Stephanie Berens, M.A.

Research interests

20th-century and contemporary North American literature; queer and transgender fiction; theories around queer- and transness, feminism, decolonization, disability, temporality, and kinship.

Biography

Steph Berens studied North American literature and culture at Ludwig Maximilian University Munich and spent two semesters abroad at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, and Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. They completed their master’s degree at LMU with a thesis on transgender road fiction and its relation to normative concepts of identity, time and space. Currently, Steph is a doctoral candidate at LMU’s Graduate School for Language and Literature (Class of Literature). Their dissertation examines the reworking of cultural tropes in contemporary trans fiction.

Publications

• “The Outsider’s Space In-Between: Renegotiating Monstrosity in Contemporary Transgender Short Fiction.” Excursions, vol. 13, no. 1, 2023, pp. 60-80.
• “Transing the American Road Genre: Space, Mobility, and Identity in Sara Taylor’s Novel The Lauras.” Perspectives on Homelessness, ed. by Anna Flügge and Giorgia Tommasi, Winter, 2022, pp. 389-407.

Conference presentations

• “Home-Making in and through Transgender Fiction.” Trans*America: American Studies Association of Turkey 41st International American Studies Conference. Hacettepe University Ankara, Turkey. Nov 16-18, 2022.
• “Narrating the Past and the Passed in Casey Plett’s Little Fish.” 3rd AISNA Graduates Conference: Queering America. Centro Studi Americani, Rome, Italy. Sept 30, 2022.
• “Between Illegality and Illegibility: Alternative Access to Medical Transitioning Options in Transgender Fiction.” Mind the Gap. King’s College London, England (Online). July 30-21, 2022.
• “Reading Trans Literature as Reparative Philology.” Political Education and American Studies: DGFA/GAAS 68th Annual Meeting. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany. Jun 9-11, 2022.
• “The Monstrous Outsider in Trans Short Fiction.” Outside/rs: Making Space at the Queer Intersections of Sex and Gender. University of Brighton, England (Online). Apr 1-2, 2022.
• “Trans and Irresponsible: Resisting Normative Temporalities in Imogen Binnie’s Nevada.” Queer Temporalities in Literature, Cinema, and Video Games. University of Murcia, Spain (Online). Dec 2-4, 2021.
• “To Live Against One’s Grain: Tensions Between Restraint and Freedom in Patricia Highsmith’s Carol.” Aesthetics of Restraint. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy. May 23-25, 2019.
• Conference Documentation (www.lmugoeslisbon.wordpress.com). Dikes of Courage: Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Aesthetics of Protest. Nova University Lisbon, Portugal. Nov 23-24, 2018.