Profile

Professional career

• since 09/2018
  Professor and Chair of American Literature at Leipzig University
• 04/2010 - 08/2018
  Professor of North American Literature at TU Dresden
• 10/2009 - 03/2010
  Visiting Professor (Vertretung) of American Studies at University of Konstanz
• 10/1999 - 09/2009
  Lecturer (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin) at Leipzig University, Department of American Studies

Education

• 10/2002 - 02/2009
  Postdoc (Habilitation) at Leipzig University
• 10/1996 - 09/2002
  PhD at Leipzig University
• 10/1991 - 09/1996
  M.A. American Studies, Economics, and Law at Leipzig University and Connecticut College

Panel Memberships

• since 07/2022
  Advisory Board, Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
• since 12/2021
  Executive Board, FraGes: Center for Gender Studies, U Leipzig
• since 07/2019
  Chair of the Board, German-American Institute Saxony
• since 07/2018
  Advisory Board, American Studies Journal
• since 07/2016
  Advisory Board, German Association of American Studies

My research is governed by an interest in literature as a platform where US society grapples with--and often fights over--the kind of society it wants to be. I focus on how fiction represents, justifies, or critiques societal inequality, and on how literary form shapes the ways in which fiction can do this. In addition, I am interested in the boundaries of the category 'literature'--in the dynamics of canon-formation that have policed this boundary, and in other fields of cultural expression that have been related or tied to literature (such as popular media, material culture, etc.).

In particular, I have worked on:

• narration, narrativity, and textuality across different genres, modes, and media
• the poetics and politics of popular culture, past and present
• gender and intersectionality in literature and popular culture
• interdisciplinary approaches in literary studies (law and literature; literature and architecture)

• Project in CRC 1285: The Pop-Cultural Poetics and Politics of the Invective Mode in Contemporary US-American Television

  Kanzler, Katja

  Duration: 07/2017 – 06/2022

  Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Amerikanische Literaturwissenschaft; Institut für Amerikanistik
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• The Picador Professorship for Literature

  Kanzler, Katja

  Duration: 01/2006 – ongoing

  Funded by: Sonstige private Hand; DAAD Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Amerikanische Literaturwissenschaft
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more projects

• Herrmann, S. M.; Kanzler, K.; Schubert, S. (Eds.)

  Beyond Narrative: Exploring Narrative Liminality and Its Cultural Work

  Bielefeld: transcript. 2022.

  DOI: 10.1515/9783839461303
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• Kanzler, K.

  Invective Form in Popular Media Culture: Genre — Mode — Affordance

  Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift. 2021. 6 (1). pp. 26–36.

  DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/kwg-2021-0011
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• Kanzler, K.

  The Cringe and the Sneer: Structures of Feeling in Veep

  Humanities. 2021. 10 (4). p. 114.

  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/h10040114
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• Kanzler, K.

  ‘To Tell the Kitchen Version:’ Architectural Figurations of Race and Gender in Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

  In: Smith Foster, F.; Yarborough, R. (Eds.)

  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: A Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton. 2018. pp. 341–350.
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• Kanzler, K.; Schwarke , C. (Eds.)

  Star Trek: Discovery. Gesellschaftsvisionen für die Gegenwart

  Wiesbaden: Springer VS. 2019.
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more publications

I teach US literature across its history, from a survey lecture on literary history for our Bachelor’s program to graduate seminars for our MA. Popular culture is a second key area of my teaching, where I also offer a survey lecture and topical seminars. Many of my seminars have a transmedia framework, combining literature and other forms of cultural expression, and they often include materials from different historical periods. In doing so, my goal is to give students a sense of the breadth of cultural expression in the US, and to convey to them the traditions that have shaped the culture of today. In my classes, I want to empower students to become more curious and critical readers, by exposing them to (hopefully) exciting texts and by engaging them in methods and ideas that open up new perspectives on the materials of culture.