He is the author of Narrating the Prison (Cambria Press, 2007) and Unnatural Narrative: Impossible Worlds in Fiction and Drama (University of Nebraska Press, 2016). Alber received fellowships and research grants from the British Academy, the German Research Foundation (DFG), and the Humboldt Foundation. In 2013, the German Association of University Teachers of English awarded him the prize for the best Habilitation written between 2011 and 2013. Between 2014 and 2016, he worked as a COFUND (Marie-Curie) Fellow at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) in Denmark. His project focused on the negotiation of Aboriginal identities in contemporary Australian narratives. Alber is currently President of the International Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN).

Entitled ‘Fielding Peter Carey’, his project accounts for a method of reading Carey’s oeuvre in relation to the promises and perils of the global publishing industry since the early 1970s.

He is interested in Carey’s work as part and product of the neo-liberal regime of publishing that has commodified his celebrity and his fiction. He has published on Carey’s archive and the literary field in JASAL. His forthcoming article on Carey’s Jack Maggs and world literature will be published in Antipodes later in 2018. His interview with the American-Australian writer Dominic Smith was published in Antipodes in June 2016. He also acted as the Postgraduate Representative of ASAL (Association for the Study of Australian Literature) between 2015 and 2018. He has taught in the areas of Australian literature, modern and contemporary literature and critical theory.

While doing research for her dissertation on Aboriginal Gothic, she stayed at the University of New South Wales, with a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service. She completed her PhD at the University of Bonn, Germany. Her thesis was published as Darkness Subverted: Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film in 2010 and was nominated for the Walter McRae Russell Award for Literary Scholarship 2011. She also is a board member of the German Association for Australian Studies (GASt) and in 2018 hosted the biennial conference of the GASt on ‘Australian Perspectives on Migration’.

In her research, she focuses on Postcolonial and Indigenous Studies as well as law and literature and cross-media studies. Katrin has published widely in the area of Australian literature and has combined postcolonial approaches with the Gothic, as well as with law and literature studies. She held positions at the universities of Münster, Cologne, and Düsseldorf and since 2020 has been working as a research fellow at the Postcolonial Studies Section (Anglophone Studies) at the University of Duisburg-Essen. There, Katrin currently is pursuing her postdoc project ‘Narratives of Flight and Migration in Law and Literature,’ which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Her business Deaf Indigenous Community Consultancy Pty Ltd has been pivotal for establishing better access for Deaf First Nations people and the delivering specialised training where needed across organisations and businesses. Jody’s extensive work over 35 years within the justice, health, education, disability and women’s sector is very well regarded. Her work in decolonising wealth in philanthropy stems from her role as Chairperson of Koondee Woonga-gat Toor-rong (meaning: “To give jointly, to share together” ) and her work as an alumni of the Melbourne University Murra (Indigenous) Business program, the University of Ballarat Business School and the Fellowship of Indigenous Leadership. Jody is also currently on the First Nations Disability Strategic Advisory Group in the Disability Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with a Disability. Her work on social equity is recognised globally, Jody continues to collaborate with her fellow Atlantic Fellows in creating change and awareness of First Nations people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing using their cultural sign language systems. Jody was recently the recipient of the National Disabilities Awards on Inclusion and the National Aspire Award for Independent Individual Award for promoting disability awareness across Victoria. Jody’s ability to work within a cultural complex communication space has her recognised as the only Deaf Aboriginal Consultant working with many Deaf Aboriginal people who are engaged with the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, Australia . Jody has the professional and lived experience of deafness and Aboriginal disadvantage that guides and frames her work at every level to create social equity. Jody is collaborating closely with Prof. Adone and team.

One of the first people in Germany working on postcolonial ecocriticism and, more recently, literary education for sustainability, he is the author and editor of more than 12 books and over 50 scholarly articles spanning environmental and transcultural learning, inclusive education, and the intersections of literature pedagogy and literary theory. Recent publications include Interkulturelles Lernen mit Literatur: Fokus Nigeria (as co-editor; Klett Kallmeyer 2020) and, as editor, Cultivating Sustainability in Language and Literature Pedagogy: Steps to an Educational Ecology (Routledge, 2021).  His current work explores the potential of literacy and the role of literary fiction in education for climate action as well as the role of dissent and controversy in culture-sensitive and inclusive educational settings. A particular interest in this is in non-Western climate imaginaries and educational practice of indigenous communities in Australia and disadvantaged people in India. Other interests include questions of educational philosophy, especially in terms of modelling learning objectives in times of large-scale extinction and climate catastrophe, literary value, the intersection of literary studies and literature pedagogy, and multimodal literature and media pedagogies.

Amelie grew up in Sydney and Germany and was Post-doctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer of economic geography at the Institute of Geography/University of Cologne in 2013-2019. Her PhD (also at Cologne) dealt with global standards, quality and risk management in organic food imports to Germany and Australia. While her dedication to Australian Studies is ongoing, her more recent research focuses on socio-economic analyses around small-scale-farming, land-use change and food security in coastal Bangladesh and India. She has also been Chair of the Association for Australian Studies (Gesellschaft für Australienstudien e.V.) 2014-2017.

From 2003 to 2005 she was a research assistant in the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Memory Cultures’ (University of Giessen, Germany). In 2003 she was granted a research stay at the Aboriginal Research and Resource Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney. In 2008 her dissertation on culture-specific narrative stagings of remembering in contemporary novels by Indigenous authors from Australia, Canada and Aotearoa/New Zealand was published. She did research and worked in London, UK and Heraklion, Crete from 2007 to 2009. From 2012 to 2019 she was postdoc at the Department of English, American, and Celtic Studies, University of Bonn (with a research stay in Aotearoa/New Zealand in 2014). Research, teaching and publications focus on Indigenous Literatures and Cultures, Postcolonial Theories, Pacific Literatures, Narratologies and Memory Studies.

Methodologically speaking, the study employs the central analytical tool of the Histoire Croisée, namely focusing on different échelles or scales. One of the key questions of the study is: How did Quakers, considering their pacifism and involvement in humanitarian projects, negotiate the violence of the frontier?

From 2005 to 2010, Eva Bischoff taught North American History and Postcolonial Studies at the Universities of Cologne, Bonn, and Münster. From April 2010 to September 2011, she worked as a Lecturer at the Department of North American History of the John-F.-Kennedy Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin, and as a Postdoc Researcher at the DFG Research Center on “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood” (SFB 700).

He has published extensively on urban development and economic change in Australia. His further research interests include social and economic aspects of climate change, natural hazards and environmental management in regions such as Western Europe, Australia and South/South East Asia.

His current research projects include DFG, ATN and DAAD funded studies on airport development and urban land use change both in Australia and other parts of the world.

His research focuses on urban and regional development, sustainability, resilience and innovation. His current projects Urban Resilience In Action and Gippsland Smart Specialization Strategy are both focused on applicable solutions, cross-sectoral cooperation and place-based innovation.

Sebastian received his PhD in Human Geography at the University of Cologne, where he was also awarded with a Fellowship Grant for doctoral students at the Graduate School of Geosciences (GSGS). His work has been published in international high-ranked journals and is attracting interest from international organizations and media.

Click here for his homepage.

He completed his PhD in American History in Berkeley and Cologne and wrote his habilitation on the French occupation of Germany, 1794 to 1814. From 1990 to 1992 be served as Deputy Director of the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. In 1992 he accepted a professorship at the University of Hamburg. In 2001 he was appointed Professor of History at Cologne, in which capacity he researched and taught until 2016. Since 2018 Finzsch teaches American History as an adjunct at the John F. Kennedy Institute (Free University) in Berlin and since 2020 at the Sigmund Freud University in Berlin.

Finzsch has published about the history of genocides in North America. Starting with a comparative approach to genocide history, studying the histories of indigenous peoples in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, he morphed into one of the few German historians who work on Australia. In 2003 he was a awarded a fellowship by the HRC in Canberra for the study of Aboriginal history. Since then he has published numerous articles on Australian history.

Her main interests are arid zone and rangeland ecology, impacts of introduced species and predator-prey interactions. She was awarded her PhD (Topic: The effects of grazing on flora and fauna in central Australia) from the University of Sydney in 2010. The same year, she started a 4-year Postdoc-position (Topic: The role of feral cats in the small mammal declines in northern Australia) first at James Cook University, then the Northern Territory Government and finally the University of Tasmania.

She is a Research Associate at the University of Tasmania and keeps collaborating with colleagues from the University of Tasmania and the University of Sydney. Her most recent work in Australia involved a citizen science project (Topic: The effects of cats and dogs on wildlife in backyards in Hobart) and an international interdisciplinary workshop on chemical ecology and predator-prey interactions.

During her PhD and her Postdoc she taught in a variety of courses, among them Macquarie University: Behavioural ecology; University of Sydney: Ecological Methods, Ecological Principles for Environmental Scientists, Wildlife Ecology; University of Tasmania: Conservation Biology and Wildlife Management.

In 2018, Oliver is Guest Researcher at the Linnaeus University Center for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, Sweden. His research interests lie in the areas of European formations of Indigeneity, postcolonial and whiteness theory, German imperialism and transnational history. Oliver has co-edited a book on ego-histoire and Indigenous Studies, Ngapartji Ngapartji: Reciprocal Engagement (Australian National University Press, 2014). His latest book – entitled The Persistence of Race from the Wilhelmine Empire to National Socialism (Berghahn Books, 2017) – is concerned with cultural narratives of race in Germany. With Eva Schandevijl he has completed a special issue of National Identities (Routledge) and, with Linda Westphalen, a special issue of JEASA on Ruby Langford Ginibi. Oliver’s scholarship has appeared, inter alia, in Continuum, Aboriginal History and Australian Aboriginal Studies. He is co-editor of the bilingual Australian Studies Journal (Zeitschrift für Australienstudien).

Her academic research focuses on Commonwealth history, the global displacement of refugees, and tropical landscape design. In the past she has worked as a journalist in Sydney, as a research assistant at the University of Hamburg (Department of U.S. and Canadian History), and as a public relations adviser at the State Ministry of Nature and Conservation (Schleswig-Holstein). She held a DAAD research scholarship for Australia which started her particular interest in Australian history. Von Holleuffer has published work on Australian, American and Canadian migration and discovery history. She was historical adviser for Australian history at Gruner & Jahr Publishing House (Hamburg) and is the current co-editor of the Australian Studies Journal/ Zeitschrift für Australienstudien. Von Holleuffer has also been a Board member of the Association for Australian Studies (Public Relations) between 2009 and 2021. Von Holleuffer works as journalist and media adviser.  She is a member of the Australian Historical Association (AHA).

Dr. Damien Howard has been involved read developing a better understanding of and how to mitigate the effects of conductive hearing loss, especially amongst indigenous people in Australia. All around the world people in disadvantaged groups experience higher levels of poverty related ear disease that results in conductive hearing loss. This usually unidentified hearing loss can contribute to poor educational outcomes, interpersonal difficulties, employment and mental health problems.

Previously, she taught at the University of Cologne, where she obtained her Habilitation (2018) and her PhD (2010) and was a visiting researcher and lecturer at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge (2006-2007). She studied English, Media Studies, and Philosophy at Cologne, receiving her M.A. in 2006; she also holds a diploma in dance from the Rambert School/Brunel University, London. Since 2019, she has been general editor of ANGLISTIK: International Journal of English Studies.

Julia has a long-standing interest in postcolonial studies, with special focus on contemporary Anglophone Indian, African and Australian literatures and cultures. Since 2010, she has been an active member of the Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies (GAPS). Her doctoral dissertation focused on ethics and historiography in the works of Amitav Ghosh (published as Tackling the Morality of History. Amitav Ghosh and the Ethics of Storytelling, Winter 2011). She has published numerous articles on contemporary Indian fiction, diaspora, and black female speculative fiction. Among her recent books are the monograph Risk and the English Novel. From Defoe to McEwan (2019) as well as the co-edited volumes Representations of Science in Twenty-First Century Fiction: Human and Temporal Connectivities (Palgrave, 2019) and Teaching the Posthuman (Winter, 2019).

Her main research interests include literature and science (especially risk theory, climate change, posthumanism), intersections between gender and genre and between literature and other art forms (especially dance and theatre), transcultural adaptations studies, processes of canonization, and interactive digital narratives. She is currently working on a project in the field of historical gender studies funded by the Moderata Fonte-Forum of Early Modern Studies (2020-21), preparing a critical edition and translation of the works of the British author Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673).

Julia is also particularly interested in research at the intersection of the environmental humanities, postcolonial and performance studies. Forthcoming publications (2020/21) here include essays on Australian dance theatre (Anglistik Special Issue “Postcolonial Cultural Studies” 31.3) and on the Indigenous Hip Hop Projects; as well as book chapters on climate change drama (Research Handbook on Communicating Climate Change, Edward Elgar Research Handbook Series) and posthumanism and drama (Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism), which will include readings of the works of Australian dramatist, such as Stephen Carleton and Ian Meadows.

A speaker of Yolngu languages including Yan-nhangu his interest in anthropological linguistics lie in decolonising research praxis, liberation politics and bilingual bimodal education. He is currently writing on ritual, economic and geographical domains of Indigenous life. His recent publications are in archaeology, poetics, sign, shellfish lore and innovations in ethnographic, education and linguistic research.

His engagement with Yan-nhangu people produced the first Yan-nhangu dictionary (1993-2003), ethnography, Time and Tide in the Crocodile Islands: Change and Continuity in Yan-nhangu Marine Identity (2009) and the Yan-nhangu Atlas and Illustrated Dictionary of the Crocodile Islands (2014).

He initiated a family of award winning collaborative projects with friend and co-researcher Baymarrwangga including the Crocodile Islands Initiative (CII), Genealogical/Geographical Traditional Owner Mapping, the Crocodile Islands Rangers and Junior Rangers programs, online Yan-nhangu Ecological Knowledge data base, Cultural Heritage programs, Yan-nhangu ‘language nests’ for pre-school aged children and Bilingual Bimodal resources. Bentley is collaborating closely with Prof. Adone and team.