Universität Innsbruck

Sandra Tausel, BA BA MA

Zur Person

Portrait Sandra Tausel

seit 04/2021 | Kollegiatin des Doktoratskollegs „Geschlecht und Geschlechterverhältnisse in Transformation: Räume – Relationen – Repräsentationen“ der Forschungsplattform Center Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung Innsbruck an der Universität Innsbruck 

seit 09/2019 | Doktorandin und Universitätsassistentin am Institut für Amerikastudien an der Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck (Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät) 

08/2017 - 08/2019 | OeAD Stipendiantin und Lehrbeautragte für Deutsch als Fremd- und Zweitsprache an der Corvinus Universität Budapest (Ungarn) 

10/2015 - 12/2020 | Bachelorstudium Germanistik an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Titel der Bachelorarbeit: Literatur für junge Erwachsene. Entstehung, Entwicklung und moderne Ausprägungen 

08/2014 - 05/2015 | Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant am Gettysburg College, PA (USA), Lehrauftrag Deutsch als Fremdsprache 

09/2013 - 01/2014 | Auslandsaufenhalt an der Université Paris Diderot (Paris, Frankreich) im Zuge des Joint Degree Masterstudium in English and American Studies 

10/2012 - 06/2015 | Joint Degree Masterstudium in English and American Studies an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz und der Université Paris Diderot (Frankreich), Titel der Masterarbeit: Voices from the Exile: Paris in American Expatriate Writing

10/2008 - 06/2012 | Bachelorstudium Anglistik und Amerikanistik an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Titel der Bachelorarbeit: Between Two Worlds: Native American Children in U.S. American Boarding Schools

Promotionsprojekt

Young Love: Reading Gender and Identity in Young Adult Literature of the 21st Century

My dissertation examines narratives of young love and their representations in select works of North American Young Adult Literature (YAL). I argue that the dominant concept of love today still clearly relies on what was once deemed permissible: Hetero-normative, monogamous, distinctly female or male-identified European-American, white, able-bodied, upper-middle-class identities are still the predominant requirements for the telling of fictional love stories. Representations of young love are frequently exclusionary or even violent, however, the idea of persistence through difficulty for a ‘happy ending’ as well as normative notions of who is entitled to love have become internalized in our collective consciousness and shape our perceptions of love today. I am interested in contemporary Young Adult counternarratives of love, i.e., literary texts that employ choice of characters, characters’ intersecting identities, and the portrayals of gendered dynamics in romantic relationships more broadly. My main purpose is to advance an understanding of how young love – and the processes of falling in, being in, and falling out of love – are conceptualized in the courting process and young couple relationships and determine whether more diverse portrayals ultimately transform the dominant concept of love.

Forschungsinteressen

  • US-amerikanische Gegenwartsliteratur (v.a. women’s writing, marginalized literatures, transnational writing)
  • Kinder-und Jugendliteratur
  • Intersektionalität
  • Feministische (Literatur-)theorie
  • Critical Race Theory
  • Gender und Queer Theory

Publikationen

  • Tausel, Sandra: Writing against the Stigma: Facial Disfigurement in R.J. Palacio’s Wonder. In: Klecker, Cornelia/ Grabher, Gudrun M. (Hg): The Disfigured Face in American Literature, Film, and Television. (im Druck)

Mitgliedschaften

  • Austrian Association of American Studies (AAAS)
  • Austria’s Young Americanists (AYA)
  • Popular Culture Association (PCA)

Lehre

  • WiSe 2020/21 (Online) | Universität Innsbruck, Institut für Amerikastudien | Proseminar Literary Studies: A Survey of U.S. American Women’s Writing
  • SoSe 2020 (Online) | Universität Innsbruck, Institut für Amerikastudien | Proseminar Literary Studies: A Survey of Young Adult Literature
  • WiSe 2019/20 | Universität Innsbruck, Institut für Amerikastudien | Proseminar Literary Studies:: Gender, Feminism and Identity: Character Construction in American Fiction and Culture

Kontakt

Mail: sandra.tausel@uibk.ac.at