Spatial Imaginaries
Historical discourses of space, critical cartography, and the cultural production of place.
Dr. Steffen Wöll
Research Statement
Researching how literature and culture imagine, map, and transform space.
About
I am a postdoctoral researcher in American Studies at Leipzig University. My work explores cartography, mobility, borders, and imperial imaginaries across American literature and culture. My research interests also extend to digital humanities, visual culture, film, horror, and game studies.
Current Project
A Place Between Oceans: Imagining American Empire, 1880–1940
The project examines how transoceanic and archipelagic imaginaries shaped U.S. imperial expansion and literary culture at the turn of the twentieth century.
Research Areas
Oceans and Empire
Archipelagic and island studies, mobility, borders, U.S. empire, and globalization.
Popular and Digital Culture
Intersections of popular and digital culture, with particular interests in horror and game studies.
Selected Work
All publications
The West and the Word Imagining, Formatting, and Ordering the American West in Nineteenth-Century Cultural Discourse
De Gruyter
Open accessUnmasking Maps, Unmaking Empire: Towards an Archipelagic Cartography
Journal of Transnational American Studies.
Open accessImperial Spatializations and Archipelagic Counter-Geographies
A selected corpus of works, 1880–1940.
Explore the corpus Upcoming Talk
Tidal Empire: Oceanic Expansion and Archipelagic Dissent in U.S. Culture.
12th International Biennial Conference on American Studies
Akaki Tsereteli State University, Kutaisi, Georgia