Prof. Dr. Heike Paul was born in Koblenz in 1968. From 1987 to 1994, she studied American Studies, Political Science, and English Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt and at the University of Washington, Seattle. After her master’s degree, she obtained her doctorate in the context of the research training group “Gender Difference and Literature” at LMU Munich and subsequently worked as a postdoc and assistant professor at Leipzig University, where she earned her postgraduate degree (Dr. phil. Habil.) in 2004. In the same year, she was appointed chair of American Studies at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg.  Her research in cultural studies focuses especially on forms and functions of the sentimental (Global Sentimentality Project) and on dimensions of tacit knowledge. Heike Paul is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and director of the Bavarian American Academy, in which she is deeply committed to transatlantic networking.

Publications (Selection)

2019 | The Comeback of Populism: Transatlantic Perspectives, together with Ursula Prutsch and Jürgen Gebhardt, Winter Verlag
2016 | Critical Regionalism, together with Meike Zwingennberger and Klaus Lösch, Winter Verlag
2012 | Pirates, Drifters, Fugitives: Figures of Mobility in the U.S. and Beyond, together with Alexandra Ganser and Katharina Gerund, Winter Verlag
2014 | The Myths That Made America, Transcript
2005 | Kulturkontakt und Racial Presences: Afroamerikaner und die deutsche Amerika-Literatur, 1815-1914, Winter Verlag

Awards (Selection)

2018 | Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Preis of the German Research Foundation (DFG)
2018 | Fellowship of the International Forum for US Studies (IFUSS) at the University of Illinois
2008, 2010 | Faculty Enrichment Grant und Faculty Research Grant in Kanada, Research Fellow at University of Toronto, York University and Chatham Historical Society
2003-2004 | Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Berlin

Project Description

Heike Paul is planning a project on "Citizen Sentimentalism" in which civil-religious patterns and sentimental repertoires in current Euro-American cultural and political imaginaries will be examined. Classical texts on civil religion will be brought into dialogue with recent research on political emotions and affect studies, on the basis of which narratives, practices and iconographies of popular culture that draw on sentimental patterns for the sake of community building will be explored.