Welcome to the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies!

The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz offers a dynamic and wide-ranging program in both research and teaching for all students interested in topics related to the Americas in a global context. With a special focus on interculturality, transnationalism, and interdisciplinarity, our expertise lies in the fields of Early American Studies, Indigenous Studies, Life Writing/Life Sciences, Political & Intellectual History, Film & Media Studies, Religion and American Culture, and Materiality.

Contact

Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies University of Mainz Jakob-Welder-Weg 20 55128 Mainz Germany +49 6131 39-22357 +49 6131 39-29097 Email

Feb 6 – The Legacy of Residential Schools in Native North American Literature and Culture: Pedagogical and Theoretical Considerations 🗓

Cristina Stanciu (Virginia Commonwealth University, USA) Feb 6, 2020 16:15-17:45, P 203 (Philosophicum) This presentation, part of a new research project on Indigenous writing in the aftermath of residential schools in four settler states, has two interrelated goals:...

Feb 4 – Native Education, Print Culture, and Americanization at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918 🗓

Cristina Stanciu (Virginia Commonwealth University, USA) Feb 4, 2020 16:15-17:45, Fakultätssaal (Philosophicum) This talk turns to print culture, zooming in on a key archive: the records of Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the first federally-funded off-reservation...

Jan 31 – History Reloaded? Eternal Girlhood and the Afterlives of Annie Oakley 🗓

Stefanie Schäfer Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena Jan 31, 2020 08:15-09:45, P 206 (Philosophicum) This presentation examines the influence of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West on the Western genre and zooms in on the gendered representation of cowboy culture by female...

Jan 30 – Cowboys All! Settler Colonialism and the Invention of Tradition at the Western Spectacle 🗓

Stefanie Schäfer Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena Jan 30, 2020 12:15-13:45, P 6 (Philosophicum) This presentation takes a look at the staging of settlement history and its transformation into rodeo sports in North America’s biggest Western Spectacles, the Cheyenne...

December 17 – “Winosburg, Ohio” – Community, Regionalism, and Cultural Mobility in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919) and Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff (2008) 🗓

Jochen Achilles (University of Würzburg) December 17, 2019 6–8 p.m., P 103 (Philosophicum I) Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and Donald Ray Pollock's Knockemstiff are linked by common structural features as well as cultural concerns. Held side by side, both story...

January 29-31 – CONFERENCE “Transnational Periodical Cultures: Interdisciplinary Perspectives” 🗓

The research group on Transnational Periodical Cultures, led by Professor Ernst and Professor Scheiding, announces its conference "Transnational Periodical Cultures: Interdisciplinary Perspectives," which will take place on campus in Mainz in January 2020. For the...