Prof. Dr. Pia Wiegmink 

In her research, Pia Wiegmink is interested in cultural practices and particularly narratives of American slavery and dependency and their global entanglements and circulation. Her most recent monograph Abolitionist Cosmopolitanism (Brill 2022) redefined the potential of nineteenth century American abolitionist literature as a cultural and political imaginary. She situated abolitionist literature in specific transnational contexts and highlighted the role of women as producers, subjects, and readers of abolitionist literature.

Her current research includes

• the upcoming symposium “Global Voyages, Local Sites: The Long Shadow of Atlantic Slavery in the Anglo-American and German Pacific” (June 2023)
• the working group “Life Writing, Slavery and Dependency” 
• a project, tentatively entitled “the protocols of dependency in American literature,” which analyzes intersecting tropes and discursive structures of various forms of dependency inherent in nineteenth century American literature.
• a co-edited special issue “Beyond Slavery and Freedom” in Journal of Global Slavery (forthcoming; with Jutta Wimmler)
• a co-edited special issue “Slavery and Colonialism in German Cultural Memory: Discourses, Debates, and Practices” in Atlantic Studies: Global Currents (forthcoming; with Heike Raphael-Hernandez)

3 monographs; 4 edited collections; 25 articles (+1 forthcoming); 6 reviews (+2 forthcoming); 39 national and international lectures and papers; (co)organizer of 7 conferences/workshops; (co)organizer of 8 panels; advisor of 5 MA theses (first advisor) and 39 BA/B.Ed. theses

9/2020
Venia legendi, American Studies, JGU Mainz, Germany

5/2019
Submission of Habilitation, American Studies, JGU Mainz, Germany

7/2010
Ph.D. American Studies, University of Siegen, Germany

6/2004
M.A. Theatre Studies and English Studies, JGU Mainz, Germany

Current Position
Professor for  Dependency and Slavery Studies, University Bonn, Germany      

2021
Assistant Professor (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin), Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, JGU Mainz

2019–2020
Interim Chair of American Studies, University of Regensburg

2010–2019
Assistant Professor (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin), Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, JGU Mainz

2017
Visiting Professor, English Department, York University, Toronto

2011–2012
Visiting Researcher, English Department, Georgetown University,Washington D.C.

2005–2010
Lecturer, Department of Literature, Culture and Media Studies/American Studies, University of Siegen

2021
Rob Kroes Award for the best unpublished manuscript in American studies by a European scholar for the year 2020  (European Association for American Studies)

2020
Best Article Award 2019 Amerikastudien/American Studies

2015–2018
DFG (German Research Foundation) research network “Cultural Performance in Transnational American Studies” with Dr. Birgit Bauridl (University of Regensburg)

2017
DFG (German Research Foundation) financial support for international workshop („From Abolition to Black Lives Matter: Past and Present Forms of Transnational Black Resistance, 26.–18. November 2017 JGU Mainz, organized with Nele Sawallisch, Frank Obenland and Johanna Seibert)

2012
DAAD Post-Doc Fellowship as visiting scholar at Georgetown University Washington, DC (discontinued 10/2012 due to parental leave)

03/2011
Eccles Centre Fellowship in North American Studies, Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library, London.

2006
Research Fellowship (DAAD/German-Academic Exchange Service travel grant), University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles