Dr. Jennifer Leetsch

I am a postdoctoral researcher in Anglophone Literary and Cultural Studies. Here at the BCDSS I research and teach on slavery’s global entanglements in the Black Atlantic world and beyond: in particular, I am interested in the transatlantic slave trade as it impacted the Caribbean on the one hand, and in Indian Ocean dependencies and labour diasporas on the other hand. I am currently working on a second book project which intertwines forms and media of black life writing with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ecologies.

I received my PhD in English Literature from Julius-Maximilians University Würzburg. Published as Love and Space in Contemporary African Diasporic Women’s Writing: Making Love, Making Worlds with Palgrave’s series on Contemporary Women’s Writing, it explores contemporary literature, culture and new media forms in interplay with feminist and postcolonial Anglophone perspectives.

I received my MA in English Literature, American Literature and Comparative Literature from King’s College London and Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich.

Research and Teaching Interests:
Contemporary Anglophone literatures, Anglophone literatures of the long nineteenth century, Cultural Studies, Caribbean Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, Indian Ocean Studies, Indian and Indian Diaspora Studies, Black Britain, Environmental Humanities and Ecocriticism, the Blue Humanities

since 2021
Postdoctoral researcher, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, Cluster of Excellence Beyond Slavery and Freedom, postdoctoral project: "Black Atlantic Ecologies: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Black Life Writing beyond the Anthropocene"

2023
Visiting Scholar, University of Melbourne (AUS)

2022
Visiting Scholar, Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies, University of Glasgow (UK)

2020
Visiting Scholar, Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (IND)

2020
ERASMUS+ Visiting Scholar, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford (UK) (travels cancelled due to the pandemic)

2017
Visiting Scholar, Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (IND)

2016–2020
Project Assistant, Literature in a Globalized World: Creative and Critical Perspectives, bilateral DAAD and UGC (University Grants Commission) programme within the initiative IGP (Indo-German Partnerships), PIs: Prof. Isabel Karremann and Prof. Sauagta Bhaduri

2014–2020
Doctoral researcher and lecturer, Julius-Maximilians-University, Würzburg, Department for English Literature and British Cultural Studies, PhD project: "Be/longing: At the Intersections of Love and Space in Contemporary Afro-Diasporic Women’s Writing"

2010–2011
ERASMUS Scholarship, King's College London (UK): German Literature, English Literature, American Literature, Comparative Literature and Film Studies

2008–2013
M.A. (Magister), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich (with distinction): English Literature, American Literature and Comparative Literature, MA Thesis: "Letting the Subaltern Speak: Female Voices in A. S. Byatt's Possession and Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love"

2023–2024                                                                                                                                                          Funding by the DAAD within the Programme for Project-Related Personal Exchange (PPP) with the Republic of India. 2-year project "Mobile Feminisms: Gender, Social Media, Transnational Interactions." Affiliated Postdoctoral Researcher. PIs: Mary-Ann Snyder Körber (JMU Würzburg) and Simi Malhotra (Jamia Milia Islamia University, Delhi).

2023                                                                                                                                                                      Funding by the Bonn-Melbourne Research Excellence Fund. 1-year project "Water as Method: Reading the Hydrocolony in Global Literature." Principal Investigator. Co-PIs: Keyvan Allahyari (Melbourne), Katharina Fackler (Bonn) and Tyne Daile Sumner (Melbourne).

2022                                                                                                                                                                      Funding by the Deutsche Anglistenverband (The German Association for the Study of English). Organisation of Online Workshop "DACH Victorianists: Ecocritical Perspectives." With Stefanie John (Braunschweig).

2021                                                                                                                                                            Funding by the DFG (German Research Foundation). Organisation of international conference "Imagining Migration, Knowing Migration: Intermedial Perspectives." With Miriam Wallraven (Würzburg) and Frederike Middelhoff (Frankfurt).

2021                                                                                                                                                                      Funding by the Universitätsbund Würzburg: Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften. Public reading and performance by the writer Olumide Popoola.

2019                                                                                                                                                              University of Würzburg Doctoral Travel Grant Award. Conference Postcolonial Oceans: Contradictions and Heterogeneities in the Epistemes of Salt Water. University of Bremen (Germany).

2019                                                                                                                                                               Funding by the Volkswagen Stiftung. Travel grant for the conference In/Visibility and Opacity: Cultural Productions by African and African Diasporic Women. Schloss Herrenhausen, Hannover (Germany).

2018                                                                                                                                                     

Funding by the University of Würzburg Jubiläumsstiftung. Research stay at the British Library, Goldsmiths University and the London Metropolitan Archives.

2017                                                                                                                                                     

Funding by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service). Travel grant for the Annual African Literature Association Conference. Yale University, New Haven (US).

2017                                                                                                                                                     

Funding by the DRV (Deutscher Romanistenverband) and the Universitätsbund Würzburg: Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften. Summer School "The Self and the Other: Afro-Diasporic Literatures." With Gabriella Lambrecht, Julius Goldmann and Julien Bobineau (all Würzburg).

2016–2020                                                                                                                                                           Funding by the DAAD and the UGC (University Grants Commission) within the initiative IGP (Indo-German Partnerships). 4-year project "Literature in a Globalized World: Creative and Critical Perspectives." Project Assistant. PIs: Prof. Isabel Karremann and Prof. Sauagta Bhaduri.

Research Monograph

• 2021. Love and Space in Contemporary African Diasporic Women’s Writing: Making Love, Making Worlds. Palgrave Studies in Contemporary Women’s Writing, edited by Gina Wisker, Denise deCaires Narain, and Andrea Quaid. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Reviewed by: Du Preez, Jenny Boźena. EAR: Journal of English Studies. 2022. 9(1): 105–107.

Reviewed by: Das, Spandita. The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research. 2023. 53(1): 63–66.

Reviewed by: Medugno, Marco. Contemporary Women's Writing. 2023. vpad014, 1–2.
 

Editorial Work

• Forthcoming. With Pia Wiegmink. Dependent Selves: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Life Writing and the Study of Dependency. Special Issue. Life Writing.
• Forthcoming. With Sinah Kloß. Indentured Bodies / Embodiments of Indenture. Special Issue. Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies. CfP.
• Forthcoming. Ecological Solidarities in a Post/Colonial World. Special Issue. Postcolonial Text. 
• 2023. Configurations of Migration: Knowledges – Imaginaries – Media, edited by Jennifer Leetsch, Frederike Middelhoff, and Miriam Wallraven. Berlin: De Gruyter. 

Journal Articles (peer-reviewed)

• 2022. "From Instagram Poetry to Autofictional Memoir and Back Again: Experimental Black Life Writing in Yrsa Daley-Ward’s Work." In Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. Special Issue: Contemporary Black British Women’s Writing, edited Elisabeth Bekers, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, and Helen Cousins, 41(2): 301–326.
• 2022. "Mary Seacole’s Plant Matter(s): Vegetal Entanglements of the Black Atlantic in Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands." In EJES: The European Journal of English Studies. Special Issue: Victorian Materialisms, edited by Ursula Kluwick and Ariane de Waal, 26(1): 42–65.
• 2021. "Playing with Saris: Material and Affective Unfoldings in Shailja Patel’s Migritude." In Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. Special Issue: Visualizing Violence, edited by Hella Cohen and Sreyoshi Sarkar, 23(5): 691–711.
• 2019. "Of Suitcases and Gunny Sacks: The Poetics of Travel in M. G. Vassanji and Shailja Patel." In Kairos: A Journal of Critical Symposium. Special Issue: Postcolonial Narrations, 4(1): 60–77.
• 2019. "Ocean Imaginaries in Warsan Shire's Afro-Diasporic Poetry." In Journal of the African Literature Association. Special Issue: The Environments of African Literature, edited by Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi, 13(1): 80–95.
• 2017. "Love, Limb-Loosener: Encounters in Chimamanda Adichie's Americanah." In Journal of Popular Romance Studies. Special Issue: Critical Love Studies, edited by Amy Burge and Michael Gratzke, 6: 1–16.

Book Chapters (peer-reviewed)

• Forthcoming. "Mary Prince’s Slave Narrative and its Legal (After)Life: The Interplay of Gender, Law and Literature in The History of Mary Prince." In Feminist Perspectives on Law and Literature, edited by Hanna Luise Kroll, Laura Schmitz-Justen, Laura Wittmann, and Laura Zander. Berlin: De Gruyter. 
• Forthcoming. "Between Home and Away: Contemporary Black British Poetry." In The Routledge Handbook of the New African Diasporic Literature, edited by Lokangaka Losambe and Tanure Ojaide. London/New York: Routledge. 
• 2023. "Concluding Remarks: (Strange) Migratory Encounters." In Configurations of Migration: Knowledges – Imaginaries – Media, edited by Jennifer Leetsch, Frederike Middelhoff, and Miriam Wallraven. Berlin: De Gruyter. 
• 2023. "Introduction: Configurations of Migration." In Configurations of Migration: Knowledges – Imaginaries – Media, edited by Jennifer Leetsch, Frederike Middelhoff, and Miriam Wallraven. Berlin: De Gruyter. 
• 2023. "Walking the Land: Theatre, Landscape and Britain’s Migratory Past in Black Men Walking." In Configurations of Migration: Knowledges – Imaginaries – Media, edited by Jennifer Leetsch, Frederike Middelhoff, and Miriam Wallraven. Berlin: De Gruyter. 
• 2023. With Heike Raphael-Hernandez. "Imagining Migration In-Between: A Conversation with Charl Landvreugd." In Configurations of Migration: Knowledges – Imaginaries – Media, edited by Jennifer Leetsch, Frederike Middelhoff. and Miriam Wallraven. Berlin: De Gruyter. 
• 2023. "Loneliness and Contested Communities in Mary Prince’s Slave Narrative The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831)."  InThe Routledge History of Loneliness, edited by Katie Barclay, Elaine Chalus, and Deborah Simonton, 238–252. London/New York: Routledge. 
• 2020. "Translocations of Desire: Urban Topographies of Love in Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah." In Geographies of Affect in Contemporary Literature and Visual Culture, edited by Ágnes Györke and Imola Bülgözdi, 181–198. Spatial Practices 35. Leiden: Brill/Rodopi.
• 2019. "Opening Homes, Opening Worlds: African European Spatial Interventions in Helen Oyeyemi’s Fiction." In Locating African European Studies: Interventions, Intersections, Conversations, edited by Felipe Espinoza Garrido, Caroline Koegler, Deborah Nyangulu, and Mark Stein, 153–164. London/New York: Routledge. 

5/2023
BCDSS & Pro-Rectorate for Equal Opportunities and Diversity, Bonn University, Panel discussion "Diversity in German Academia," Germany-wide Diversity Days. With Sarah Dusend (BCDSS) and Anna Hollstegge (Pro-Rectorate for Equal Opportunities and Diversity).

2/2023
BCDSS, Workshop of the working group on Ecological Dependencies on "Ecological Inter/Dependencies: Strong Asymmetrical Relations and More-than-Human Worlds." With Zeynep Gökce.

1/2023
BCDSS, Research workshop and lecture with Najnin Islam (University of Connecticut) on "Indenture, Antirelationality, and the Afterlife of Slavery."

12/2022
DACH Victorianists Network, Online workshop on "DACH Victorianists: Ecocritical Perspectives." With Stefanie John (Braunschweig). With a keynote lecture by Ursula Kluwick (Bern).

10/2022
Bonn University, Postcolonial Narrations Conference. PhD workshop on "PhD Defense and Beyond: A Workshop for Early Career Scholars."

07/2022
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 8th Biennial Afroeuropeans Network Conference "Intersectional Challenges in Afroeuropean Communities." Panel on "Intermedial Sites of Resistance: From YouTube to Instapoetry and Beyond" (Stream 8: Media, Digital Technology and Connectivity), with Mariam Muwanga (Wuppertal University).

05/2022
Goethe University Frankfurt, Annual GAPS Conference "Contested Solidarities: Agency and Victimhood in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures." Two-part panel on "Ecological Solidarities, Vulnerabilities and Resistances." 

03/2022
BCDSS, PhD research workshop on "Postcolonial Studies: Then and Now." With Pia Wiegmink. With a guest lecture by Sruti Bala (University of Amsterdam).

12/2021
BCDSS, Research workshop and lecture with Arunima Bhattacharya (Edinburgh Napier University) on "Indian Ocean Worlds of Dependency."

06/2021
JMU Würzburg, Research workshop with Lauren Fournier (University of Toronto) on "Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing and Criticism."
 
03/2021
JMU Würzburg, International, interdisciplinary DFG-funded conference "Imagining Migration, Knowing Migration: Intermedial Perspectives." With Miriam Wallraven (Würzburg) and Frederike Middelhoff (Frankfurt). With keynote lectures by Ananya Kabir (King’s College London), an artist intervention by Charl Landvreugd (Rotterdam) and a public reading by Olumide Popoola.

02/2020
Jawaharlal Nehru University (IND), Collaborative research workshop in Delhi within the DAAD/IGP-funded project Literature in a Globalized World: Creative and Critical Perspectives.

05/2018
JMU Würzburg, Summer School Africa in a Globalized World within the DAAD/IGP-funded project Literature in a Globalized World: Creative and Critical Perspectives. With keynotes and workshops by Isabel Hofmeyr (Witwatersrand, SA), Frank Schulze-Engler (Frankfurt), David Peimer (Liverpool, UK) and Ralf Schneider (Bielefeld).

09/2017
JMU Würzburg, International and interdisciplinary DRV-Summer School "The Self and the Other: Afro-Diasporic Literatures." With Gabriella Lambrecht, Julius Goldmann and Julien Bobineau (all Würzburg). With public readings by Sharon Dodua Otoo and Alain Mabanckou.

02/2017
Jawaharlal Nehru University (IND), Winter School Literature and Globalization in Delhi within the DAAD/IGP-funded project Literature in a Globalized World: Creative and Critical Perspectives.

I teach courses across all levels, from undergraduate introductions to advanced MA and PhD seminars. I have also designed and organised several international summer and winter schools and student exchanges. For a selection of my syllabi, please click here.  

BCDSS, Bonn University (since 2021)

• Ecological Dependencies: Interdisciplinary Approaches (summer 2023 – with a guest lecture by Dita Auziņa)
• Doing Research I (summer 2023)
• Imagining Indian Ocean Worlds of Dependency (winter 2021 – with a guest lecture by Arunima Bhattacharya; winter 2022 – with a guest lecture by Najnin Islam)
• PhD Research Seminar: Postcolonial Studies – Then and Now? (summer 2022, together with Pia Wiegmink – with a guest lecture by Sruti Bala)
• Black Atlantic Ecologies (summer 2022)
  
  

University of Würzburg (2014–2020)

Global Anglophone and Postcolonial Literatures

• Anglophone African Literatures (winter 2018; winter 2020)
• Crossing the Waters: Indian Ocean Trajectories (summer 2020)
• Afrofuturism (winter 2020)
• Contemporary Global Poetry (winter 2019)
• Black British Poetry (winter 2017)

 
Environmental Humanities and Ecocriticism

• Ecological Entanglements of the 19th Century: Nature – Culture – Society (winter 2020)
• Imaginary Geographies (summer 2014)

The Nineteenth Century

• Literary Classics: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (winter 2020)
• Echoes of Empire: Exploring the 19th Century (winter 2020)
• Literary Classics: Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (winter 2019)
  The Brontë Sisters (summer 2018)
• Rewriting the 19th Century: Neo-Victorian Literature (winter 2018)
   

Media, Art and Culture

• Transformative Texts: Fanfiction and Participatory Cultures (summer 2019, summer 2020)
• The British Black Arts Movement (summer 2020)
• Modernism in Literature and Art (summer 2018; winter 2019)
   

Life Writing

• Between Fact and Fiction: Genre-Bending Life Narratives (summer 2018; summer 2020 - with a guest lecture by Lauren Fournier)
• Writing the Unspeakable: Holocaust Literature (winter 2017)
   

Gender Studies and Feminism

• Gender Studies: Intersections, Interventions and Perspectives (summer 2020)
• Gender Studies: Key Concepts and Methods (winter 2016)
• Black British Women Writers (summer 2015)
• Politics and Poetics of the Postcolonial Romance (winter 2014)
• Postcolonial Theory and Gender Studies (winter 2014)
   

Introductions

• Unruly Bodies: An Introduction to Disability Studies (winter 2015; summer 2020)
• Introduction to Poetry (summer 2019)
• Shakespeare’s Comedies (winter 2016; winter 2018)
• Introduction to English Literature (winter 2015) 
   

Winter and Summer Schools (Co-Organisation)

• Summer School: Africa in a Globalized World within the DAAD/IGP-funded project Literature in a Globalized World: Creative and Critical Perspectives. With keynotes and workshops by Isabel Hofmeyr, Frank Schulze-Engler, David Peimer and Ralf Schneider. (Würzburg, 05/2018)
• DRV-Summer School: The Self and the Other: Afro-Diasporic Literatures. With public readings by Sharon Dodua Otoo and Alain Mabanckou. (Würzburg, 09/2017)
• Winter School: Literature and Globalization within the DAAD/IGP-funded project Literature in a Globalized World: Creative and Critical Perspectives. (Delhi, 02/2016)
  

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