Conference Program
“Making Sense of America” — DAY I — 2 July 2026
10:15 – 10:30 | Arrival + Registration
10:30 – 10:45 | Opening Remarks – Philipp Leonhardt & Mahshid Mayar
10:45 – 12:00 | KEYNOTE – Erica Fretwell [ SUNY – Albany ] – chair: Mahshid Mayar
Sentimentalism and the Distribution of the Insensible
12:00 – 13:15 | Lunch (self-paid)
13:15 – 13:30 | “Erasing Erasures – Splintering Archives” – Critical Art Installation Opening
13:30 – 15:00 | PANEL I — Buccal – Archival – Authentic – chair: Julia Faisst
Andrin Albrecht [ Jena ] & Hannah Schoch [ independent scholar ]
The Privacy of the Mouth
Devon Anderson [ Innsbruck ]
Sensing Across Time: Recognition and Relation in the Queer Archives
Tamara Dima Imboden [ Basel ]
“Avoiding My Mother’s Kitchen”: Cultural Authenticity in Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom
15:00 – 15:30 | Coffee + Tea
15:30 – 17:00 | PANEL II — (Eco)Feminism – Body – Collage – chair: Cornelia Klecker
Johanna Pitetti-Heil [Cologne ]
“Becoming-Body” as “Worlding” in Forcetimespace
Carmen Dexl [ Regensburg ]
Touching the American Landscape: Ecofeminist Sensory Experience in Anna Halprin’s Returning Home
Sandra Tausel [ Innsbruck ]
‘Obeying him was easy, not a drudge’: Lisa Huffaker’s Collage Erasures
17:00 – 17:30 | Coffee + Tea
17:30 – 18:30 | PANEL III —Smell as Method – chair: Michael Fuchs
Tereza Jiroutová Kynčlová [ Charles ]
Olfactory Penetration and Gender in Desert Blood
Hsuan L. Hsu [ UC Davis ] – via zoom
Olfactory Ecologies in the Past Conditional
18:30 – 20:00 | (Conference-) Free time
20:00 | Conference Dinner (self-paid)
“Making Sense of America” — DAY II — 3 July 2026
09:00 – 09:30 | Coffee + Tea
09:30 – 11:00 | PANEL IV — Sensing the Screen – chair: Carmen Dexl
Julia Faisst [ Dortmund ]
Sense-Scapes of Migrant Childhood in Contemporary US Media
Christian Quendler [ Innsbruck ]
Sensation and Validation: The Pop-Cultural Integration of Toxic Masculinity in Film and Television
Sieglinde Lemke [ Freiburg ]
The Academic Video Essay as Method: Exploring Trickle-Down Ideology and Cultural Affect
11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee + Tea
11:30 – 13:00 | PANEL V — War(s) of Senses – chair: Matthias Mösch
Giulia Kobza [ Zurich ]
“The Worst Part Was the Smell”: Memory and the Senses in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
Giulio Segato [ Urbino Carlo Bo ]
“When Trains Make the Dogs Howl”: Yusef Komunyakaa and the Poetics of Soundscape
Masayoshi Yamada [ UC Santa Cruz ]
The Cry of Jazz (1959) and the Soundscape of Race and Neighborhood Change in Postwar Chicago
13:00 – 14:00 | Lunch (self-paid)
14:00 – 15:30 | PANEL VI — Fossilized – Versional – Haptic – chair: Philipp Leonhardt
Michael Fuchs [ Innsbruck ]
Making Deep Time American: Fossils and the Transnational Sensory Politics of ‘America’
Matthias Klestil [ Innsbruck ]
The Materiality of the Book, Haptics, and Versionality
Kristin Allukian [ South Florida ] – via zoom
Touched by Labor: How it Feels to be a Lowell Factory Girl
15:30 – 16:00 | Group Photo + Departure