Dr. Mahshid Mayar

PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS
Feb. 2024-Feb. 2027: Postdoctoral Researcher - German Research Foundation (DFG) - “Eigene Stelle” Research Grant | Department of English, American, and Celtic Studies | University of Bonn [ 100% research position ]

Feb. 2024-Feb. 2025: Research Fellow - Dahlem Humanities Center  | Freie University of Berlin (FU) | Berlin

Sept. 2023-Jan. 2024: Visiting Professor - American Studies / Anglistik III | Anglistisches Seminar | University of Mannheim

Oct. 2022-Aug. 2023: Senior Assistant Professor - American Literature and Culture | Englisches Seminar I | University of Cologne | and Program Coordinator - Joint MA Program in North American Studies (NAS) | Universities of Bonn & Cologne

Oct. 2022-Sept. 2023: Teaching Contract - JFK Institute for North American Studies | Freie University of Berlin

Jan. 2024-Ongoing: Member of the EAAS Poetry Network - Speaker: Gülsin Ciftci (University of Münster)

Jan. 2023-Jan. 2026: Member of the DFG Research Network “Cultural Politics of Reconciliation - Speakers: Nathalie Aghoro (LMU Munich) and Katharina Fackler (University of Bonn)

Jul. 2021-Jun. 2022: Postdoctoral Research Associate - American Studies | English Department | Amherst College, MA, USA

SS 2022: Teaching Contract - Department of English and American Studies | University of Paderborn

Oct. 2016-Sept. 2022: Assistant Professor - Department of British and American Studies (Anglistik) | University of Bielefeld

2019-2020: Member of Central Committee - Gespielt: History and Digital Games Research Group (AKGWDS)

SS 2017: Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow - American Studies | English Department | Amherst College, MA, USA

May 2017-Oct. 2017: Postdoctoral Researcher - SFB 1288 “Practices of Comparison. Ordering, and Changing the World” | University of Bielefeld

SS 2016: Teaching Contract - Department of British and American Studies | University of Bielefeld

SS 2016: Teaching Contract - Department of History | University of Bielefeld

EDUCATION & DEGREES                       
2010-2016: PhD: Modern History (summa cum laude) - Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS) | University of Bielefeld 

Dissertation Title: Citizens and Rulers of the World: American Children and World Geography at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

• awarded the Westfälisch-lippische Universitätsgesellschaft Dissertation Prize 2016
• Doctoral Visiting Fellow, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA

2008-2009: MA: American Studies - Heidelberg Center for American Studies | Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg

2006-2008: Grad. Work: North American Studies - Center for North American Studies | University of Tehran

2001-2005: BA: English Language and Literature - Faculty of Foreign Languages | University of Tehran

MONOGRAPHS

In preparation:  W( )oles and ( )holes: Politically Engaged Erasure Poetry in Twenty-First-Century United States [ Second-Book Project ].

2022: Citizens and Rulers of the World: The American Child and the Cartographic Pedagogies of Empire. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (2022).

• Awarded Shelley Fisher Fishkin Prize for Original Research in Transnational American Studies (2022), the American Studies Association (ASA).
• Podcast Interview in Society for the History of Childhood and Youth (2023)
• Interview in Los Angeles Review of Books (2022)
• Podcast Interview in New Books Network (2022)
• Interview in The Current (2022)
• Reviewed in

• Journal of Diplomatic History (2023)
• History of Education (2023)
• Winterthur Portfolio (2023)
• Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (2023)
• Paedagogica Historica (2023)
• The Portolan: Journal of the Washington Map Society (2022)
• Anglia: Journal of English Philology (forthcoming)
• Amerikastudien/ American Studies (forthcoming)

EDITED VOLUMES

Under contract: Mayar, Mahshid, and Mischa Honeck, eds. De Gruyter Companion to U.S. Empire. Berlin: de Gruyter (forthcoming).

In preparation:  Mayar, Mahshid, Stefan Benz, and Sabine N. Meyer. Noises of America: An Essay Collection.

2022: Mayar, Mahshid, and Marion Schulte, eds. Silence and Its Derivatives: Conversations Across Disciplines. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.

SPECIAL ISSUES

2021: Mayar, Mahshid, and Stefan Schubert, eds. “American Video Games and the Politics of Popular Culture.” European Journal of American Studies 16.3 (2021).

2020: Mayar, Mahshid, ed. “Spaces of Empire.” U.S. Studies Online, British Association for American Studies (2020).

2018: Mayar, Mahshid, ed. “Encounters in the ‘Game-Over Era’: The Americas in Videogames.” fiar: Forum for Inter-American Research 11.2 (2018).

2017: Mayar, Mahshid, and Yaatsil Guevara González, eds. “Done with Eurocentrism? Directions, Diversions, and Debates in History and Sociology.” InterDisciplines: Journal of History and Sociology 8.2 (2017).

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES & BOOK CHAPTERS

In preparation: Mayar, Mahshid. “Sorry for the Genocide: Reading Race and Erasure in Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas (chapter in final publication - DFG Network “Cultural Politics of Reconciliation”).

Forthcoming: Mayar, Mahshid. “Palms, Fingers, and Fingerprints – Jenny Holzer’s Erasure Arts as Archival Versioning” (chapter in Versions of America – edited by Matthias Klestil).

Forthcoming: Mayar, Mahshid. “Erasure as Seriality – A Study of the “Serial Attitude” in A Humument and Tree of Codes.” Serial Circulation: Print Cultures and Periodical Modernities, edited by Daniel Stein and Maxi Albrecht. Anglia: Journal of English Philology 1 (2025).

Forthcoming: Mayar, Mahshid. “The Poetic Cartographies of the Black Outdoors — The Black Boy and the Poetry that Addresses Him.” Blackness and the Knowledges of Intersectionality, edited by Julia Faisst and Nathalie Aghoro. Review of International American Studies (RIAS) 2 (2025).

2023: Mayar, Mahshid. “‘Playes Print the Letter.’ American Child(hoods) as Archival Present/ce.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 16.3 (2023): 361-383.

2023: Mayar, Mahshid. “Huck in the Balloon, Huck in the Divan -- The American Child and the Cartographic Scripts of Empire.” Journal of Transnational American Studies 14.1 (2023): 53-74.

2023: Mayar, Mahshid. “Sand Opera: Imperial Scripts of Crisis and Intergeneric Fields of Erasure in Philip Metres’ Poetry of Erasure.” Capitalist Crisis Poetry: Neoliberalism and the 21st Century Lyric, edited by Stefan Benz, Marcel Hartwig, and Hannah Schoch. Amerikastudien/American Studies 68.2 (2023): 231-41.

2022: Mayar, Mahshid. “Children, Childhood, and Empire.” Oxford Bibliographies in Childhood Studies. Ed. Heather Montgomery. New York: Oxford University Press (2022).

2022: Mayar, Mahshid. “Silence as Masquerade: Punctuation, Prosody, and Performance in ‘A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease’.” Silence and Its Derivatives: Conversations across Disciplines. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (2022).

2022: Mayar, Mahshid, and Marion Schulte. “Silences in History, Linguistics, and Literature: An Introduction,” introduction to Silence and Its Derivatives: Conversations across Disciplines. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan 2022).

2021: Mayar, Mahshid. “Feasts of Indifference: Racialization, Affect, and Necropolitics in 1X War Games.” European Journal of American Studies 16.3 (2021).

2021: Mayar, Mahshid, and Stefan Schubert. “Joystick in the Garden,” introduction to Special Issue “American Video Games and the Politics of Popular Culture.” European Journal of American Studies 16.3 (2021).

2020: Mayar, Mahshid. “Spaces and Spatialities of Empire: An Introduction,” introduction to “Spaces of Empire” Essay Series, U.S. Studies Online, British Association for American Studies (2020).

2020: Mayar, Mahshid. “What on earth! Slated Globes, School Geography and Imperial Pedagogy.” European Journal of American Studies 15.2 (2020): 1-19.

2019: Mayar, Mahshid. “Weirding the Empire in West of Loathing and Other Digital Games.” U.S. Studies Online (USSO) essay series “American Studies and Video Games,” British Association for American Studies (2019).

2019: Mayar, Mahshid. “Verbs of Violence: 19th-Century Jigsaw Puzzles, Otherness, and American Childhood.” Society for the History of Children and Youth (2019).

2018: Mayar, Mahshid.“Überleben im Anthropozäne. Wege zu einer Definition von Humanitarian Crisis Games,” Weltmaschine Computerspiel: Mythen und Techniken der Globalisierung im digitalen Spiel. Eds. Eugen Pfister and Tobias Winnerling. Verein zur Studien interkultureller Geschichte: Mandelbaum Verlag (2018): 47-76.

2018: Mayar, Mahshid. “A game (simulation) is a game (interactive technology) is a game (lifestyle) is a game (live archive): An Introduction,” introduction to “Encounters in the ‘Game-Over Era’: The Americas in/and Video Games,” fiar: Forum for Inter-American Research 11.2 (2018): 5-14.

2018: Mayar, Mahshid. “Survival as Species Narrative: (Supra-)Referentiality in Humanitarian Crisis Video Games.” Loading….: Journal of Canadian Game Studies 11.18 (2018): 81-98.

2017: Mayar, Mahshid, and Yaatsil Guevara González. “Done with Eurocentrism? Unpacking a Plural Construct,” introduction to “Done with Eurocentrism? Directions, Diversions, and Debates in History and Sociology.” InterDisciplines: Journal of History and Sociology 8.2 (2017): 1-20.

2016: Mayar, Mahshid. “A Case for Serious Play: Virtual Pacifism and Historical Digital Games.”“Frühneuzeitlicher Krieg in Digitalen Spielen,” Zeitschrift des Arbeitskreises Militär und Gesellschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit 20 (2016): 117-135.

2016: Mayar, Mahshid. “Tools to Toys: American Dissected Maps and Geographic Knowledge at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” Knowledge Landscapes North America. Eds. Sabine Sielke, Christian Klöckner, and Simone Knewitz. Heidelberg: Winter (2016): 99-118.

ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES  

2016: Mayar, Mahshid. “Children, Impact of War on.” In Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. London: Sage Reference (2016).

2014: Mayar, Mahshid. “Child Study Association of America.” In Social History of the American Family: An Encyclopedia. London: Sage Reference (2014).

2014: Mayar, Mahshid. “Tabula Rasa.” In Social History of the American Family: An Encyclopedia. London: Sage Reference (2014).

ESSAYS (NOT PEER-REVIEWED), REPORTS, & REVIEWS

2022: Mayar, Mahshid. “From Unquestioned Obedience to Disintegrating Abeyance: Children’s Toys and U.S.’s Racial Order in the Late 19th Century,” Apr. 2022, UNC Press Blog.

2017: Mayar, Mahshid. Report on International Kickoff Conference of SFB 1288 “Practices of Comparing: Ordering, and Changing the World,” Oct. 2017, H-Soz-Kult.

2015: Mayar, Mahshid. “Guten Tag, lieber Feind! A Magical Exhibition,” Review of Art Exhibition Guten Tag, Lieber Feind! Internationale Jugendbibliothek, Munich (2015).

BOOK REVIEWS

In preparation: Kristina Marie Darling, Silence in Contemporary Poetry (Clemson: Clemson University Press, 2023), for Oxford American Literary History.

2018: Jason Reid, Get out of my room! A History of Teen Bedrooms in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), for H-Soz-Kult (2018).

2018: Steven Cassedy, Connected: How Trains, Genes, Pineapples, Piano Keys, and a Few Disasters Transformed Americans at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), for Nineteenth Century Studies Association (2018).

2018: Anthony Pagden, The Burdens of Empire: 1539 to the Present (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), for H-Net Empire (2018).

2015: C. Dallett Hemphill, Siblings: Brothers and Sisters in American History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), for U.S. Studies Online (2015).

2014: Valeska Huber, Channelling Mobilities: Migration and Globalisation in the Suez Canal Region and Beyond 1869-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), for die Historische Zeitschrift, Vol. 298 (2014).

2013: Hsuan L. Hsu, Geography and the Production of Space in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), for Ex Historia, Vol. 5 (2013).

2012: Ulrike Freitag and Achin von Oppen, ed.s, Translocality: The Study of Globalizing Processes from a Southern Perspective (Leiden: Brill, 2009), for International Journal of Localities, Vol. 1 (2012).

2011: Barry Gills and William R. Thompson, ed.s, Globalization and Global History (London: Routledge, 2006), for Ex Historia, Vol. 3 (2011).

2010: McKenzie Wark, Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), for Global Media Journal, Vol. 8 (2010).

2022: Shelley Fisher Fishkin Prize for Original Research in Transnational American Studies -- prize for Citizens and Rulers of the World: The American Child and the Cartographic Pedagogies of Empire.

• awarded by The American Studies Association (ASA)

2021: Dorothy Ross Prize 2020 - honorable mention for “What on earth! Slated Globes, School Geography and Imperial Pedagogy,” in European Journal of American Studies 15.2 (2020): 1-19.

• awarded by Society for U.S. Intellectual History (S.USIH)

2017: Westfälisch-Lippische Universitätsgesellschaft Dissertation Prize 2016.

• awarded by University of Bielefeld.

2005: 3rd Place, Iran’s National Post-Graduate University Entrance Examination for English and Translation Studies (among over 110,000 participants), Iran.

2005: Award for Exceptionally Talented Student, BA in English Language and Literature, University of Tehran, Iran.

2001: 10th Place, Iran’s National Undergraduate University Entrance Examination (among over 1,000,000 participants), Iran.

RESEARCH GRANTS & SCHOLARSHIPS

Accepted: Postdoctoral Research Grant (36 months), German Research Foundation (DFG), University of Bonn (€347,402).

WS 2023: Conference Fund, DFG Research Network “The Cultural Politics of Reconciliation,” University of Mannheim (€17,500).

SS 2020: Conference Fund, Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld (€10,000).

Jul. 2016-Jun. 2017: Career Bridge Scholarship Doctorate-Postdoc, Bielefeld Young Researchers’ Fund, University of Bielefeld (€24,000). 

SS 2017: Travel Fund, Fritz-Thyssen Foundation, Cologne, Germany (€3,100).

WS 2014-15: International Researchers Fellowship, Stiftung Internationale Jugendbibliothek, Munich (€2,400).

Nov. 2014: Archival Trip Grant, BGHS, German Research Foundation (DFG), archival trip to The Newberry Library, Chicago (€1,300).

Aug. 2014-Jan. 2015: Doctoral Completion Scholarship, Bielefeld Young Researchers’ Fund, University of Bielefeld (€6,000).

May 2014-June 2014: Travel Fund, Bavarian American Academy (Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas, United States) (€1,000). 

May 2013-June 2013: Travel Fund, Bavarian American Academy (Amerika Haus, Munich and Nuremberg, and Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen) (€750).

Sept. 2012: Fellowship for Young Historians, Robert Bosch Foundation (German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C., United States) (€5,400).

Sept. 2012: Archival Trip Grant, BGHS, German Research Foundation (DFG), archival trip to Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University, New Jersey, United States (€1,300).

May 2012-June 2012: Travel Fund, Bavarian American Academy (German Historical Institute, Library of Congress, and American University, Washington, D.C.) (€1,000).

Sept. 2011-Dec. 2011: Mobility Grant, BGHS, German Research Foundation (DFG), Doctoral Visiting Fellow at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., United States (€3,500).

Oct. 2010-Mar. 2014: Doctoral Scholarship, BGHS, German Research Foundation (DFG), University of Bielefeld (€54,600).

Sept. 2008-Aug. 2009: MA Scholarship, Curt Engelhorn Scholarship for Outstanding International Student, HCA, Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg (€12,260).

FELLOWSHIPS & RESEARCH STAYS

Feb. 2024- Feb.2025: Research Fellow, Dahlem Humanities Center, Freie University of Berlin (FU), Berlin

Apr. 2017-May 2017: Postdoctoral Visiting Fellowship, English Department, Amherst College, MA, United States.

Oct. 2014-Dec. 2014: International Research Fellowship, International Youth Library, Blutenburg Castle, Munich, Germany.

May 2014- June 2014: Bavarian American Academy Summer Academy, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas, United States.

May 2013-June 2013: Bavarian American Academy Summer Academy, Munich / Erlangen /Nürnberg, Germany.

Sept. 2012: Fellowship for Young Historians, Summer School organized by Robert Bosch Foundation/German Historical Institute, Washington D.C., United States.

May 2012-June 2012: Bavarian American Academy Summer Academy, Washington, D.C., United States.

Sept. 2011-Dec. 2011: Doctoral Visiting Fellowship, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., United States

CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS ORGANIZED

June 2025: “Archiving America / American Archives,” 71st Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA), University of Siegen, Germany [member of steering committee].

Dec. 2023: “The Cultural Politics of Reconciliation, Memory, and Empire,” two-day workshop, University of Mannheim [co-organized with Kathryn Walkiewicz, University of California San Diego].

Jun./Jul. 2023: “U.S. Empire: An Authors’ Workshop,” two-day international workshop, University of Kassel [co-organized with Mischa Honeck].

Oct. 2020: “The Anechoic Chamber: Construction and Reception of Silence in Language, Literature, Music, Politics, and History,” Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung (ZiF), Bielefeld [co-organized with Marion Schulte].

Jun./Jul. 2016: “Done with Eurocentrism? Directions, Diversions, and Debates in History and Sociology,” 8th BGHS Annual International Conference, University of Bielefeld, Germany [co-organized with Yaatsil Guevara, Marius Meinhof, Junchen Yan].      

Jul. 2015: “Embodied Experience of Transnational Movements: Historical Trajectories and Contemporary Dynamics,” BGHS Workshop Series, University of Bielefeld, Germany [co-organized with Cleovi Mosuela].

Apr./May 2015: 6th International PhD Student Workshop Notre Dame-Bielefeld, University of Notre Dame, United States.

Jan. 2016: Co-organizer, 8th BGHS Annual Guest Lecturers, University of Bielefeld, Germany.

SS 2011: BGHS (Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology) Interdisciplinary Doctoral Colloquium, Bielefeld University [co-organized with Annika Wellmann].

PANELS ORGANIZED

Jun. 2022: “Sound (and) Political Education? Sonic Dissent as Aesthetic and Political Praxis,” workshop co-organized for the 68th Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA), University of Tübingen, Tübingen [co-organized with Sabine Meyer].

Jun. 2022: “Decolonizing the American Studies Classroom in Germany,” workshop co-organized for the 68th Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA), University of Tübingen, Tübingen [co-organized with Helen Gibson and Jens Temmen – called off].

Jun. 2021: “Silence in/of Archives: Absence, Erasure, Censorship, and Archival Politics,” panel organized for the 6th European Congress on World and Global History (ENIUGH), Turku, Finland.

Jun. 2021: “This is the World! Geographies of Childhood and Pedagogies of Empire,” panel co-organized for the Society for the History of Children and Youth XI Biennial International Conference, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland [ co-organized with Catherine Larochelle, Université de Montréal, Canada ].

Jun. 2019: “Video Games and the Politics of Popular Culture,” panel co-organized with Nathalie Aghoro, Dietmar Meinel, and Stefan Schubert for the 66th Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA), “U.S.-American Culture as Popular Culture,” University of Hamburg, Hamburg.

Sept. 2017: “Empires in the ‘Game-Over Era’: Videogames and the Question of Historical Narrative,” panel organized for the 5th European Congress on World and Global History (ENIUGH), Budapest, Hungary.

GUEST LECTURES & POETRY READINGS ORGANIZED

2024: Kazim Ali (UC San Diego) / Philip Metres (Vermont College) / Layli Long Soldier (Smith College)

2023: Stefan Benz (University of Bonn) / Deborah Mouton (USA) / Andrin Albrecht (University of Jena)

2022: Catherine Larochelle (Université de Montréal), David Caplan (Southern Methodist University), Astrid Franke (University of Tübingen), Gülsin Ciftci (University of Münster)

2021: Judith Rauscher (University of Cologne)

CRITICAL ARTS EVENTS ORGANIZED

SS 2023: Exhibition Curator, Student Art Project This Is NOT An Apology: A Critical Erasure Project [ critical, student-led erasure-poetry project ], Englisches Seminar I, University of Cologne, Germany.

Jun.-Oct. 2016: Exhibition Curator, Art | Science Event Art Begins in Streets. Art Lives in Streets [photography project by Wilfried Raussert], Done with Eurocentrism? Directions, Diversions, and Debates in History and “Sociology,” 8th BGHS Annual Seminar, University of Bielefeld, Germany.

TALKS AT CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS

KEYNOTE LECTURES

Oct. 2023: “Erase Till You Arrive: Versioning the Scripts of Empire in Erasure Poetry,” 50th Austrian American Studies Association Conference 2023, Klagenfurt, Austria.

Sept. 2022: “Child Meets Microbe: Letters and Lessons on Migration at the End of the 19th Century,” International Conference “In Search of the Migrant Child,” Institute for European Studies, University of California in Berkeley, USA.

Oct. 2019: “Banal, Boring, Banned: Unplayability in Digital Games,” International Conference “Future and Reality of Gaming (FROG),” Vienna, Austria.

INVITED TALKS (SELECTION)

Jun. 2024: “Breath-taking! – The Prosodics of Erasure in the Poetry of M. NourbeSe Philip, Solmaz Sharif, and Philip Metres,” 70th Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA) [invited by Elena Furlanetto / Ilka Brasch].

Jan. 2024: “Documents-Poems: A Study in Erasure Poetry,” Department of English and American Studies, University of Paderborn [invited by Alexandra Hartmann].

Dec. 2023: “Empire is Trans-National: Erasure, Archive, Poetry,” JTAS Symposium, Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, University of Mainz [invited by Alfred Hornung].

Nov. 2023: “The empty map’s about to overflow – The American Child and the World at her Fingertips,” Research Colloquium SFB1199 Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition [invited by Gabriele Pisarz-Ramirez - cancelled].

Nov. 2023: “‘A HISTORY OF THE HOW’ – Protest and/in 21st-Century Documentary Poetry,” International Guest Lecture Series “Contemporary Contexts and Debates: 21st Century Literatures and Cultures in English,” National University «Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic», Ukraine [invited by Hannah Schoch].

Jun. 2023: “Erasure as Seriality – A Study of Contemporary Print Culture in A Humument and Tree of Codes,” International Conference "Serial Circulation: Print Cultures and Periodical Modernities," University of Siegen [invited by Daniel Stein / Maxi Albrecht].

Apr. 2023: "The World in Pieces: Home, Empire, and Childhood in the 1890s," "Forschungskolloquium Kultur/Literatur," John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie University of Berlin [invited by Frank Kelleter].

Nov. 2022: “Citizens and Rulers of the World? National Questions and Transnational Concerns,” Shelley Fisher Fishkin Prize (2022) Award Ceremony, Duke Kunshan Humanities Research Center, Duke University.

Jun. 2022: “Kinship, Childhood, and the World: A Cultural Historical Survey of Empire,” American Studies Program, Englisches Seminar, Westfälische Wilhelms-University of Münster [invited by Silvia Schultermandl].

May 2022: “Home and the Question of Imperial Exteriority: At-Home-Ness and Home-Less-Ness in Late-19th-Century School Geography,” Westfälische Wilhelms-University of Münster [invited by Silvia Schultermandl].

Apr. 2022: “'The Talk' as Script -- Age, Race, and Space in 21st-Century African-American Poetry,” international conference "Blackness and the Knowledge(s) of Intersectionality," Bavarian American Academy, Munich | KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt [invited by Julia Faisst].

Jan. 2022: “Document, Poetry, Art: Solmaz Sharif and Jenny Holzer on War Documents,” American Studies Research Colloquium, Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf [invited by Jens Temmen | Regina Schober].

Nov. 2021: “‘Do they                      you?’: Erasure in Solmaz Sharif’s “Dear Salim” Poems,” Lecture Series "Current Issues in North American and Cultural Studies," University of Bonn [invited by Sabine Meyer].

Jun. 2021: “Raising Race: History of Children and Childhood as U.S. History,” Kolloquium “North American Studies: Perspectives on Current Research,” Historisches Institut, University of Cologne, Germany [invited by Silke Hackenesch | Anke Ortlepp].

Jan. 2021: “Self and Things: A Post-Humanist Reading of Sylvia Plath’s Poetry,” Englisches Seminar, University of Cologne, Germany [invited by Judith Rauscher].

Jul. 2019: “Erasure and Arrival in Postmodern American Literature,” Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, University of Potsdam, Potsdam [invited by Nicole Waller].

Jun. 2019: “The 2X Game: Popular Imaginaries of Muslims in American Video Games,” 66th Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA) [invited by Elena Furlanetto / Mahmoud Arghavan].

Nov. 2017: “The Ultimate Metaphor: Game Studies in/and American Studies,” Austrian American Studies Association, Salzburg [invited by Michael Fuchs].

CONFERENCE TALKS (SELECTION)

Apr. 2024: “Migration as Math – Necropolitics and Numbers in Sam Loyd’s ‘Disappearance Puzzles’,” 35th Biennial EAAS Conference, Amerikahaus Munich.

Jun. 2021: “At Home (and) in the World - “Home Geography” and the U.S. Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” Society for the History of Children and Youth XI Biennial International Conference, National University of Ireland, Galway.

Feb. 2021: “The 1776 Report -- Absences and Erasures of Empire,” joint response by Mahshid Mayar and Jens Temmen (University of Düsseldorf), “The 1776 Report and Its Afterlives: Critical Responses from German American Studies,” University of Cologne.

Oct. 2020: “Silent Protest in Erasure Literature: The Poetic and The Political,” The Anechoic Chamber: Construction and Reception of Silence in Language, Literature, Music, Politics, and History,” Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung (ZiF), Bielefeld.

Sept. 2019: “What on earth! Slated Globes, School Geography, and the U.S. Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” Striking Back: On Imperial Fantasies and Fantasies of Empire, Max Planck Institute, Göttingen.

May 2018: “‘our work is done and now for some fun and play’: Personal Fictions of the World and (Counter)Publics of Childhood,” 65th Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA), Freie University of Berlin, Berlin.

Jul. 2017: “Singular, Homogeneous, and Blank: An Examination of Slated Globes in the U.S. Market at the Turn of the 20th Century,” Conference Past and Peripheral Imaginations of the Global, Amsterdam Centre of Globalisation Studies (ACGS), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam.

Apr. 2017: “Playful and Present: Children and Childhood in Historical Archives,” American Studies Workshop Series, English Department, Amherst College, Massachusetts, United States.

Sept. 2016: “Let’s archive it: Children’s Periodical Press and Politics of Unintentional Archives,” Workshop “Let's historize it! Jugendmedien im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert,” University of Saarland, Saarbrücken.

May 2015: “Turn-of-the-Century Geopolitical Imaginaries of the World: American Dissected Maps and Geopolitical Imperatives of the Rising Empire,” 62nd Annual Convention of the German Association for American Studies, University of Bonn, Bonn.

Sept. 2014: “At Gamer-Explorer-Cartographer’s Will: Rewriting History and Redoing Cartography in the Strategy Game Age of Empires,” 4th European Congress on World and Global History (ENIUGH), École normale supérieure, Paris.

May-Jun. 2014: “Geographical Puzzles and Tensional Cartography: Turn-of-the-Century American Children and the Cartography of Impossible,” 6th International Summer Academy “American Studies in a Transatlantic Perspective: Critical Regionalism in Politics and Culture II,” Texas State University, San Marcos.

Apr. 2014: “Our Infant Navy: A Turn-of-the-Century Conversation between American Youths and American Imperialists,” European Association for American Studies 60th Anniversary Conference “America: Justice, Conflict, War,” Leiden University, The Netherlands.

Dec. 2013: “Domestication of Play, Globalization of Playthings: Geography Games and World Cartography in Turn-of-the-Century United States,” PG BAAS/IAAS 2013 conference ‘Homeward Bound’: Nation, Belonging and the American Home, University of Nottingham, Nottingham.

May-Jun. 2013: “Acts of Global Cartography: Geography Primers and Children’s Letters,” 5th International Summer Academy “American Studies in a Transatlantic Perspective: Critical Regionalism in Politics and Culture I,” America House, Munich, Germany. 

Apr. 2013: “Privileged Subalternity: Voice Quality of the Fin-de-Siècle American Child,” 2013 Annual Meeting of California American Studies Association, San Diego State University, San Diego.

Sept. 2012: “To Grow Up and To Go Far: American Empire and the 1890s,” Bosch Foundation Archival Seminar for Young Historians 2012 “American History in Transatlantic Perspective,” University of Chicago, Chicago.

May 2012: “Growing Up Imperial: 1890s USA and the World,” 4th International Summer Academy “Democratic Cultures, Past and Present: Perspectives from Washington, D.C.,” American University, Washington, D.C.

Mar. 2012: “Playing Empire: Where does Empire Stand in The Age of Empires,” English Graduate Organization Interdisciplinary Conference “Forces at Play: Bodies, Power, and Spaces,” University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

May 2011: “Huckleberry Fin in Baghdad: Views on Empire and Distance,” poster presentation at “Locality and Transnational Processes: Modalities of Entanglement,” Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld University, Bielefeld.

WS 2023-24: “American Studies as New Empire Studies: Conversations in Theory, History, Literature, and Culture,” Anglistik III, University of Mannheim (advanced seminar).

WS 2023-24: “American Studies and Critical Sound Studies: Conversations in History, Literature, and Culture” Anglistik III, University of Mannheim (seminar).

WS 2023-24: “American Studies and the Child: Conversations in History, Literature, and Culture,” Anglistik III, University of Mannheim (seminar).

SS 2023: “E is for Empire – Scripts of Empire in U.S. Literature and Culture,” John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie University of Berlin (advanced seminar).

SS 2023: “Sound, Silence, and Noise in US Literature and Culture,” Englisches Seminar I, University of Cologne (advanced seminar).

SS 2023: “Introduction to 21st-Century American Poetry,” Englisches Seminar I, University of Cologne (seminar).

WS 2022-23: “US-American Cultures of Childhood,” John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie University of Berlin (advanced seminar).

WS 2022-23: “American Childhoods through Literature and Culture -- Colonial times to US Civil War,” Englisches Seminar I, University of Cologne (seminar).

WS 2022-23: “Poetry of Erasure: Theory and Practice” Englisches Seminar I, University of Cologne (advanced seminar).

SS 2022: “Silence and Silencing: Conversations in American Cultural Studies,” Department of English and American Studies, University of Paderborn (advanced seminar).

SS 2022: “Advanced Academic Writing,” Department of British and American Studies, University of Bielefeld (advanced seminar – BA & MA).

WS 2021/22: “That which doesn’t rhyme with itself! -- Introduction to 21st-Century American Poetry,” Department of British and American Studies, Bielefeld University (advanced seminar).

SS 2021: “Advanced Academic Writing,” Department of British and American Studies, University of Bielefeld (advanced seminar – BA & MA).

WS 2020-21: “Verbs of Empire: U.S. Empire in Literature, Culture, and History,” Department of British and American Studies, University of Bielefeld (advanced seminar – MA).

SS 2020: “Shhhhhh! Construction of Silence in U.S. History and Culture,” Department of British and American Studies, Bielefeld University (advanced seminar – BA & MA).

WS 2019/20: “Advanced Academic Writing,” Department of British and American Studies, Bielefeld University (advanced seminar – BA & MA).

SS 2019: “Language and Power: Cultural Studies of the U.S.,” Department of British and American Studies, Bielefeld University (advanced seminar – BA).

WS 2018/19: “Playing in the Backstreet: Children and Childhood in North America (Civil War to Present),” Department of British and American Studies, Bielefeld University (advanced seminar –  BA).

SS 2018: “Playing in the Garden: Children and Childhood in North America (Colonial Times to Civil War),” Department of British and American Studies, Bielefeld University (advanced seminar – BA).

WS 2017/18: “‘Childhood is a foreign country’: American Childhood, American Literature, and the World,” Department of British and American Studies, Bielefeld University (advanced seminar –  MA)

SS 2017: “Childhood Narratives in the United States: Civil War to Present,” Department of British and American Studies, Bielefeld University (advanced seminar –  BA).

WS 2016/17: “Growing up in America: Children and Childhood in the United States,” Department of British and American Studies, Bielefeld University (advanced seminar –  BA).

SS 2016: “Theories of Play: From Games in Literature to Literary Gaming,” Department of British and American Studies, Bielefeld University (advanced theory seminar – MA).

SS 2015: “Spaces of Empire: Cultural Geography of the U.S. at the Turn of the 20th Century,” Department of History, Bielefeld University (advanced seminar – MA).

SERVICE TO PROFESSION

2024-2027 (proposed): Co-Editor, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (peer reviewed), Johns Hopkins University (with Susan Eckelmann (Tennessee)).

2023-ongoing: Member of Editorial Board, Journal of Transnational American Studies (open access, peer reviewed).

2022-ongoing: Reviewer, Journal of Education Sciences, MDPI (peer reviewed).

2022: “#IchBinHanna - #IchBinRayhan: Precarity in German Academia,” bilingual podcast episode for Philologie im Gespräch (together with Kristin Eichhorn (University of Stuttgart) and Iuditha Balint (Fritz-Hüser-Institut für Literatur und Kultur der Arbeitswelt)).

2021-ongoing: Member of Editorial Board, gender forum, University of Cologne (open access, peer reviewed).

SS 2021: Commentator, “Diversity Roundtable,” German Association for American Studies Town Hall Meeting.

2020-ongoing: External Reviewer, European Journal of American Studies (open access, peer reviewed), European Association for American Studies (EAAS).

2020: Guest Editor, European Journal of American Studies (open access, peer reviewed), European Association for American Studies (EAAS).

2020: Guest Editor, essay series “Spaces of Empire,” U.S. Studies Online (USSO), British Association for American Studies (BAAS).

2019-ongoing: Reviewer, Genealogy (MDPI, open access, peer reviewed).

2019-ongoing: Book Review Editor, fiar: Forum for Inter-American Research, International Association of Inter-American Studies (CIAS).

2018: Guest Reviewer, Open Cultural Studies (peer reviewed).

2017: Guest Reviewer, Media and Communication (peer reviewed).

2017-ongoing: Member of Editorial Board, fiar: Forum for Inter-American Research (open access, electronic), International Association of Inter-American Studies.

2015: Guest Reviewer, fiar: Forum for Inter-American Research, International Association of Inter-American Studies (open access, peer reviewed).

INTERVIEWS

2022: “Children’s Maps of the American Empire: A Conversation with Mahshid Mayar,” interview by M. Buna, Los Angeles Review of Books.

2022: “The Author’s Corner with Mahshid Mayar,” interview by John Fea, The Current.

2021: “4,5 Fragen / 4,5 Questions,” interview with Der Arbeitskreis ‘Geschichtswissenschaft und Digitale Spiele.         

2018: “The Post-Apocalyptic and the Ludic: An Interview with Stephen Joyce,” in “Encounters in the ‘Game-Over Era’: The Americas in/and Video Games.” fiar: Forum for Inter-American Research 11.2 (2018): 61-65.

2018: “Der Blick durch die westliche Brille kehrt zurück – aber anders,” interview about Eurocentrism and Its Legacies, Uni Aktuell, University of Bielefeld. 

MEDIA COVERAGE

2023: “Childhood, Education, Politics: Podcast Episode,” podcast conversation with Catherine Larochelle (Université de Montréal, Canada) and Kristine Alexander (University of Lethbridge, Canada), Society for the History of Children and Youth.

2022: “Citizens and Rulers of the World: Podcast Episode,” podcast conversation with John Yargo, New Books Network.

2021: “Diversity in Academia,” podcast episode for Anglisten Ensemble, Department of British and American Studies, University of Bielefeld.