Michael Ahlers - Professor, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Michael Ahlers studied music education, musicology and German. He also ran a company for music and media production in
Hamburg. After finishing his dissertation he worked as a junior lecturer on popular music and media studies at the University of
Paderborn. In 2010 he became Professor for Digital Music Education at the University of Augsburg. In 2012 he became Professor
for music education and popular music in Lüneburg. His recent research activities include collaborative creative strategies, literacy
and special language knowledge in task construction, as well as research on empirical music education and popular music studies.
Mirko Hall - Associate Professor, German Studies, Converse College
Mirko M. Hall is Associate Professor of German Studies and Chair of Languages, Cultures, and Literatures at Converse College. He is
the author of Musical Revolutions in German Culture: Musicking against the Grain, 1800–1980 and a number of articles on the
aesthetics and intellectual history of music.
Bastian Heinsohn - Assistant Professor, German Studies, Bucknell University
Bastian Heinsohn is Assistant Professor of German in the Department of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Bucknell University. He received his Ph.D. in German from the University of California, Davis in 2009. He has been teaching German language at all levels and culture classes with a focus on German film. He also teaches film courses in Bucknell’s Film/Media Studies program. His current book manuscript is entitled "Street Life: The Representation of Berlin’s Urban Space in German Cinema." He has published on German cinema and recent Berlin literature. His most recent article analyzes the role of graffiti as text in Berlin’s linguistic landscape and appeared in an anthology on Social Justice in Germany with Camden House in May 2015.
Seth Howes - Assistant Professor, German and Russian Studies, University of Missouri
Seth Howes is assistant professor of German at the University of Missouri. He has published essays on punk rock, Prenzlauer Berg
poetry, and Peter Weiss, and is co-editor of Beyond No Future: Cultures of German Punk (Bloomsbury, 2016). His first monograph
focuses on the unsanctioned arts and literatures of 1980s East Germany, studying samizdat, performance art, and super-8 films.
Richard Langston - Associate Professor, UNC Chapel Hill
Richard Langston is the Zachary Smith Distinguished Term Associate Professor of German at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. He is the author of Visions of Violence (Northwestern, 2008) and the forthcoming Dark Matter, a book on the legacy of
the Frankfurt School in the work of Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge. He is also the co-editor of the Alexander-Kluge Jahrbuch.
John Littlejohn - Assistant Professor, Randolph-Macon College
John Littlejohn earned his doctorate from the University of Kansas and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of German at
Randolph-Macon College. He has published on German HipHop and artists such as Kraftwerk and Rammstein. His co-edited book
on the latter, entitled Rammstein on Fire, appeared in 2013. Jens Gerrit Papenburg - Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Jens Gerrit Papenburg - Lecturer and Research Associate, Humboldt University Berlin
Jens Gerrit Papenburg is Lecturer and Research Associate in Popular Music History and Theory at Humboldt University Berlin. He is
currently working on a postdoctorate research project about a cultural and media history of the “para-auditive” dimension of
popular music’s sound. He is the co-editor of “Sound as Popular Culture. A Research Companion” that will published by the MIT
Press in 2015.
Martin Pfleiderer - Professor, Musicology, Hochschule für Musik Weimar-Jena
Martin Pfleiderer studied musicology, philosophy and sociology at Giessen University (1988-93) where he received a
doctorate in 1998. From 1999 to 2005, he was assistant professor for systematic musicology at Hamburg University. After his
postdoctoral lecture qualification (2006) he took over a temporary professorship at Paderborn University (2007/08) and several
guest lectures. Since 2009 he is professor for the history of jazz and popular music at University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar. His
research is dedicated to rhythm, singing, and improvisation in jazz and popular music, to the sociology of music, and to the history
of popular music in the USA and Germany.
Peter Rehberg - DAAD Professor Germanic Studies, UT Austin
Peter Rehberg is DAAD Associate Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. Previously,
he taught at Universität Bonn, Brown University, Northwestern, and Cornell. he also wrote three novels (most recently Boymen
2011) and was appointed as editor-in-chief of the gay monthly Männer. He is writing continuously for der Freitag, taz, and Siegessäule. His academic areas of expertise are Queer Theory, Pop Culture, and Media Studies. Currently, he is working on a book project on post pornography and queer masculinities.
Michael Schmidt - History, UT Austin
Michael Schmidt earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014 and is currently an academic advisor at
UT. His dissertation, “The Multi-Sensory Object: Jazz, the Modern Media, and the History of the Senses in Germany,” traces the
history of the constitution of popular music through a succession of media forms in twentieth century Germany.
Cyrus Shahan - Assistant Professor, Colby College
Cyrus Shahan is Assistant Professor of German at Colby College. He is the author of Punk Rock and German Crisis: Adaptation
and Resistance after 1977 and articles on the the intersections of aesthetics, music, technology and political violence.
Sunka Simon - Professor, German, Swarthmore College
Sunka Simon, Professor of German and Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore College is the author of the book Mail-Orders: The
Fiction of Letters in Postmodern Culture (Suny Press 2002), co-editor of Globally Networked Teaching in the Humanities: Theories
and Practices (Routledge 2015) and 18 scholarly articles on German literature, film, and popular German culture. She is currently
completing work on a manuscript entitled Euro-Eyes: Regionalism and Globalization in German TV Formats.
Maria Stehle - Associate Professor, Modern Foreign Languages, University of Tennessee
Maria Stehle (PhD. University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2005) is Associate Professor of German and faculty in Cinema Studies at
the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Her publications include a monograph entitled Ghetto Voices in Contemporary German Cultures (2012) book chapters, and articles in the fields of German, Media, Film, and Gender Studies. Stehle currently collaborates
with Dr. Smith-Prei on a project entitled “The Technologies of Popfeminist Activism.”
Michael Ahlers studied music education, musicology and German. He also ran a company for music and media production in
Hamburg. After finishing his dissertation he worked as a junior lecturer on popular music and media studies at the University of
Paderborn. In 2010 he became Professor for Digital Music Education at the University of Augsburg. In 2012 he became Professor
for music education and popular music in Lüneburg. His recent research activities include collaborative creative strategies, literacy
and special language knowledge in task construction, as well as research on empirical music education and popular music studies.
Mirko Hall - Associate Professor, German Studies, Converse College
Mirko M. Hall is Associate Professor of German Studies and Chair of Languages, Cultures, and Literatures at Converse College. He is
the author of Musical Revolutions in German Culture: Musicking against the Grain, 1800–1980 and a number of articles on the
aesthetics and intellectual history of music.
Bastian Heinsohn - Assistant Professor, German Studies, Bucknell University
Bastian Heinsohn is Assistant Professor of German in the Department of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Bucknell University. He received his Ph.D. in German from the University of California, Davis in 2009. He has been teaching German language at all levels and culture classes with a focus on German film. He also teaches film courses in Bucknell’s Film/Media Studies program. His current book manuscript is entitled "Street Life: The Representation of Berlin’s Urban Space in German Cinema." He has published on German cinema and recent Berlin literature. His most recent article analyzes the role of graffiti as text in Berlin’s linguistic landscape and appeared in an anthology on Social Justice in Germany with Camden House in May 2015.
Seth Howes - Assistant Professor, German and Russian Studies, University of Missouri
Seth Howes is assistant professor of German at the University of Missouri. He has published essays on punk rock, Prenzlauer Berg
poetry, and Peter Weiss, and is co-editor of Beyond No Future: Cultures of German Punk (Bloomsbury, 2016). His first monograph
focuses on the unsanctioned arts and literatures of 1980s East Germany, studying samizdat, performance art, and super-8 films.
Richard Langston - Associate Professor, UNC Chapel Hill
Richard Langston is the Zachary Smith Distinguished Term Associate Professor of German at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. He is the author of Visions of Violence (Northwestern, 2008) and the forthcoming Dark Matter, a book on the legacy of
the Frankfurt School in the work of Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge. He is also the co-editor of the Alexander-Kluge Jahrbuch.
John Littlejohn - Assistant Professor, Randolph-Macon College
John Littlejohn earned his doctorate from the University of Kansas and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of German at
Randolph-Macon College. He has published on German HipHop and artists such as Kraftwerk and Rammstein. His co-edited book
on the latter, entitled Rammstein on Fire, appeared in 2013. Jens Gerrit Papenburg - Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Jens Gerrit Papenburg - Lecturer and Research Associate, Humboldt University Berlin
Jens Gerrit Papenburg is Lecturer and Research Associate in Popular Music History and Theory at Humboldt University Berlin. He is
currently working on a postdoctorate research project about a cultural and media history of the “para-auditive” dimension of
popular music’s sound. He is the co-editor of “Sound as Popular Culture. A Research Companion” that will published by the MIT
Press in 2015.
Martin Pfleiderer - Professor, Musicology, Hochschule für Musik Weimar-Jena
Martin Pfleiderer studied musicology, philosophy and sociology at Giessen University (1988-93) where he received a
doctorate in 1998. From 1999 to 2005, he was assistant professor for systematic musicology at Hamburg University. After his
postdoctoral lecture qualification (2006) he took over a temporary professorship at Paderborn University (2007/08) and several
guest lectures. Since 2009 he is professor for the history of jazz and popular music at University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar. His
research is dedicated to rhythm, singing, and improvisation in jazz and popular music, to the sociology of music, and to the history
of popular music in the USA and Germany.
Peter Rehberg - DAAD Professor Germanic Studies, UT Austin
Peter Rehberg is DAAD Associate Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. Previously,
he taught at Universität Bonn, Brown University, Northwestern, and Cornell. he also wrote three novels (most recently Boymen
2011) and was appointed as editor-in-chief of the gay monthly Männer. He is writing continuously for der Freitag, taz, and Siegessäule. His academic areas of expertise are Queer Theory, Pop Culture, and Media Studies. Currently, he is working on a book project on post pornography and queer masculinities.
Michael Schmidt - History, UT Austin
Michael Schmidt earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014 and is currently an academic advisor at
UT. His dissertation, “The Multi-Sensory Object: Jazz, the Modern Media, and the History of the Senses in Germany,” traces the
history of the constitution of popular music through a succession of media forms in twentieth century Germany.
Cyrus Shahan - Assistant Professor, Colby College
Cyrus Shahan is Assistant Professor of German at Colby College. He is the author of Punk Rock and German Crisis: Adaptation
and Resistance after 1977 and articles on the the intersections of aesthetics, music, technology and political violence.
Sunka Simon - Professor, German, Swarthmore College
Sunka Simon, Professor of German and Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore College is the author of the book Mail-Orders: The
Fiction of Letters in Postmodern Culture (Suny Press 2002), co-editor of Globally Networked Teaching in the Humanities: Theories
and Practices (Routledge 2015) and 18 scholarly articles on German literature, film, and popular German culture. She is currently
completing work on a manuscript entitled Euro-Eyes: Regionalism and Globalization in German TV Formats.
Maria Stehle - Associate Professor, Modern Foreign Languages, University of Tennessee
Maria Stehle (PhD. University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2005) is Associate Professor of German and faculty in Cinema Studies at
the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Her publications include a monograph entitled Ghetto Voices in Contemporary German Cultures (2012) book chapters, and articles in the fields of German, Media, Film, and Gender Studies. Stehle currently collaborates
with Dr. Smith-Prei on a project entitled “The Technologies of Popfeminist Activism.”