Doctoral Candidates

Andreas Balz
Landesgraduiertenförderung

In his dissertation project, Andreas Balz aims at providing a new perspective on contemporary authorship, examining the social and cultural conditions of literary production, as well as related practices like publishing and literary reception in the U.S. Employing aspects of Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and performance-based approaches to culture rooted in theater and gender studies, the project conceives of authorship as a cultural concept defined by a variable set of activities within a literary field. The works of authors like Dave Eggers, Tao Lin, Sheila Heti, and Ben Lerner, which portray the daily routine of literary writers and exhibit a complex semi-autobiographical relationship with their real-life counterparts, serve as a starting point. Since literary production itself only represents one aspect of authorship, their analysis has to be complemented by a study of their authors’ other activities “on the literary scene”. Taking into consideration socio-cultural developments like the institutionalization of creative writing, the increasing importance of literary prizes, and the phenomenon of authorial celebrity, the project will explore how fictionalized and real-life “performances” of literary authors engage in shaping our contemporary concept of authorship.
Primary supervisor: Prof. Dr. Günter Leypoldt

Anastassia Biederstaedt
BASF Scholarship

Anastassia Biederstaedt's project examines milk advertisements as outcomes of a complex interplay of social and historical vectors of power. Her dissertation with the working title“Animal Milk in Human Culture: A Critical Study of U.S. Milk Advertisements in the 20th Century” aims at investigating both the geopolitical and sociocultural forces that helped building milk as a cultural construct and the broad variety of myths and images intimately tied to this liquid. Given the persisting presence of milk overflow, how does milk continue to be promoted regarding these developments? Which changes did happen in milk advertising during about hundred years since the beginnings of industrialization and urbanization? Which images are used and established to gain new consumers? How do these images inform and are informed by dominant discourses of race, class, gender, and species? These are some of the questions driving this dissertation project.
Primary supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ulrike Gerhard

Louis Butcher

Curt Engelhorn Ph.D. Scholarship

Louis Butcher was born and raised in London to an American mother and English father. He spent most of his childhood holidays with family in Detroit & LA. Prior to returning to academia for a second spell, he worked in a variety of fields and travelled extensively across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. He then graduated with a B.A. in (modern European) history from the University of Bradford, which included a year abroad at Clarkson University in upstate NY. Louis spent a further seven months backpacking across Latin America in an effort to improve his Spanish before returning to the UK to work in Bath for a year. In 2015, he moved to Heidelberg to enroll in the HCA’s MAS program. While there, he majored in political science, history, and law, and graduated in early 2017. Since then, Louis has occupied his time in Heidelberg by starting up an online business.

Louis Butcher’s project is titled “Analyzing the Impact of Police Body Cameras in America: Has Increased Surveillance of Police Behavior Reduced Incidences of Excessive Force?” It will seek to determine whether the growing use of police body-worn cameras (BWCs) in the United States has reduced the police’s use-of-force – and excessive force, in particular – thus, positively impacting relations between the police and the public at large.

Julia Lichtenstein

Curt Engelhorn Ph.D. Scholarship

Julia Lichtenstein (nee Merkel) studied American Studies, Law, and Political Science at Frankfurt University where she received her MA. She joined the HCA in 2009 as a PhD student with her thesis on contemporary Southern fiction, titled “Persistent Tropology: Creating the Ultra-South in Postsouthern Times”. She has taught American literature at Frankfurt University, Heidelberg University and has been teaching Methodology in the BAS program at the HCA since 2010. Since June 2017 she serves as MAS coordinator for the MAS program.

Julia Lichtenstein’s dissertation with the working title “Persistent Tropology: Creating the Ultra-South in Postsouthern Times” investigates how contemporary Southern authors Barry Hannah, Larry Brown, and Harry Crews create and perpetuate a distinctive Southern literary space she calls the Ultra South. At first glance contemporary Southern storytelling still reproduces and perpetuates traditional literary Southern tropes, but a closer investigation reveals their alienating role as empty signifiers. The equivalents of the Southern Gothic rotting mansion are in today’s suburbs or trailer parks, residences with bad substance built with dirty or loaned money. William Faulkner’s history-ridden cast is distortedly mirrored in Hannah’s catfish-frying, cheap porn-bootlegging country folks, who sneer at mainstream America, or in Brown’s white trash who term Oxford, Miss., “up north,” and ironically have never heard about the Civil War. In the works investigated, Julia Lichtenstein argues, the readers are lured into the Ultra South by familiar markers and known defining features just to find themselves surrounded by surprisingly unfamiliar territory, but a territory still well-defined and with sometimes still seemingly impenetrable borders. Within the portrayed version of the South, a space Julia Lichtenstein calls the inner space is constituted by cultural practices and brings forth the imagined region. A strong and resilient regional identity is constituted and communicated, both in the protagonists and in the reader, and embedded in the outer space of the United States as a whole.

Primary supervisor: Prof. Dr. Günter Leypoldt

Anthony Livanios

Anthony Livanios graduated in 1988 from the School of International Service, The American University, Washington, D.C. with a B.A. in economics and in 1991 from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University with a master's of international affairs in international political economy. He has over twenty years of experience in structuring, negotiating, and implementing oil and gas projects, intergovernmental agreements, geopolitical risk assessments, and market intelligence. He has delivered consulting projects for the upstream and midstream petroleum industry in Eurasia and the Caspian region, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, Europe and the United States. He has been a fellow at prominent Washington D.C.-based think tanks, such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation (1994-1997), the American Enterprise Institute (1998), and the Leadership Institute (1999-2004). In 2006 he was honored in the United States with two International Templeton Awards for his active role and "outstanding work in the field of international development and cooperation in the region of East Mediterranean." He is often quoted as an analyst in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He frequently appears asa commentator on CNN, Reuters, and Associated Press.

Anthony Livanios’ dissertation “The Geo-strategy of the United States and the Role of the US Oil Majors in the New Great Game of Oil and Gas in Eurasia After the End of Cold War” explores the influence of US policy and the challenges the US oil industry faced in the exploration and production of the Eurasian oil and gas resources. The Caspian Sea is at the heart of Eurasia, and the US geostrategy was unfolding, after the end of cold war, on the stage of geopolitics and petroleum industry. The US geo-strategy is analyzed in relation to the role of the US oil majors in the new Great Game in Eurasia. In his dissertation, Anthony Livanios uses the methodology of qualitative primary research, while performing and analyzing in-depth interviews with oil industry leaders and public policy decision makers.

Primary Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Dr. Detlef Junker, PD Dr. Martin Thunert, HCA

Jula Maasböl

Jula Maasböl studied English language and literature and art history at Heidelberg University and Durham University. Her B.A. thesis examines the performativity of gender and witchcraft in the work of Terry Pratchett. She received her M.A. in German literature and English Studies from Heidelberg University. Her M.A. thesis analyzes human-animal relations as a vehicle for ethics and morality in contemporary role-playing games. During her studies, Jula Maasböl was active as a student council representative and worked as a tutor and research assistant at Heidelberg University’s English Department. Upon completing her M.A. in 2020, she joined the research tandem “Culture Wars: Contested Cultural Heritage” within Heidelberg University’s flagship initiative “Transforming Cultural Heritage” as a doctoral research assistant. She is an associated Ph.D. student in the HCA’s Graduiertenkolleg “Authority and Trust” (GKAT).

Jula Maasböl’s dissertation project investigates the depiction of cultural heritage in the secondary worlds created by writers emblematic of a recent shift in Black Speculative Fiction: N.K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, and Tochi Onyebuchi. Using the genres of science fiction and fantasy, the works of these authors depict processes of heritage-making and the contention of cultural heritage that are thoroughly enmeshed with the fantastical elements of their worlds. The project seeks to elucidate the intersections of the representation of contested cultural heritage, processes of heritage-making, and challenges to heritage with issues such as race and racism, oppression and displacement, and intergenerational trauma and identity, which are at the heart of these texts.

Primary supervisor: Prof. Dr. Günter Leypoldt

Maarten Paulusse

BASF Scholarship

Maarten Paulusse received his bachelor's degree in history at Utrecht University in 2007, and completed his Master's degree in American Studies at the same university in 2009. During his studies he did an internship in New York City with the U.S. correspondent of the leading Dutch current affairs television program "Nova", and undertook several other ventures into journalism. In the summer months of the years 2010-2013 he has taught courses on Dutch history and culture to international students at bachelor-level at the Summer School of Utrecht University. In the Spring semester of 2011 Maarten enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies.

In his doctoral study Maarten explores the ways in which politicized forms of “contemporary spirituality” are having an impact in the American public sphere. The project aims to make a contribution to the contemporary discussion on the role of religion in American politics. In this far from settled debate among historians, political scientists, sociologists, theologians, and other analysts of public life in the United States, the primary focus in the past two decades has been on the interaction of forms of Evangelicalism, particularly those related to the “Christian Right”, with American politics. In this project the matter will instead be explored from the angle of “contemporary spirituality”, using the recent Occupy movement as a case study. The extensive theoretical toolbox offered by the academic field of religious studies will be used in this endeavor. In 2012 and 2013 Maarten completed two research trips to the U.S., during which he interviewed participants of the Occupy movement.

Primary supervisor: Prof. Dr. Inken Prohl

Hien-Le Pham

Hien Le Pham (Le is her first name) was born in Da Nang, a beautiful city in central Vietnam. She graduated from Foreign Trade University with a major in International Economics. Le worked for HSBC Bank Vietnam for over one year after graduation and started to collaborate with some publishing companies as a freelance book translator. Before moving to Germany for her graduate study in 2016, she had been a fulltime corporate trainer at a US software company for over three years. Le received her Master’s degree in American Studies in April 2018 and decided to go further on her academic journey by staying with the HCA for the PhD program.

Le has a keen interest in American foreign relations, especially in the relationship between the US and East Asia. Her project, which is titled “US Policy towards China on Maritime Territorial Disputes in East and Southeast Asia,” examines America’s involvement and interest in these territorial disputes since the Nixon administration’s famous rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China in the early 1970s. The disputes involve several of America’s strategic partners and long-time allies in the region. Thus, they pose serious challenges for US policymakers trying to strike a balance between Washington’s interest in establishing constructive relations with Beijing and America’s commitment to its allies. An inquiry into America’s reactions to China’s territorial claims may therefore provide new perspectives on how the United States conceives of its role in a new multipolar. Eventually, the key questions that the project hopes to answer are whether, historically, the dilemma that the United States has to deal with now could have been anticipated earlier in the past, and what are the possible flaws in US modern foreign policy that led to this situation..

Primary supervisor: Prof. Dr. Manfred Berg

Chitra Sanam

Chitra Sanam served U.S. citizens for over seven years in her capacity as a senior foreign service national with the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in India. She helped open the new U.S. Consulate in Hyderabad and build its American Citizen Services Unit, from the ground up. Highlights of her career include temporary duty during crises at the U.S. Embassies in Yemen and Djibouti, and collaborating with the U.S. Mission to encourage the Indian Government to accede to the Hague Abductions Convention. Prior to joining the Consulate, she enjoyed being a feature writer with India’s national newspaper, The Times of India. She holds a Master of Science degree in Journalism from Ohio University. She was born and raised in Hyderabad, India, but enjoys traveling to new places, and seeing the world with a new pair of eyes.

“American leadership has been wanting, but is still wanted,” stated Hillary Clinton at the Secretary of State Nomination Hearing, at the start of President Obama’s term in office, in 2009. “We must use what has been called ‘smart power’… with smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy,” she further discussed, after describing a range of smart power tools – military, diplomatic and cultural, among others – that the Obama administration adopted. ‘Smart power’, to that end, promised great potential for the U.S. to build stronger ties with nation states, cooperate and address various worrisome global issues such as terrorism, pandemics, climate change and energy. It led to a shift in U.S. diplomacy practices. Chitra Sanam’s research aims to analyse how U.S. leadership through the lens of Obama’s ‘smart power’has impacted U.S. diplomatic relations with the world, in the area of addressing transnational issues. A focus on better understanding ‘smart power’ as a diplomatic tool of this era would certainly contribute to the growing dialogue on assessing the true value of ‘smart power’ in addressing world issues specific to this time and age.

Primary supervisor: PD. Dr. Martin Thunert

Maren Mariani

BASF Scholarship

Maren Mariani is a research associate at the Institute of Political Science of the University of Heidelberg. She holds a B.A. in International Business from Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University and Augsburg College, MN. After receiving her B.A., she managed key accounts and international projects in an online marketing agency before she joined the MAS program at the HCA in Heidelberg. As part of her studies, she spent a year at the University of New Mexico as a recipient of the Baden-Württemberg Scholarship. In 2016, she graduated as valedictorian of her class with an M.A. in American Studies. Her Master’s project reflected her interest in political rhetoric, dealing with “The American Presidency and the ‘Power to Persuade’”. While working as a program coordinator at the SRH University in Heidelberg, Maren joined the HCA’s PhD program in 2017 and has been associated with the Graduiertenkolleg “Authority & Trust”. Her research interests include U.S. populism, rhetorical strategies in political discourse, as well as polarization in the U.S. In her dissertation, she focuses on the issue of contemporary populist rhetoric and specifically anti-authority populist framing in U.S. political discourse. She is also working on populists’ and populist movements’ use of visual media on Twitter.

Maren is co-founder of and contributor to the HCA Graduate Blog.

In her dissertation project, Maren researches anti-authority populist framing by politicians of the Right and Left in U.S. political discourse. Despite being a recurring feature of American politics, populism has perhaps reached an all-time high. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, increasing inequality and distrust of elites seem to have contributed to this development while the mass proliferation of digital media outlets and mobile devices has facilitated direct communication with a mass audience. Trump’s on-going success is seen by many as the manifestation of this trend. In the contemporary United States, more and more mainstream actors of all ideological persuasions seem to be employing populist rhetoric to shape people’s attitudes and beliefs in their favor. In particular, framing has become a popular strategy to communicate political claims and to alter the ways in which information is being presented, in the hopes of influencing people’s attitudes. In her project, Maren analyzes populist framing and particularly the framing of “the Others”, which has been neglected in populism research so far. She aims at understanding how political actors use populist framing, how they present authorities, and how repeated anti-authority views might influence audiences’ perception of elites.

Primary supervisor: PD. Dr. Martin Thunert

Juste Å imelyte

Landesgraduiertenförderung

Justė Šimelytė studied law at the University of Vilnius (Lithuania) where she specialized in commercial law. In 2007, she received her master‘s degree in law. In Lithuania, she also worked as a legal consultant in the Law Clinic of Vilnius University where she offered pro bono legal advice. In October 2007, she began her studies at the HCA, majoring in law, political science and international business cultures. In 2008, Justė Šimelytė received her M.A. in American Studies with a thesis entitled “Cultural Globalization: ‚Made in the USA‘ or ‚Made in Europe‘?”

Currently Justė Šimelytė is working on her thesis “Americanization and Europeanization: Two Forms of Cultural Globalization in Lithuania.” Her thesis deals with social processes of the last twenty years in Lithuania, which has undergone dramatic changes in the political, economic, and cultural realm. After regaining its independence, Lithuania had to build new state institutions, create national laws, and determine new political and economic as well as cultural strategies. In 2004 Lithuania became a member of NATO and the European Union. The accession to the single European market and the free movement of goods, capital, and people facilitated transnational cultural contacts that brought new possibilities and challenges for Lithuanian culture. This empirical study focuses on the changes that occurred in Lithuania since 1990s (after it became independent from the Soviet Union) and refers to the research areas that can be summarized in such key-words as space and place, identity, consumption, and cultural values. From the perspective of Americanization and Europeanization this thesis analyses the transformation of Lithuanian cultural places and spaces, the building of a new identity, the perception of European values as “imposed from above,” the consumption of popular culture, western artefacts and (N)ostalgia remaining in a post-communist Lithuania. The thesis reveals the perception of Americanization and Europeanization as well as the relationship between these two multidimensional processes.

Primary Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Detlef Junker, PD Dr. Martin Thunert

Amy van Meegen

Amy completed her bachelor’s degree American Studies at the HCA in 2014. She holds a master’s degree in international relations from the joint MA program at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, and the Universität Potsdam and studied the Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington D.C. After finishing her studies in 2017, she worked at the German Foreign Office and as Head of Research at the international social enterprise Seefar. Her university degrees focused on U.S. foreign policy and political theory, writing her theses on thresholds for humanitarian intervention and on the U.S. detention system in Afghanistan. Her professional career has led her into the migration, modern slavery, and human trafficking fields, conducting primary research in Afghanistan, Iraq, West Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Her Ph.D. project combines these two areas. The dissertation with the working title “Policies and Practices Targeting International Trafficking in Persons in the U.S.” examines what works in human trafficking prevention programming. Trafficking in Persons (TIP) has gained significant attention since the early 2000s. Governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, and survivors of trafficking have a vital interest in combatting TIP. Yet, little (academic) research is available on the topic, and even less is known about what works in TIP policies and programming. The dissertation aims to identify and test key variables of success by analyzing which international TIP prevention policies and practices exist/have existed in the U.S. between 2012 and 2022, why they have been continued/discontinued, and what might be generalizable factors around achieving “better” outcomes around international TIP prevention.

Primary supervisor: PD Dr. Martin Thunert