Publications

Monographs and Editorships

Co-editor, with Viola Marchi, Throwing the Moral Dice: Ethics and the Problem of Contingency. Fordham University Press, 2022.

Co-editor, with Britta Sweers and Kornelia Imesch, Critique of Authenticity. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2020.

Co-author, with Dietmar Wetzel, Zur Aktualität von Jacques Rancière. Darmstadt: VS Verlag, 2016.

Editor, The Common Growl. New York: Fordham UP, 2016.

Editor, The Conditions of Hospitality. Ethics, Politics, and Aesthetics on the Threshold of the Possible. New York: Fordham UP, 2013.

Aesthetics & Ethics: Otherness and Moral Imagination from Aristotle to Levinas and from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to House Made of Dawn. Heidelberg: Winter, 2008.

Grenzfälle: Mythos - Ideologie - American Studies. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1998.

Co-editor, with Ulla Haselstein and Sieglinde Lemke, Aesthetic Transgressions: Modernity, Liberalism, and the Function of Literature. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2006.

Co-editor, with mit Maria Moss, Neo-Realism: Between Innovation and Continuation, Amerikastudien/American Studies Special Issue. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2004.

Co-editor, with Winfried Fluck, Theories of American Culture, REAL- Band Nr. 19. Tübingen: Narr, 2003.

Co-editor, with Maria Moss, “Mirror Writing”: (Re-)Constructions of Native American Identity. Glienicke/Cambridge: Galda + Wilch Verlag, 2000.

Work in Progress

Co-editor, with Viola Marchi, Throwing the Moral Dice: Ethics and/of Contingency. Fordham UP, Forthcoming.

The Metonymic Society: Toward a Poetics of Contingency. Forthcoming.

Essays

“A Critique of Authenticity and Recognition.” In T. Claviez, B. Sweers, K. Imesch (eds.), Critique of Authenticity. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2020. 43-58.

“The Dual Paradox of Authenticity in the 21st Century: A Response to Alessandro Ferrara.” In T. Claviez, B. Sweers, K. Imesch (eds.), Critique of Authenticity. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2020. 19-30.

“Introduction.” With Britta Sweers and Kornelia Imesch. In T. Claviez, B. Sweers, K. Imesch (eds.), Critique of Authenticity. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2020. vii-xix.

“Neorealism, Contingency, and the Linguistic Turn.” Humanities 8.4 (2019): 176. Special Issue Ethics and Literary Practice. Ed. Adam Zachary Newton.

“Where Are Jacques and Ernesto When You Need Them? Rancière and Laclau on Populism, Experts and Contingency.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 45:9-10 (2019): 1132-1143.

“Walt Whitman: Metonymy, Contingency, and the Democracy of it All.” In Winfried Herget (ed.), Walt Whitman Revisited: On the Occasion of His 200th Birthday. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2019. 139-162.

“Melville, Whitman, and Metonymy: Towards a New Poetics of Community.“ Textual Practice 33 (2019): 1767-1785.

“Dramen der An(v)erkennung: Kritische Theorie als Literaturgeschichte.” In Michael Fest/Philipp Schweighauser (eds.), Subjektivität und Fremdheit in demokratischen Gemeinschaften. Beiträge am Schnittpunkt von Literatur und Politischer Philosophie. München: Wilhelm Fink, 2017.

“A Metonymic Community? Toward a Poetics of Contingency.” In Claviez, Thomas (ed.), The Common Growl. New York: Fordham UP, 2016.

“Krise, Kritik, Kontingenz: Prolegomena zu einer neuen Poetik der Gemeinschaft.” Friedrich, Janette; Thoma, Dieter; Festl, Michael; Grosser, Florian; Hüglig, Anton (Hgg). Uber Krise und Kritik - Crise et critique. Studia philosophica. Jahrbuch der Schweizerischen Philosophischen Gesellschaft. Vol. 74, 2015. 107-120.

“Presentation of Terence Cave.” In Cave, Terence (Hg.), Far Other Worlds, and Other Seas. The Annual Balzan Lecture: Vol. 6, 2015. Florenz: Leo S. Olschki.

“Traces of a Metonymic Society in American Literary History.” In Fluck et al. (eds.), American Studies Today. Heidelberg: Winter, 2014. 299-322.

“Reply to Petar Ramadanovic.” PMLA 129.1 (2014): 126-127.

“Done and Over With, Finally? Otherness, Metonymy and the Ethics of Comparison.” PMLA 128.3 (2013): 608-614.

“Transcendifferance, or: Limping Toward a Radical Hospitality.” In T. Claviez (ed.), The Conditions of Hospitality. New York: Fordham, 2013.

“Rancière, Schiller, and ‘Free Play’: Politicizing the Game.” Colloquium Helveticum 43 (2012): 147-159.

“Alterity, Hybridity, and ‘Exemplary Universality’: Some Remarks on Alessandro Ferrara’s Concept of ‘Reflective Authenticity.” In Julia Straub (ed.), Paradoxes of Authenticity: Studies on a Critical Concept. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2012. 77-92.

“Jamming What Exactly? Some Notes on the ‘Anthropological Machine’ and Ethics in Derrida, Agamben, Calarco, and Latour.” In Timo Müller (ed.), Literature, Ecology, Ethics: Recent Trands in European Ecocriticism. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. 69-80.

“Giorgio Agamben.” In M. Betzler et al. (Hgg.), Kröner Lexicon Ästhetik und Kunstphilosophie, Kröner: Stuttgart, 2012. 16-23.

“Die Rückkehr des Mythos - das Ende der Aufklärung?” In Dietmar Wetzel (Hrsg.), Perspektiven der Aufklärung. München: Narr, 2012. 43-56.

“Modernist Short Stories between the Regional and the Universal: William Faulkner’s ‘Dry September’ and Eudora Welty’s ‘Petrified Man’.” In A. Nünning/M. Basseler (eds.), A History of the American Short Story. Trier: WVT, 2011. 219-38.

“Democracy: ‘A Dieu, à venir, or au Revoir?’”Annals of Scholarship 19:3 (2010): 108-125.

“Discipline and (Non-)Conformity: European American Studies as Non-American Studies.” In B. Christ et al. (eds.), American Studies/Shifting Gears. Heidelberg: Winter, 2010. 23-38.

“Vom (White) American Adam zur (Black) American Eve: Identitäten und Utopien in Toni Morrisons Paradise.” In Claudia Benthien/Manuela Gerlof (Hgg.), Paradies. Topographien der Sensucht. Wien/Köln: Böhlau, 2010. 135-154.

“What is a European? Letters from a European Americanist,” in Theo D’haen/Iannis Goerlandt (eds.), Literature for Europe? Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. 79-100.

“The Southern Demiurge at Work: Modernism, Literary Theory and William Faulkner’s ‘Dry September’.” Journal of Modern Literature 32:4 (2009): 22-33.

“Pragmatic Transcendence:‘Power and Weakness’ and the Solar System According to Robert Kagan.” PhiN (Philologie im Netz) 47 (2009): 85-97.

“Declining the Sublime: Stephen Crane’s ‘The Open Boat’.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 53:2 (2008): 137-151.

“Between Aesthetics and (Ethno-)Politics, Europe, America, and Beyond: Cosmopolitanism from Henry James to Toni Morrison.” In W. Fluck/S. Brandt/ I. Thaler (eds.), Transnational American Studies, Real Vol. 23. Tübingen: Narr, 2007. 97-112.

“‘Blotted Out: Richard Wright’s Native Son and the Limits of Narrative Ethics.” Annals of Scholarship 17:1 (Summer 2007): 31-69.

“Enigmatic Circles: Approaching the Ethics of Myth Through N. Scott Momaday.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 51:4 (2006): 523-538.

“Rainbows, Fogs, and Other Smokescreens: Billy Budd and the Question of Ethics.” Arizona Quarterly 62:4 (Winter 2006): 31-46.

“Ecology as Moral Stand(s): Environmental Ethics, Western Moral Philosophy, and the Problem of the Other.” In S. Mayer/C. Gersdorf (eds.), Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. 435-454.

“Muted Fanfares: The Topos of the Common Man in the Works of Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams and James Agee.” In T. Claviez/U. Haselstein/S. Lemke (eds.), Aesthetic Transgressions: Modernity, Liberalism, and the Function of Literature. Heidelberg: Winter, 2006. 289-313.

“Cosmopolitanism and its Discontents: The Politics of Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead.” In K. Kolinska/B. Georgi-Findlay (eds.), Contemporary Aboriginal Literature in North America. Litteraria Pragensia 30, Vol. 15 (2005): 17-27; reprinted in M. Prochazka (ed.), After History. Prag: Litteraria Pragensia, 2007. 327-343.

“Introduction: Neorealism and How to Make It New.” In T. Claviez/M. Moss (eds.), Neorealism: Between Innovation and Continuation. Amerikastudien-Themenband. Heidelberg: Winter, 2004. 5-18.

“‘Second Nature’s Nation’ and Environmental Ethics: A Reply to Leo Marx and Lawrence Buell.” In H. Bak/W. Hoelbling (eds.), Nature’s Nation Reconsidered. American Concepts of Nature from Wonder to Ecological Crisis. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2003. 51-59.

“Afterword: American Studies - The State of Affairs and the Affairs of the State.” In T. Claviez/W. Fluck (eds.), Theories of American Culture, REAL Vol. 19. Tübingen: Narr, 2003. 325-341.

“Whose ‘American’ Century -Whose ‘American’ Studies, or: What Indeed Is in a Name?” In B. Georgi-Findlay/H.U. Mohr (eds.), Millenial Perspectives. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2003. 249-261.

“Narrating Environmental Ethics: N. Scott Momaday and Walter Benjamin.” In T. Claviez/M. Moss (eds.), “Mirror Writing”: (Re-)Constructions of Native American Identity. Glienicke/Cambridge: Galda + Wilch Verlag, 2000. 171-193.

“Ambrose Pierce” and “Bret Harte.” In B. Engler/K. Müller (eds.), Metzler Lexikon amerikanischer Autoren. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2000. 70-72; 306-307.

“Pragmatism, Critical Theory, and the Search for Ecological Gnealogies in American Culture.” In W. Fluck (ed.), Pragmatism and Literary Studies, REAL Vol. 15. Tübingen: Narr, 1999. 343-380.

“Dimensioning Society: Ideology, Rhetoric and Criticism in the Work of Sacvan Bercovitch.” In W. Fluck (ed.), The Historical and Political Turn in Literary Studies, REAL Vol. 11. Tübingen: Narr, 1995. 173-205.

“Ideology and Rhetoric: The Function of Mythopoiesis in Frederick Turner’s Frontier Thesis.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 39 (1994): 563-577.

Forthcoming

“N. Scott Momaday,” Oxford Bibliographies in American Literature.