PhDnet Doctoral Candidates

7th PhDNet Cycle (2025–2027)

First supervisor: Christine Schwanecke
Thesis title: ‘Knowledge of Good and Evil’ – Redefining Early Modern Knowledge of Pregnancy and Childbirth and its Gendered and Generic Patterns in Personal and Medical Discourse from 17th-Century England
Field of study: English Literature and Cultural Studies
Contact: hanna.gottlieb-zimmermann@uni-graz.at

First supervisor: Christine Schwanecke
Second supervisor: Rūta Šlapkauskaitė (Vilnius University)
Thesis title: Global Currents in Translingual Poetry: Tracing Language, Geography and Culture in
Contemporary Anglophone Literatures
Field of study: English and American Studies
Contact: lisa.schantl@uni-graz.at

First supervisor: Christine Schwanecke
Second supervisor: Annette Simonis (JLU Giessen)
Thesis title: Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary “Romantasy” Literature
Field of study: English Literature
Contact: lisa.schattmann@uni-graz.at

6th PhDnet Cycle (2023-2025)

First supervisor: Ansgar Nünning (English Studies, JLU)
Second supervisor: Christine Schwanecke
Title of dissertation: Narrators and Narratees in the English Picaresque Tradition, 1591-1753: The Forms and Functions of Moral Ambiguity
Doctoral subject: English Literature
Contact: Riccardo.Buonamici@gcsc.uni-giessen.de

First supervisor: Ansgar Nünning (English Studies, JLU)
Second supervisor: Christine Schwanecke
Title of dissertation: Cinematic Ekphrasis in Contemporary British Novels
Doctoral subject: English Literature
Contact: Anna.Klishevich@gcsc.uni-giessen.de

5th PhDnet Cycle (2020-2022)

First supervisor: Susanne Knaller
Second supervisor: Annette Simonis (German Studies, JLU)
Title of the dissertation: Solid as water, liquid as iron. Masculinities in Italian and German-language literature since 1968
- Abstract
Doctoral subject: Comparative literature
Contact: riccardo.schoefberger@uni-graz.at

First supervisor: Heidrun Zettelbauer
Second supervisor: Uwe Wirth (German Studies, JLU)
Title of the dissertation: Letters from the Reich Labor Service: Between Reconstruction and Home
- Abstract
Doctoral subject: History, German literature
Contact: gero.graf-von-roedern@uni-graz.at

4th PhDnet Cycle (2017-2019)

First supervisor: Peter Deutschmann
Second supervisor: Annette Simonis (German Studies, JLU)
Title of the dissertation: Post-communist modes of writing: Forms of representation of communism in novels at the beginning of the 21st century.
- Abstract
Doctoral subject: Slavic Studies
Contact: alena.heinritz@uni-graz.at

First supervisor: Susanne Knaller
Second supervisor: Uwe Wirth (German Studies, JLU)
Title of the dissertation: Auditory Violence. A Semiotics of Literary Sounds in Postcolonial Prose Fiction
- Abstract
Doctoral subject: Romance Studies, General and Comparative Literature
Contact: dimitri.smirnov@uni-graz.at

First supervisor: Ansgar Nünning (English Studies, JLU)
Second supervisor: Roberta Maierhofer
Title of the dissertation: Narrative Modes for (Re-)Presenting Dementia in Contemporary Fiction
- Abstract
Doctoral subject: English Studies

3rd PhDnet Cycle (2014-2016)

First supervisor: Anne-Kathrin Reulecke
Second supervisor: Uwe Wirth (German Studies, JLU)
Title of the dissertation: Text and Sound. Media events in contemporary acoustic literature
- Abstract
Doctoral subject: German Studies
Contact: eva.fauner@uni-graz.at

First supervisor: Susanne Knaller
Second supervisor: Annette Simonis (German Studies, JLU)
Title of the dissertation: Emotions in black and white. Implying, describing and naming emotions in the sentimental epistolary novel around 1800
- Abstract
Doctoral subject: Comparative literature
Contact: stella.lange@uni-graz.at

First supervisor: Anne-Kathrin Reulecke
Second supervisor: Uwe Wirth (German Studies, JLU)
Title of the dissertation: Narrating the future of man - drafts of transhumanism in contemporary literature
- Abstract
Doctoral subject: Comparative literature
Contact: www.schoenfellner.net