Civilizing and Decivilizing Processes: Figurational Approaches to American Culture

Astrid Franke is Professor of American Studies at the Eberhard Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany. She received her PhD from the John F. Kennedy-Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin and then became an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. Among her publications are Keys to Controversies: Stereotypes in Modern American Novels (New York, 1999), and Pursue the Illusion: Problems of Public Poetry in America (Heidelberg, 2010).

Johannes Voelz is Assistant Professor of American Studies at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He received his PhD from the John F. Kennedy-Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin in 2008. He is the author of Transcendental Resistance: The New Americanists and Emerson’s Challenge (Hanover, New Hampshire, 2010), and co-editor of a collection of essays by Winfried Fluck, titled Romance with America? Essays on Culture, Literature, and American Studies (Heidelberg, 2009).