June 2013-Dec 2015)
- Co-PI, BMBF funded project 'KI4Alle'/'AI4All'
Nov 2023 | Digital Cultures and Economic Modeling (Workshop of the DFG Research Network 'Model Aesthetics: Between Literary and Economic Knowledge, with Caroline Koegler) |
Juni 2023 | All That is Solid Melts Into Data: Property and Ownership in the Digital Age (Panel at the 69th Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA), Rostock, with Alexander Dunst) |
May 2023 | The Failure of Knowledge - Knowledges of Failure (Closing Conference of the DFG Research Network The Failure of Knowledge - Knowledges of Failure, at Mannheim University with Katharina Motyl) |
Dez 2022 | Current American Studies (Panel discussion at HHU Düsseldorf, with Judith Rauscher, Pia Wiegmink and Jens Temmen) |
May 2020 | The Failure of Knowledge - Knowledges of Failure (Opening Workshop of the DFG Research Network The Failure of Knowledge - Knowledges of Failure, with Katharina Motyl |
Oct 2018 | Laboring Bodies and the Quantified Self (International Conference at Mannheim University, with Ulfried Reichardt, Juliane Strätz, and Stefan Danter) |
March 2016 | Debating the Quantified Self (Workshop at Mannheim University Ulfried Reichardt and Stefan Danter) |
November 2015 | The Failed Individual (International Conference at Mannheim University, with Susanne Hamscha and Katharina Motyl) |
June 2014 | Nature, Technology, and the Body: Posthumanist Interfaces of the Networked Self (Panel at the 61st Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA), Würzburg, with Ulfried Reichardt) |
March 2014 | Posthumanist Perspectives (Workshop at Mannheim University, with Christa Grewe-Volpp, Ulfried Reichardt, Stefan Danter, and Johannes Fehrle) |
March 2012 | America as Network/Networks in American Culture (International Conference at Mannheim University, with Heike Schäfer and Ulfried Reichardt) |
November 2011 | Conflict and Violence in Literature and Film (StudentConference at Mannheim University, with Stella Butter) |
Monographs
Spider Web, Labyrinth, Tightrope Walk - Networks in US American Literature and Culture. Buchreihe der Anglia / Anglia Book Series. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2023.
Unexpected Chords: Musico-Poetic Intermediality in Amy Lowell’s Poetry and Poetics. Reihe American Studies. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2011.
Edited Volumes and Special Issues
Laboring Bodies and the Quantified Self. With Ulfried Reichardt. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2020.
The Failed Individual: Amid Exclusion, Resistance, and the Pleasure of Non-Conformity. Berlin: Campus, 2017, with Katharina Motyl.
Data Fiction: Naturalism, Narrative, Numbers. Special Issue of Studies in American Naturalism 12.1 (Summer 2017), with James Dorson.
Network Theory and American Studies. Special Issue of Amerikastudien/American Studies 60.1 (2015), with Ulfried Reichardt and Heike Schäfer.
Journal Articles and Essays in Collections
Digitization, Digital Humanities, and American Studies. With Gessner, Ingrid; Herrmann, Sebastian; Horn, Katrin; Mischke, Dennis; Forum. Amerikastudien/American Studies 68.1 (2023): 5-26. https://amst.winter-verlag.de/article/AMST/2023/1/4
“The Potentialities of Data: Self-Tracking as Liminal Narrative." Beyond Narrative: Exploring Narrative Liminality and Its Cultural Work. Ed. Sebastian M. Herrmann, Katja Kanzler, Stefan Schubert. Transcript, 2022. 57-69.
“Passing the Turing Test? AI Generated Poetry and Posthuman Creativity." Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement. Ed. Herta Nagl-Docekal and Waldemar Zacharasiewicz. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2022. 151-165.
“Data, Maps, Networks – Digital Approaches to Reading (in) Nineteenth-Century Literature" New American Studies Journal: A Forum. Issue: Spending Time in the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Rieke Jordan. 71 (2021). https://nasjournal.org/index.php/NASJ/issue/view/62.
“Reading Chick Lit through Numbers: Postfeminist Self-Quantification in Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and Karyn Bosnak’s What’s Your Number?” Laboring Bodies and the Quantified Self. Ed. Ulfried Reichardt and Regina Schober. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2020. 123-140.
“The Books that Count: Big Data Versus Narrative in Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Joshua Cohen’s Book of Numbers.” The Printed Book in Contemporary American Culture: Medium, Object, Metaphor. Ed. Heike Schäfer and Alexander Starre. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
“Adaptation as Connection: A Network Theoretical Approach to Convergence, Participation, and Co-Production.” Adaptation in the Age of Media Convergence. Ed. Johannes Fehrle and Werner Schäfke. Amsterdam University Press, 2019. 189-197.
“Transcendentalism.” Walt Whitman in Context. Ed. Joanna Levin and Edward Whitley. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 189-197.
“Failure Blogs and the Confessional Self.” The Failed Individual: Amid Exclusion, Resistance, and the Pleasure of Non-Conformity. Ed. Katharina Motyl and Regina Schober. Berlin: Campus, 2017. 375-392.
“Introduction: The Failed Individual.” With Susanne Hamscha and Katharina Motyl. The Failed Individual: Amid Exclusion, Resistance, and the Pleasure of Non-Conformity. Ed. Katharina Motyl and Regina Schober. Berlin: Campus, 2017. 11-27.
“‘A Problem in Small Boat Navigation’ – American Literary Naturalism, Ocean Metaphors, and Emerging Data Epistemology.” Data Fiction: Naturalism, Narrative, and Numbers. Ed. James Dorson and Regina Schober. Special Issue of Studies in American Naturalism 12.1 (Summer 2017): 70-88.
“Introduction: Data Fiction.” With James Dorson. Data Fiction: Naturalism, Narrative, and Numbers. Ed. James Dorson and Regina Schober. Special Issue of Studies in American Naturalism. Special Issue of Studies in American Naturalism 12.1 (Summer 2017): 1-8.
“Between Nostalgic Resistance and Critical Appropriation: Contemporary Fiction on/of the Information Age and the Potentials of (Post)Humanist Narrative.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 61.3 (2017): 359-379.
“Theorizing the Quantified Self: Self-Knowledge and Posthumanist Agency in Contemporary US-American Literature.” With Ulfried Reichardt and Stefan Danter. Quantified Selves/Statistic Bodies. Special Issue of Digital Culture and Society. Ed. Pablo Abend and Mathias Fuchs. 2.1 (2016): 53-70.
“Introduction: Network Theory and American Studies.” With Ulfried Reichardt and Heike Schäfer. Network Theory and American Studies. Special Issue of Amerikastudien/American Studies. Ed. Ulfried Reichardt, Heike Schäfer, and Regina Schober. 60.1 (2015): 11-16.
“‘Partial Members of a Vast Natural Network’: Notions of Interconnectedness in American Transcendentalism and Pragmatism.” Network Theory and American Studies. Special Issue of Amerikastudien/American Studies. Ed. Ulfried Reichardt, Heike Schäfer, and Regina Schober. 60.1 (2015): 97-119.
“The World Wide Sea: Oceanic Metaphors, Concepts of Knowledge, and Transnational America in the Information Age.” Review of International American Studies 7.1 (2014): 9-34.
"Transcending Boundaries: The Network Concept in 19th Century US Philosophy and Literature.” American Literature 86.3 (2014): 493-521.
“Adaptation as Connection: Transmediality Reconsidered.” Adaptation Studies. New Challenges, New Directions. Ed. Jorgen Bruhn, Anne Gjelsvik and Eirik Frisvold Hanssen. London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. 89-112.
“It’s About Being Connected: Reframing the Network in Colum McCann’s Post 9/11 Novel Let The Great World Spin.” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 60.4 (2012): 391-402.
“Musik als Experiment: Transmediale Verhandlungen in Amy Lowells imagistischer Lyrik.” Experimente in den Künsten. Literatur, Film, Theater, bildende Kunst, Musik. Ed. Stefanie Kreuzer. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2012. 305-334.
“Translating Sounds: Intermedial Exchanges in Amy Lowell’s Poetry.” Media Borders. Intermediality, Modality, and Multimodality. Ed. Lars Elleström. New Y"ork: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010. 163-174.
“Das Konzept der Groteske bei Amy Lowell und Igor Strawinsky: Möglichkeiten einer intermedialen Literaturdidaktik im Fremdsprachenunterricht.” Musik im Fremdsprachenunterricht und die Entwicklung von Audio-Literacy. Ed. Gabriele Blell & Rita Kupetz. Frankfurt: Lang, 2010. 191-201.
“Amy Lowell’s Peasant Dance: Transcribing Primitivism in ‘Stravinsky’s Three Pieces ‘Grotesques,’ for String Quartet’.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 53.2 (2008): 153-170.
Reviews
Review. The Kitchen and the Factory: Spaces of Women’s Work and the Negotiation of Social Difference in Antebellum American Literature. by Katja Kanzler. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 68.2 (2020): 224-227.
Review. Ideas of Order in Contemporary American Poetry. Ed. Diana von Finck and Oliver Scheiding. Amerikastudien/American Studies 56.1 (2011): 146-148.
Review. Cross-Cultural Visions in African American Modernism: From Spatial Narrative to Jazz Haiku. Yoshinobu Hakutani. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 57.1 (2009): 100-102.
Feb 2024 | “The Digital Pharmakon and the Female Self: US American Novels, Social Networks, and Intermedial Toxicity” (Guest Lecture, Intermedial and Multimodal Studies Colloquium, Malmö) |
Jan 2024
| “American Literature and Digital Selfhood: Algorithms, Affect, Attention” (Current Issues in North American and Cultural Studies, Lecture Series, Universität Bonn) |
Dec 2023 | “Obscure Agencies: Negotiations of the Algorithmic Self in Contemporary US Fiction” (Lecture Series Arts and Futures, Universität Wuppertal) |
August 2022 | “The Algorithmic Self – Media Configurations and Narrative Perspectives” (guest lecture Aarhus University) |
Oktober 2022 | “Narratives of Digital Selfhood-Quantification, Algorithms, Networks” (conference in honour of Ulfied Reichardt’s birthday, Mannheim University) |
July 2022 | “Das algorithmische Selbst - mediale Konfigurationen und narrative Perspektiven“ (Lecture series Digital Humanities, HHU Düsseldorf) |
May 2022 | “Narratives of Algorithmic Self-Formation: Recognition, Attention, Automation” (Talk as part of the interdepartmental research colloquium (Culture & Literature), FU Berlin) |
May 2022 | “Digitale Selbstentwürfe und amerikanische Gegenwartsnarrative - ein Spannungsfeld“, Vortrag (Selbstinszenierungen im medialen Wandel, Geschichte, Theorie, Praktiken, Interdisziplinäre Ringvorlesung) |
May 2022 | “New Money in the New World: Historical and Literary Perspectives on the Nouveaux Riches in US American Culture” (Vortragsreihe Haus der Universität, HHU Düsseldorf, Wer will ich sein? Wer darf ich sein? Statussymbole und Repräsentationsstrategien von Aufsteigern seit dem 18. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart, with Reinhild Kreis) |
March 2022 | “Escaping Recognition Patterns? Algorithms and Narratives as Disruptive Innovation" (Public talk at Disruption and Societal Change Center, TU Dresden (TUDiSC)) |
December 2021 | “Cultural Conceptions of Artificial Intelligence: Imaginations and Politics of Recognition Technologies" (Talk at Heine Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, with Jens Temmen) |
September 2021 | “Netzwerkkonzepte in der US-amerikanischen Literatur: Kulturkontakt und Methodenkritik" (Interdisciplinary Online Conference "Netzwerke im Kulturtransfer", Internationales Graduiertenkolleg 1956 Kulturtransfer, Freiburg/Moskau; SFB 1187 Medien der Kooperation, Siegen; Institut für Medienkultur und Theater Köln) |
June 2021 | “Maker Cultures: Material and Digital Practices Between Empowerment and Discipline” (Panel at 67th Annual Conference of the DGfA/GAAS, Participation in American Culture and Society, with Reinhild Kreis) |
November 2020 | Passing the Turing Test? AI Generated Poetry and Posthuman Creativity (Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement, International Conference of the Austrian Academy of Sciences) |
February 2020 | “Data, Maps, Networks: Digital Approaches to Reading (in) 19th Century Literature” (Workshop Spending Time in/with the Nineteenth Century, Goethe-University Frankfurt) |
April 2019 | “‘A Movement Toward Expanded Connectedness’ – Network Concepts in US American Literary History” (Research Colloquium American Studies, Goethe-University Frankfurt |
November 2019 | “Toxicity, Failure, Knowledge” (Symposium Cultures of Toxicity, Warwick University) |
November 2018 | “From Numbers to Narrative: Self-Knowledge from Quantification to Autobiography” (Research Network Narrative Liminality, University Leipzig) |
February 2017 | “Networks and Numbers: New Models for the Humanities?”(Transcriptions Center der UC Santa Barbara) |
July 2016 | “Literature of the Information Age: Networks, Big Data, and the Quantified Self” (Research Colloquium, University Erlangen) |
November 2015 | “The Book That Counts: Big Data Vs. Narrative in Robin Sloan’s Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Joshua Cohen’s Book of Numbers” (Medium, Object, Metaphor: The Printed Book in Contemporary American Culture, International Conference, University of Konstanz) |
August 2015 | “Universal Music? American Postmodernism and the Constellations of Sound” (Constellating ‘Americas’: Exchanges and Changes Beyond Transnationalism, 7th World Congress of the International American Studies Association, Seoul) |
March 2015 | “Network Narratives and the Discontinuities of Complexity” (Compartments, Annual Conference of the American Comparative Literature Association, Seattle) |
February 2015 | “What We Can Learn from Pragmatism: Transmedia Storytelling and Processual Knowledge” (Transmedia Storytelling and Its Reception: Economies and Politics of Participation, International Conference, Hanover) |
January 2015 | “‘A Problem in Small Boat Navigation’: American Literary Naturalism, Ocean Metaphors, and Emerging Data Epistemology” (Data Fiction, International Workshop, JFK-Institute, FU Berlin) |
March 2014 | Response to Karin Harrasser, “Parahuman Agencies: Can We Escape Modernist Narratives?” (Posthumanist Perspectives, Workshop University of Mannheim) |
December 2013 | “‘Partial Members of a Vast Natural Network’: Notions ofInterconnectedness in American Pragmatism” (Research Colloquium, University of Goettingen) |
November 2013 | “Adaptation as Connection: A Network Theoretical Approach to Convergence, Participation, and Co-Production” (Rethinking Adaptation in the Age of Media Convergence, FRIAS Junior Researcher Conference, Freiburg) |
August 2013 | “The World Wide Sea: Oceanic Metaphors, Concepts of Knowledge, and Transnational America in the Information Age” (Oceans Apart: In Search of New Worlds, 7th World Congress of the International American Studies Association, University of Szceczin) |
June 2013 | “The Rural, Radical Communities, and the Impossibility of Reform in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance” (Rural America, 60th Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuernberg) |
March 2012 | “America as Network: Ideologies, Conceptions, Representations” (Networks in American Culture/America as Network, International Conference at Mannheim University) |
December 2011 | “Imagining the World Wide Web: Cultural Constructions of Virtual Space Across Media” (Cultural Distinctions Remediated, International Conference, Leibniz University Hanover) |
October 2011 | “Media (Inter)Action and Actor-Network-Theory in David Fincher’s The Social Network” (10th International Conference of the Nordic Society for Intermedial at NTNU Trondheim) |
August 2011 | “Redefining the Real: The New American Gothic in Alan Ball’s TV Series Six Feet Under and True Blood” (International Gothic Association, University of Heidelberg) |
May 2011 | “Media Transformation as Connection: Transmediality Reconsidered” (Media Adaptation, Symposium of Forum for Intermedial Studies at Linnaeus Universität in Växjö) |
February 2011 | “Paranoia, Hypertext, Hochseilakt: Netzwerkrepräsentationen in der amerikanischen Gegenwartskultur” (Netzwerke - Medienkultur – Medienwirtschaft, Symposium at University of Bayreuth) |
October 2010 | “Network Aesthetics. Towards an Understanding of Virtual Space in 21st Century American Culture” (Virtual Time and Space, Symposium of Forum for Intermedial Studies at Linnaeus University in Växjö) |
October 2009 | “Negotiating Sound as Transmedial Element in American Modernism” (Annual Conference of Nordic Society for Intermedial Studies, Aarhus) |
June 2009 | “Amy Lowell as Orator: Poetic Performativity in Modernism” (Conference of the Word and Music Studies Association, Vienna) |
March 2009 | “Polyphonic Prose and the Allegory of War in Amy Lowell’s Poetry.” (Spatio-Temporal Simultaneity, Postgraduate Conference, University of Copenhagen) |
March 2009 | “Möglichkeiten einer intermedialen Literaturdidaktik im Fremdsprachenunterricht” (Der Einsatz von Musik im Fremdsprachenunterricht, Leibniz University Hanover) |
October 2007 | “Amy Lowell and Intermedial Translation” (International Conference of Nordic Society for Intermedial Studies at Linnaeus University, Växjö) |
Ed. 'Critical Future', Transcript, with Moritz Ingwersen, Solvejg Nitzke, Regina Schober und Jens Temmen
German Association for American Studies (DGfA/GAAS)
American Studies Association (ASA)
International American Studies Association (IASA)
German Association for University Professors and Lecturers (DHV)
Reviewer, German Research Foundation (DFG)
Reviewer, Adaptation
Reviewer, Sound Effects
Reviewer, Review of International American Studies
November 2020 | “Divided We Stand“ - Analyse der US-Wahlen vom 3. |
September 2016 | “Datenflut und Selbstoptimierung“. Roundtable Discussion at Theater Festival Schwindelfrei, Alte Feuerwache Mannheim (with Ulfried Reichardt and Stefan Danter) |
November 2015 | “Wir müssen das Scheitern wieder lernen.“ Interview with Deutschland Radio Kultur |
November 2015 | “The Failed Individual.“ Interview with Campus-TV |
September 2014 | “Das globale Ich.“ Roundtable Discussion at Theater Festival Schwindelfrei, Alte Feuerwache Mannheim (with Ulfried Reichardt, Stella Butter, Sarah Heinz, Felix Kirschbacher, and Sven Stollfuß) |