Curriculum Vitae
- Chris Katzenberg is a doctoral candidate and research assistant at the chair of American studies and in the University Alliance Ruhr graduate research group City Scripts. He joined the RuhrCenter of American Studies in 2018 after completing an M.A. in English / American Studies and History at RUB. His dissertation project is tentatively titled “Social Change for Engaging Cities – Translating Urban 'Collective Impact' Initiatives between the Rust Belt and the Ruhr”. It traces the transatlantic trajectories and transformations of an American cultural script for social inclusion in recent urban policy texts and the practices they prompt, focusing on the intersection of education and the social.
Research Interests
- Contemporary U.S. Literature, (Literary) Urban Studies, Transnationalism and Globalization, Race and Ethnicity
Conference Papers and Lectures
- “'The Iconic Ghetto' and Postindustrial Urban Change Across the Atlantic: Between Post-Factual Tropes, Narrative Interventions, and Future Scripts” Postgraduate Forum (PGF) of the German Association of American Studies (DGfA), University of Passau, December 2019
- “'More Cameras in the City than Birds in the Sky': Urban Complexity as Mediated Visual Simultaneity in Colum McCann's 'Thirteen Ways of Looking' (2015)” Simultaneity in the City: 2019 Symposium of the Association for Literary Urban Studies, University Duisburg-Essen, February 2019
- “Translating Urban 'Collective Impact' between the Ruhr and the Rust Belt”, Transatlantic Summer Workshop: Globalization, Nationalism, and Populism in the Transatlantic World, part two of a joint graduate workshop between RUB and CUNY, Ruhr-University Bochum, July 2018
- “Transatlantic Transfers? Populism and Social Change in Urban Social Spaces in the US and Germany”, Transatlantic Summer Workshop: Globalization, Nationalism, and Populism in the Transatlantic World, part one of a joint graduate workshop between RUB and CUNY, City University of New York, July/August 2017
- “Walking in de Certeau’s City: Nigerian-Immigrant Flânerie in Teju Cole’s Open City and Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah” Urban America: Mediating Space as Place, Graduate conference at the Institute for American Studies, Leipzig University, April 2016
Conference Organization
- Panel Chair at the international conference “Metropolitan Masculinities”, Ruhr-University Bochum, November 2019.
- Panel Chair at the international conference “Playing the Field II: Video Games, American Studies, and Space”, organized by the University of Duisburg-Essen at Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen, May 2019.
- Co-organizer of the Postgraduate Forum (PGF) of the German Association of American Studies (DGfA) 2018, hosted by the University Duisburg-Essen and organized by the Ruhr Universities Duisburg-Essen, Dortmund and Bochum (UAR).
- Co-organizer of the annual PhD-Forum of the RuhrCenter of American Studies since 2018.
Publications and Editorship
- Current Objectives in Postgraduate American Studies 20,1 (2019). Guest Eds. Anna Bongers, Chris Katzenberg, Hanna Rückl, Sabrina Schäfer, Martin Stöckmann, and Timo Weidner. (Online, Open Access)
- Katzenberg, Chris et al. “Digital Futures in Research and American Studies: The 2018 Postgraduate Forum.“ Editorial, COPAS 20,1 (2019): 1-5. (Online, Open Access)
