European Study Group of Nineteenth-Century American Literature

About the Study Group

The European Study Group of Nineteenth-Century American Literature was established at the 2006 conference of the European Association of American Studies (EAAS) in Cyprus by a group of European Americanists, among them Magdalena Zapedowska (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland), Marie-Claude Perrin-Chenour (Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre-La Défense, France), Ralph Poole (Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria), Asuncion Lopez-Varela (Complutense University Madrid, Spain), Mariana Net (Romanian Academy, Romania), Ausra Paulauskiene (LCC International University Klaipeda, Lithuania), and Verena Laschinger (Erfurt University, Germany). The group has received enthusiastic support of academics from all over Europe. Participants from the Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Italy, Austria and the US made the group’s annual sessions a great success. In the course of a three day long get-together the group usually focuses on lesser-known texts by American women writers of the nineteenth century, which thus far included works by Fanny Fern, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Phoebe Cary, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Jacobs, and Edith Wharton. All meetings were moderated by leading US-scholars of 19th-century American literature (Marianne Noble, Cynthia Davis, Paula Bernat Bennett, Jeffrey Steele, Gary Williams, Farah Griffin, Daniel Walkowitz), whose expertise helped to make the touring project an arena for transnational scholarly exchange. The meetings, which allow both an informal and interactive exchange of ideas and a more formal lecture proceeding, provide an excellent opportunity for scholars specializing in 19th-century American literature to engage in a supportive and inspiring intellectual community, which constitutes a forum for the exchange of information and ideas leading to further research and publications in the area.

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Publications

Special Issue. Laura E. Richards`s Children’s Poems and the Poetics of Nineteenth-Century American Nonsense. Edited by Verena Laschinger and Etti Gordon Ginzburg. European Journal of American Studies EJAS 19.4 (2024). Go to EJAS

Special Issue. Louisa May Alcott and Love. Edited by Daniela Daniele and Martha Saxton. European Journal of American Studies EJAS 17.3 (27 Oct 2022).  Go to EJAS

The Politics of Gender in Early American Theater: Revolutionary Dramatists and Theatrical Practices. Edited by Ralph J. Poole and Leopold Lippert. Bielefeld: transcript, 2021. Publisher's Website

Nineteenth-Century Southern Women Writers: Grace Kind and Modernism. Edited by Melissa Walker Heidari and Brigitte Zaugg.  Routledge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature (52). London: Routledge, 2020. Publisher's Website

Neglected American Women Writers of the Long Nineteenth Century: Progressive Pioneers. Ed. Verena Laschinger and Sirpa Salenius. New York: Routledge, 2019. Publisher's Website

Special Issue. Harriet Prescott Spofford: The Home, the Nation, and the Wilderness. Edited by Stéphanie Durrans. European Journal of American Studies EJAS 14.3 (29 Oct 2019). Go to EJAS

Edith Wharton's New York. Bucharest University Annals: Foreign Languages and Literatures Series. Edited by Mariana Net. 1, 2014.

Les réécritures du canon dans la littérature féminine de langue anglaise. Edited by Claire Bazin and Marie Claude Perrin Chenour. Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, 2011.

E-Motion: Sentiment and Technology. Edited by Verena Laschinger and Ralph J. Poole. Istanbul: Fatih UP, 2009.

Impressions of Past Meetings

june howards keynote
Zagreb (2024)
People in a room studying texts
© Verena Laschinger
Paris (2022)
Screenshot of an online meeting
© Verena Laschinger
Online Meeting (2021)
studyrome
© Verena Laschinger
Rome (2019)
studysalz
Salzburg (2018)
Joensuu
Joensuu (2017)
Bordeaux
© Verena Laschinger
Bordeaux (2016)
erfurt
Erfurt (2015)
bucaresti
© Verena Laschinger
Bucharest (2013)
florence
© Verena Laschinger
Florence (2012)
istanbul
Istanbul (2008)
Poznan
Poznan (2006)

Contact

Verena Laschinger
Dr. Verena Laschinger
Assistant Professor of American Literature
(Literary Studies)
C 23 Mitarbeitergebäude 1 / room 602
+49 361 737-4233
+49 361 737-4349
verena.laschinger@uni-erfurt.de
Office hours
please request an appointment by email
Profile page

Past Study Group Meetings

  • The Whole Family, a collaborative novel by twelve authors, with June Howards, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia, November 8-9, 2024. Program
  • Laura Richards in Israel, October 9-10, 2023 at Oranim College in Tiv’on, Israel (canceled / rescheduled for April 14-15, 2024 online). Program
  • Reading Mary Wilkins Freeman Anew: Race and Queer Ecologies, with J. Samaine Lockwood, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France, September 30 - October 1, 2022. Program
  • Laura E. Richards, with Etti Gordon Ginzburg. Online Meeting, October 1, 2021. Poster
  • Louisa May Alcott, with Martha Saxton. Centro Studi Americani, Rome, Italy, October 10-11, 2019. Program
  • Women Frontstage: Female Polemics and the American Revolution, with Marion Rust. University of Salzburg, Austria, September 13-14, 2018. Program
  • The Brownies' Book Magazine: Writing Race for Children, with Dianne Johnson-Feelings. University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland, September 21-22, 2017. Program
  • Harriet Prescott Spofford: From Romanticism to Realism, with Rita Bode. Université Bordeaux Montaigne, France. October 6-7, 2016. Program
  • "EAAS’s European Study Group of Nineteenth-Century American Literature 10th Anniversary Panel.” EAAS Conference 2016, Constanta, Romania. April 22-25, 2016. Program
  • Science, Suspects, and Surveillance in American Detective Fiction by Metta Fuller Victor and Anna Katharine Green. A Workshop on The Dead Letter (1866) and The Leavenworth Case (1878), with Laura Saltz. Universität Erfurt, Germany. September 3-4, 2015. Program
  • Grace King of New Orleans: Beyond Local Color, with Melissa Walker Heidari. Université Lorraine, Metz, France. October 9-11, 2014.  Program
  • Edith Wharton’s New York, with Daniel Walkowitz, Iorgu Iordan - Al. Rosetti Institute of Linguistics Bucharest, Romania. September 19-20, 2013.  Program
  • Negotiating Identity: Womanhood, Race, and Slavery in the Nineteenth Century, with Farah Griffin, Museo di Storia Naturale, Florence, Italy. October 18-19, 2012. Program
  • Julia Ward Howe, The Hermaphrodite: Intersex-ions of Writing, Culture and Media, with Gary Williams, Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain. November 4-5, 2010. Program
  • Margaret Fuller and Geographical Discontinuities, with Jeffrey Steele. Université de Paris Ouest- Nanterre-La Défense, Paris, France. October 9-10, 2009. Program
  • Humor in 19th Century Women’s Poetry: Phoebe Cary, Poems and Parodies, with Paula Bernat Bennett. Fatih University Istanbul, Turkey, May 16–17, 2008. Program
  • Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wall-Paper," The Crux and Benigna Machiavelli, with Cynthia Davis. Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan, Poland, October 12-14, 2007. 
     
  • Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall, with Marianne Noble. Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan, Poland, October 06-08, 2006.