Jun.-Prof. Dr. Magdalena Pfalzgraf
Research Interests
- Mobility and Literature
- Music and Literature
- African Literature in English
- Postcolonial Theory
- Transculturality and Literature
- World Anglophone Studies / World Literature
Service to Profession and Offices
Matatu: Journal for African Culture and Society
Co-editor
Alexander v. Humboldt Foundation
Host: Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers to Prof. Rodwell Makombe
Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies (GAPS)
Member of the GAPS Review Board 2021–
Treasurer, 2019–2021
Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes
Member of the selection committee, 2020
Postgraduate Forum Postcolonial Narrations
With Silvia Anastasijevic and Hanna Teichler: Organization of the conference "Moving Centers and Traveling Cultures", Goethe University Frankfurt, 2018.
Chair, 2014–2015
Organization of the conference "Reading Across Cultures. New Comparative Approaches in a Globalized World", Goethe University Frankfurt, 2014.
Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst
Member of the selection committee for doctoral scholarships, 2018
African Literature Association
Secretary of the Graduate Caucus of the ALA (GSCALA), 2016 – 2017
Awards and Grants
Saarland University
Admission to the "Exzellenzprogramm für Wissenschaftlerinnen/Excellence Programme for Women in Academia", 2022
Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies (GAPS)
Biennial dissertation award 2022
Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst
PhD scholarship, Jan. 2016–Oct. 2018
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
Fellowship for research stays in Harare and Dar es Salaam, Oct.–Dec. 2014
RWTH Aachen
Friedrich-Wilhelm-Prize 2012 for Outstanding Achievement of RWTH Aachen University for my thesis
German National Academic Foundation
Scholarship, 2008–2011
Current Projects
Habilitation Thesis
Working title: “Western Art Music in Literature of the Anglophone World: Colonial Encounters, Postcolonial Mobilisations.“
Moving Publicly, Writing Mobility: Public Transport in African Literatures. Special issue for English Studies in Africa. Anna-Leena Toivanen and Magdalena Pfalzgraf (Guest-editors). Forthcoming 2024.
Ansgar Nünning, Anna Tabouratzidis and Magdalena Pfalzgraf (Editors). "New Conjunctures and Directions in Literary and Cultural Studies" . Tübingen: Narr/Francke/Attempto, under preparation.
Publications
Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Borders, Transcending Boundaries. London: Routledge, 2021.
reviewed by:
Dube, Nhlanhla. “Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Border, Transcending Boundaries by Magdalena Pfalzgraf (review).” Research in African Literatures, 53.4 (Winter 2023): 175-177.
Muchemwa, Kizito Zhiradzago. “Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Borders, Transcending Boundaries.” Postcolonial Text, 18.3 (2023): 1-4.
Stork, Michelle. “Mobility in contemporary Zimbabwean literature in English: Crossing borders, transcending boundaries.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 22 February 2023: 1-2.
Tagwirei, Cuthbeth. “Mobility in contemporary Zimbabwean literature in English: crossing borders, transcending boundaries.” Journal of the African Literature Association, 16.2 (2022), 386-387.
Anastasijevic, Silvia, Magdalena Pfalzgraf and Hanna Teichler (Editors). The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature: Transcultural Engagements, Global Frictions. London: Bloomsbury, 2024.
Anastasijevic, Silvia, Magdalena Pfalzgraf and Hanna Teichler (Editors). Moving Centers & Traveling Cultures. Special Issue of Kairos. A Journal of Critical Symposium 4.1. (2019).
“The Lion became a Historian. Some Thoughts on Memory, History, and Storytelling.” Memories of Diversity – Diversity of Memory. Edited by Astrid M. Fellner, Laurence McFalls. Münster: Waxmann Verlag, 2023. 15-27.
Astrid M. Fellner, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink and Magdalena Pfalzgraf. “Aufklärung(en) und (Post)Kolonialismus – Einleitung.” Aufklärungen: Strategien und Kontroversen vom 17. bis 21. Jahrhundert. Edited by Johannes Birgfeld, Stephanie Catani, and Anne Conrad in collaboration with Sophia Mehrbrey. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2022. 421-428.
Astrid M. Fellner and Magdalena Pfalzgraf. “Sexuelle Begegnungen im Pazifik: Alternatives Körperwissen und fluide Geschlechter.” Aufklärungen: Strategien und Kontroversen vom 17. bis 21. Jahrhundert. Edited by Johannes Birgfeld, Stephanie Catani, and Anne Conrad in collaboration with Sophia Mehrbrey. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2022. 523-440.
“Walking Cities, Conquering Pavements. Foreword.” Tanaka Chidora. Because Sadness Is Beautiful? Poems. Harare: Mwanaka Media and Publishing, 2020, ix-xii.
“Flânerie in Valerie Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope (2006).” Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 58.2. (2021): 18-28.
Anastasijevic, Silvia; Magdalena Pfalzgraf; Hanna Teichler (Editors). “Moving Centers & Traveling Cultures: Readings in Contemporary Anglophone Literatures.” Moving Centers & Traveling Cultures. Special Issue of Kairos. A Journal of Critical Symposium 4.1. (2019). 1-8.
“Rural-Urban Migration in Two Ghanaian Novels: Benjamin Kwakye’s The Sun by Night and Amma Darko’s The Housemaid.” Seasons of Migration to the South: Literatures of Intra-African Migrations. Edited by Rebecca Fasselt and Aghogho Akpome. London: Routledge, forthcoming.
“Representations of White Zimbabwean Mobilities in Recent Anglophone Fiction Graham Lang’s Lettah’s Gift (2011) and Ian Holding’s Of Beasts & Beings (2010).” Mobility and Minorities in Africa. Edited by Michele Carboni and Giovanni Sistu. Rome: Aracne, 2019. 235-257.
“A Hundred Years After: The View from the Train as a Glimpse into a Lost Idyll in Edward Thomas’s ‘Adlestrop’ (1917).” Discourses of Mobility – Mobility of Discourse. The Conceptualization of Trains, Cars and Planes in 19th- and 20th-Century Poetry. Edited by Peter Wenzel and Sven Strasen. Trier: WVT, 2010. 71-79.
With Markus Metz and Georg Seeßlen.“ Doris Lessing: Warum die Schriftstellerin bespitzelt wurde.” Deutschlandfunk Kultur, November 2023.
“Micropolitics of Modernity.” Keywords in Transcultural English Studies. Department of English and American Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt, May 2017. Web. 08/06/2018.
Teaching
Lecture and Tutorial "Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures" (summer semester 2024)
Colloquium of the IPP, July 2022 – March 2023
Co-Chair of the weekly doctoral colloquium of the IPP
Indian Classical Music in Contemporary Literature in English: Representations of the Raag in Selected Novels by Amit Chaudhuri and Neelum Saran Gour
Undergraduate seminar, Saarland University, summer semester 2022
Memories of Diversity: Diversity of Memories, zusammen mit Astrid M. Fellner
Lecture, Saarland University, winter semester 2021/22
An Introduction to the Novels of E.M. Forster
Proseminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, winter semester 2021/22
Western Classical Music in Contemporary Anglophone Novels: Transculturality and the Fugue
Undergraduate seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, summer semester 2021
Between Leisure and Subversion: Urban Walkers in South African, Zimbabwean, and American Writing
Undergraduate seminar, Saarland University, summer semester 2021
Pianos in Strange Places: Colonial Legacies and Transcultural Mobilisations
Undergraduate seminar, winter semester 2020/21
The Black Atlantic across the Arts: Poetry, Narrative Fiction, Music
Undergraduate seminar, Saarland University, winter semester 2020/21
Music in Literature of the Anglophone World
Graduate seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, summer semester 2020
West African Women’s Writing in English
Undergraduate seminar, Saarland University, summer semester 2020
From Victorian Adventurers to Postcolonial Detectives: Reading Southern African Literature across Genre and Time
Undergraduate seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, winter semester 2019/20
Southern Africa’s Literary Urbanities
Undergraduate seminar, Saarland University, winter semester 2019/20
Rural-Urban Mobility Dynamics in Zimbabwean Literature in English
Undergraduate seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, summer semester 2018
Transcontinental Migration in Recent African Fiction in English
Undergraduate seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, winter semester 2015/16
Conferences
With Hanna Teichler: Organization of the panel stream “Transcultural Memory Studies and Postcolonial Studies. Convergences and Entanglements.“ 5th Memory Studies Association Conference. University of Warsaw, July 2021.
“Echoes of the Grand Tour in Teju Cole's Open City.” 5th Memory Studies Association Conference. University of Warsaw, July 2021.
Moderation of the reading: “Reading and discussion with Petina Gappah, author of Out of Darkness, Shining Light.” 31. GAPS Annual Members Meeting. University of Oldenburg, May 2021.
With Astrid M. Fellner: “Andere Aufklärungen. Ozeanische Welten, Körperwissen und fluide Geschlechter.” Wissenschaftliche Tagung "Kampfbegriff 'Aufklärung'. Intellektuelle Strategien und transkulturelle Kontroversen" der AG „Aufklärungen“. Saarland University, September 2020.
Moderation of the panels: “Europäische Aufklärung – Transkulturell und kolonialistisch“. Wissenschaftliche Tagung "Kampfbegriff 'Aufklärung'. Intellektuelle Strategien und transkulturelle Kontroversen" der AG „Aufklärungen“. Saarland University, September 2020.
"‘The Present is Already the Past: Simultaneity in Shimmer Chinodya’s Strife and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!“ 4th Memory Studies Association Conference. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, June 2020, Conference canceled due to pandemic.
“Memory and Ocean Crossings in Selected Texts by Caryl Phillips.” 17th Conference of the Research Network International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe. University of Luxemburg, Juni 2020, Conference canceled due to pandemic.
With Sophia Mehrbrey and Jonas Nesselhauf: Organisation of the Memory Studies panels entitled “Journeys and Transcultural Practices of Remembering: Anglophone, Francophone and Italophone Travel Narratives Since 1800.” 31st GAPS Annual Conference. Goethe University Frankfurt, May 2020, Conference canceled due to pandemic.
“‘I hold on to one bag, but I relinquish the other’: Echoes of the Grand Tour in Teju Cole’s Open City.” 31st GAPS Annual Conference. Goethe University Frankfurt, May 2020, Conference canceled due to pandemic.
“Literary Perspectives on Whiteness in post-2000 Zimbabwe.” 27th Conference of the African Studies Association of the UK. University of Birmingham, September 2018.
Mit Deborah Nyangulu: Roundtable “Tropes of Urbanity: Imagining African Urban Spaces Across Media.” 42nd Annual Conference of the African Literature Association. Yale University, June 2017.
“The Failed City as a Space of Transnational Movement and Transcultural Encounters: NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names.” 16th Triennial EACLALS Conference. University of Oviedo, April 2017.
“Mobile City Worlds in Zimbabwean Fiction Post-2000: Valerie Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope (2006).” 17th Triennial ACLALS Conference. University of Stellenbosch, July 2016.
“Adoption in Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory.” 42nd Annual Conference of the African Literature Association. Kennesaw State University and Emory University, April 2016.
“‘The future is born from the seeds of the present but carries with it the ashes of the past.ʼ Contested Masculinities and Visions for Fatherhood in Selected Short Stories from Zimbabwe.” 41st Annual Conference of the African Literature Association. University of Bayreuth, June 2015.
“Transnational Migration in Recent Zimbabwean Fiction.” 26th GAPS Annual Conference. University of Münster, May 2015.
“Widowhood, (Dis)inheritance and the Gender Asset Gap in Contemporary African Anglophone Literature.” 15th Triennial EACLALS Conference. University of Innsbruck, April 2014.
“Border Crossings in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea: Displacement or Translocation?” 9th Biennial MESEA Conference. Saarland University, Saarbrücken, May 2014.
“’And suddenly one can't use the road one is used to.ʼ A Border Poetics Approach to Urbanisation in Anglophone Literature from Ghana and Tanzania.” 1st Annual Conference of the Postgraduate Forum Postcolonial Narrations. University of Göttingen, October 2013.
Curriculum Vitae
Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, July 2020
Doctorate (final grade: summa cum laude)
Title of dissertation: “Crossing Borders, Transcending Boundaries: Dynamics of Mobility in post-2000 Zimbabwean Literature in English”
Evaluation: Prof. Dr. Frank Schulze-Engler (first supervisor), Prof. Dr. Astrid Erll (second supervisor), Prof. Dr. Mark Stein (third evaluation)
Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, February 2013 – 2020
Doctoral researcher at the Department for English and American Studies, division New English Literatures and Cultures (NELK)
RWTH Aachen, October 2005 – October 2011
First State Exam in German Studies and English Studies/Deutsch und Englisch für das Lehramt an Gymnasien und Gesamtschulen (grade: 1,2)
State examination thesis: “Representations of Cultural Diversity in Contemporary Turkish-German and Black British Fiction” (grade: 1,0)
University of Warwick, September 2008 – July 2009
Visiting student, funded by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation
Junior Professor, University of Bonn, April 2023 – now
W1-Junior professorship for English Studies: Literary and Cultural Studies with tenure-track option to W2
Graduate Center for the Study of Culture (GCSC), Justus-Liebig University Gießen, July 2022 – March 2023
Coordinator of the International PhD Programme Literary and Cultural Studies
Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Oktober 2019 – July 2022
Research assistant at the Chair of North American Literatures and Cultures Prof. Dr. Astrid M. Fellner
Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, 2015 – 2022
Adjunct Faculty at the Institute for English and American Studies
Memberships
- Rethinking the Order of Time. Interdiciplinary Research Network (ReOTi network)
- Gesellschaft für Anglophone Postkoloniale Studien / Association of Anglophone Postcolonial Studies (GAPS)
- Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Afrikawissenschaften / Center for Interdisciplinary African Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt (ZIAF)
- The European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (EACLALS)
- The African Literature Association (ALA)
- Alumniverein der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes / Alumni Association of the German National Academic Foundation