Tina-Karen Pusse

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

Ecocriticism, gender studies, German poetry of the early 20th century.

Personal profile

Biography

Tina-Karen Pusse is a Lecturer in German Studies at University of Galway, a member of the Academic Council, Board Member of the German Studies in Ireland Association, Co-Editor of the Periodical Germanistik in Ireland , Co-Chair of University of Galway`s International Staff Network, alumna and evaluator of the German National Merit Foundation, and Secretary of the Royal Irish Academy committee Language, Literature, Culture and Communication. She studied German Literature and Philosophy at Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg and Paris VIII(MA 2000), and was awarded her Dr phil from Cologne Universityin2004. Before joining University of Galway in 2008, she was teaching German Literature and Media Theory at Cologne University.After publishing in the area of laughter theory, autofiction, gender studies and early 20th century poetry, she developed a specialism in Environmental Humanities, where she publishes and hosts conferences and postgraduate summer schools since 2011. Recent Publications focus on the anthropocentrismecocentrism divide, representations of the ecological uncanny, prepping cultures, and on the metabolism of cities. With her current project: Ecologies of Scale: Art, Economy, Community, she is a research delegate of the ENLIGHT European University Alliance. Her current Research Project in funded by the DAADs European Societal Challenges Grant: "Exploring Ageing and Climate Change in Tandem" (with Dr Michaela Schrage-Früh, UL).

Research Interests

Research Interests Ecocriticism, concepts of alterity, German literature from1880to 1945 (especially Rilke, Nietzsche, Celan, Kafka, Jahnn), t(r)opology of laughter, adoptiondoing family, fictionaliyfactuality. Ecologies of Scale: Art, Economy, CommunityFor many centuries, anthropocentric worldviews were crucial for the exploitation of nature for mans ends. Such self-assertive approaches to the natural world contributed to creating the multifarious imbalances that today threaten ecosystems on a global scale. the project investigates ways of conceptualizing complex environmental objects, such as climate change or the human body. Regarding them as structurally open spaces inhabited by myriad life forms as well as non-living objects opens up new avenues towards describing and measuring them. A key aim will be to define ecocriticism as a bridging discipline to approach these objects that makes mutual understanding and critique possible across researchers in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Keyareas are: 1) Ecology and Humanityies:Hyperobjects, Microbiomes, Nanoscales- How can we re-tool the sophisticated cultural sign systems of literature and literary studies for the discourse of environmentalism, dominated as it is by scientific thinking? - The world of population and climate crises exceeds the usual operational scales of political action, at the institutional, infrastructural, interpersonal and organisational levels, from the nano to the `hyperobject (Timothy Morton). Can we use ecocriticism to face the Open, regardless of how and where we live? - What are the sources of ideological inspiration for subcultures that are developing in the face of ecological collapse? What are the cultural and legal-political sources of the belief systems of `preppers (i.e. people making emergency preparations in the face of climate apocalypse), or of religiously motivated discourses of separation or cohabitation with other species? - The posthuman turn involves `rethinking the conceptual frameworks within which we have defined human subjectivity, agency, identity, and self, acknowledging the permeable boundaries of species in the natural-cultural continuum (Oppermann 2016, 275). What are these new frameworks, and do they exceed the boundaries that separate humanities and sciences? 2)Aesthetic Scales: On Limits and Limitlessnessexplores the regulation of relationships of objects to one another as reflected and imagined in literature, film, visual art and philosophy. It explores the border region between physics (of embodied subjects and the newly conceived objects and hyperobjects of Object-Oriented-Ontology) and metaphysics (the patterns of correspondence and regulation that underpin theories of representation and subjectivity). 3) Accelerate or Slow Down? examines the political philosophy of scale by inviting a debate on accelerationism . Accelerationism is the insistence that the only response to contemporary problems is to speed up the cycle of capitalism, expediting its own demise. Accelerationists regard capitalism as responsible for systemic social inequalities, runaway climate change, deregulated nano-bio-cogno-info- markets, and a permanently stressed, depressed and atomistic society. Critiques of capitalism, however, have done little to slow or reverse this trend.

Teaching Interests

Teaching Subjects:Research Methodologies, Ecocriticism, Contemporary Literature, German Poetry, Gender Studies, Transcultural Studies, German Language Cinema, German Language, Media Theory, Review Writing, Rhetorics.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
  • SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities

Education/Academic qualification

MA, Doc.

Accepting PhD Students

  • Accepting PhD Students

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