Now in its sixteenth 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 “American Apocalypses.” It features graduate contributions by
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Michael Meister on “Between Despair and Denial: Coming to Terms with the Climate Crisis and Environmental Injustice in the Ecopoetry of Craig Santos Perez”
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Leonie M. J. Kratzenstein on “Community Building through Bodily Affect in Ari Aster’s Midsommar”
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Poppy Williams on “Diversifying the Oppressor: Native American Participation in the History of Enslavement”
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and Michalina Czerwońska on “Collaborative Survival in Paul Schrader’s First Reformed”
In addition, the issue features art contributions around the idea of American Apocalypses by Klaire Smith (“Mors Tua, Vita Mea (Your Death, My Life)”), Julian Töller (“Käptn Amerika”), Georgio Lorio (“Trumped-Up: Ugly American”), and Filip Julian Miszuk (“I Wave on High the Flag of My Unmaking”). Rounding out the issue is a ‘professorial voice’ essay by Paweł Frelik (“American Apocalypses Galore”), 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 Anne I. Bertram, N. Selin Demirkaya, Luisa Hartrodt, Sophia Noack, Batuhan Örcün, Maximilian Pott, Gabriela Rosa-Eick, and Karolina Stachurska, with ASL faculty Annika Schadewaldt and Katja Schmieder as general editors. Peter Hintz served as editorial assistant, and Richard Aude managed the back office. The publication of the new issue was celebrated in a launch party at ASL on May 15.
The issue is now available online (open access) and in print.
