Now in its seventeenth year, aspeers aims to showcase the excellent scholarship done in American studies already on the graduate level. It is edited entirely by the entering cohort of ASL’s MA program.
This year’s issue focuses on the topic of “Transcending Time.” It features graduate contributions by
- Louisa Büsken on “Seeking Refuge in Nature: Escapism and the Contemporary Pastoral Impulse in Cottagecore”
- Anne I. Bertram on “The Parody Within: The Employment of the Parodic Mode in The Addams Family (1991)”
- Christoph Friedrich Nostitz on “Feeling American: Affect and Notions of (In)Security in Tucker Carlson’s Coverage of Derek Chauvin’s Trial”
- and Richard Aude on “Lines of Flight: Baseball as Afrofuturist Becoming in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”
Rounding out the issue is a ‘professorial voice’ essay by Olena Boylu ("Discussing Time Through Literature"), an introduction by the graduate editors, and a brief foreword.
As in previous years, MA students in their first semester of American studies reviewed, selected, edited, and finally published the issue throughout the past winter semester. This year’s issue was put together by Andrea Álvarez, Josefine C. Bernhofer, Valérie Burgun, Jara Cebeci, Anika Graeger, Alena Kartaschov, Anna C. Lang, Marvin Loye, Tuna Özmeriç, Natalie Warremann, and Joseph M. M. Wiedemann, with ASL faculty Katja Schmieder and Stefan Schubert as general editors. Max Hahnemann served as editorial assistant, and Malte Herting managed the back office. The publication of the new issue was celebrated in a launch party on May 27.
The issue is now available online (open access) and in print.
