Katharina Scheerer
Katharina Scheerer

Space Travelers, Martians and Golems: The Relationship between Avant-garde and Popular Culture in Science Fiction around 1900

Picture of K. Scheerer
© Ole Spata

At the beginning of the 20th century, German literature experiences a peak in the Fantastic. Especially in the media of popular culture, but also in the texts of the highly literary avant-gardes, motifs circulate that are familiar today from science fiction: Contact with extraterrestrials, planetary travel and technical utopian fantasies. This finding alone shows that the separation of 'high' and 'low', of art and entertainment, which is repeatedly invoked among others by literary studies is untenable. It is true that authors like Hans Dominik, Kurd Laßwitz and Friedrich Wilhelm Mader publish in other media (e.g. in Das neue Universum or the Schlesische Zeitung) than authors like Georg Heym and Albert Ehrenstein (e.g. Die Aktion). But when Heym and Ehrenstein write about Martians, Alfred Döblin presents Giganten (1932), an "adventure book" that is supposed to be an easily digestible version of his epic Berge Meere und Giganten (1924), and Paul Scheerbart writes about large-scale technical projects, as they are also the title of Bernhard Kellermann's Der Tunnel (1913), it quickly becomes evident that popular culture and the avant-garde don’t inhabit separate spheres.

The dissertation examines which energies circulate between the texts in Greenblatt's sense and takes a look at differences and similarities between the texts. Publication contexts play just as much a role as practices of canonisation. In this way, the field of the Fantastic around 1900 is explored in a theoretically well-founded and analytically validated manner and new descriptive categories are developed that no longer work through the antagonism of 'high' and 'low'.

Contact

ORCID

  • Research Interests

    • Emphatic Modernism / Expressionism
    • Colporta literature
    • Popular culture
    • Posthumanism
    • Fantasy / Science Fiction

  • Education

    since 04/2020 PhD student, German Studies, Graduate School Practices of Literature, University of Münster
    10/2017 - 03/2020 Master of Arts, Kulturpoetik der Literatur und Medien, University Münster
    10/2014 - 09/2017 Bachelor of Arts, German Language and Literature, Communication and Media Studies, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
    10/2010 - 08/2013 Bachelor of Science (dual study program), International Business Administration, University Ludwigshafen am Rhein and training as an industrial management assistant, BASF SE

  • Projects and Professional Experience

    Projects

    03/2023 Organization and moderation, workshop "Kolportage - Pulp - Moderne", German Department, Philipps-Universität Marburg [with David Brehm]
    01/2022 Organization, conference "Kosmische Räume. All-Imaginationen in der kulturellen Landschaft von 1880 bis 1920", German Department, University of Münster [with Sophie Hartisch]
    since 05/2021 Project management, "Eden? Plants between Science and Fiction", Exhibition project by PhD students of the GSPoL and Master students, School of Philolohy, University of Münster
    10/2020 Organization and participation, student conference "'Where are we now?' Orientierungen nach der Postmoderne", LWL Museum of Art and Culture, Münster


    Professional Experience

    since 04/2024 Research and Teaching Assistant, German Department (Prof. Moritz Baßler), University of Münster
    since 01/2024 Research and Teaching Assistant, Institute for Modern German Literature and Media Studies (Prof. Dr. Peter Risthaus), Fernuniversität Hagen
    10/2022 - 03/2023 Visiting Scholar, University of Arizona (Tucson), USA
    10/2021 - 03/2022 Lecturer, German Department, University of Münster
    07/2021 - 12/2021 Research Assistant, Institute for Modern German Literature and Media Studies (Prof. Dr. Peter Risthaus), Fernuniversität in Hagen
    05/2020 - 05/2021 Research Assistant, German Department, Prof. Dr. Moritz Baßler, University of Münster
    10/2018 - 05/2020 Student Assistant, German Department, Prof. Dr. Moritz Baßler, University of Münster
    01/2018 - 04/2020 Student Assistant, Cultural Office, University of Münster


    Teaching Experience

    04/2024 - 09/2024

    BA Seminar "Epische Kurzformen", German Department, University of Münster

    BA/MA Seminar "Fortsetzung folgt: Serienheld:innen in der Populärkultur", Institute for Media, Theatre und Popular Culture, University of Hildesheim
    10/2021 - 03/2022 BA Seminar "Fantastische Literatur um 1900", German Department, University of Münster
    04/2020 - 09/2020 MA Seminar "Where are we now? Orientierungen nach der Postmoderne", German Department, University of Münster [with Sebastian Berlich and Holger Grevenbrock]
    10/2018 - 03/2019 MA Seminar "Realismus-Begriffe der Gegenwart", German Department, University of Münster [with Prof. Dr. Moritz Baßler]

     

  • Publications and Conference Papers

    Publications

    Brehm, David, and Katharina Scheerer, eds. Kolportage – Pulp – Moderne: Literarische Verfahren und Formate zwischen Populär- und Hochkultur. Baden-Baden: Rombach. [forthcoming]

    Becher, Christina, Katharina Scheerer, and Sophie Hartisch, eds. Kosmische Räume: All-Imaginationen in der kulturellen Landschaft zwischen 1880 und 1920. Hannover: Wehrhahn, 2024. [forthcoming]

    Scheerer, Katharina. "Between the Stove and Emancipation: Conservative Women and Anti-Utopian Imaginations in Early German Science Fiction Literature". The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction. Eds. Sonja Fritzsche, Keren Omry, Wendy Pearson, and Lisa Yaszek. London: Routledge, 2023. 365-72.

    Scheerer, Katharina, and Moritz Baßler. "Ein Wilhelminisches Wunder: Zu Georg Heyms 'Der Besuch des Marsmenschen'". literatur für leser:innen 41.3 (2022): 211-23.

    Berlich, Sebastian, Holger Grevenbrock, and Katharina Scheerer, eds. Where Are We Now? Orientierungen nach der Postmoderne. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2022.

    Scheerer, Katharina. "Where Are We Now? Eine Einleitung". Where Are We Now? Orientierungen nach der Postmoderne. Eds. Sebastian Berlich, Holger Grevenbrock, and Katharina Scheerer. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2022. 9-15.

    Scheerer, Katharina. "Zwischen Aufrichtigkeit und Ironie: Future Islands' 'Seasons' als Beispiel der Metamoderne". Where Are We Now? Orientierungen nach der Postmoderne. Eds. Sebastian Berlich, Holger Grevenbrock, and Katharina Scheerer. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2022. 69-75.

    Scheerer, Katharina. "Posthumanismus: Eine Einführung". Where Are We Now? Orientierungen nach der Postmoderne.  Eds. Sebastian Berlich, Holger Grevenbrock, and Katharina Scheerer. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2022. 225-41.

    Scheerer, Katharina, and Nuria Mertens. "Künstliche Tierchen im Paradies: Post- und Transhumanismus in Dietmar Daths Die Abschaffung der Arten". Where Are We Now? Orientierungen nach der Postmoderne. Eds. Sebastian Berlich, Holger Grevenbrock, and Katharina Scheerer. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2022. 243-56.

    Becher, Christina, and Katharina Scheerer, eds. Eden? Plants between Science and Fiction. Münster: University of Münster, 2022.

    Herrmann, Annika, and Katharina Scheerer. "Das narrative Potenzial von Filmmusik am Beispiel von Spielbergs Jaws". Paradigma: Studienbeiträge zu Literatur und Film 3 (2020): 26-32.

     

    Conference Papers

    06/2023 "Wie 'Shakleton' zum Golem wurde: Mesmerismus und Doppelgänger in Georg Heyms Das Tagebuch Shakletons"at the conference "Gespenstische Technologie: Neoromantische Technik- und Medienreflexionen um 1900". Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
    10/2022 Introduction and discussion at a film screening of Little Shop of Horrors, The Loft Cinema, Tucson, USA
    11/2022 "Super Carrots and Killer Vines: Plants between Science and Fiction", Humanities Seminar, University of Arizona (Tucson) [with Joela Jacobs]
    01/2022 "Marsmenschen und Exterritoriale: Außerirdische bei Georg Heym und Albert Ehrenstein", Tagung "Kosmische Räume: All Imaginationen in der kulturellen Landschaft von 1880 bis 1920", University of Münster
    11/2021

    "Between Stove and Emancipation: Female Imaginations of the Utopic in Early German Science-Fiction", 46th Annual Women in German Conference, Online
    09/2021

    "'Im Reich des zweiten Gesichts': Außerirdische als Ausgangspunkt ethischer Diskurse in spekulativer Literatur um 1900", 12th Annual Meeting of the Society for Fantasy Research, University of Cologne/University of Bamberg
    10/2020 "'Make kin, not babies!' Post- und Transhumanismus in der Gegenwartskultur", Young Scholars Conference "'Where are we now?' Orientierungen nach der Postmoderne", University of Münster
    10/2020 "'Aber kann man das ernst nehmen?' Die Metamoderne", Young Scholars Conference "'Where are we now?' Orientierungen nach der Postmoderne", University of Münster

  • Scholarships and Awards

    Scholarships

    since 06/2020 Doctoral Scholarship, German Academic Scholarship Foundation
    10/2016 - 09/2019 Deutschlandstipendium, BMBF

    Awards

    since 01/2023 Participant in the Female Science Talents Intensive Track, Falling Walls Foundation
    06/2022 Teaching award for the BA seminar "Fantastische Literatur um 1900" (2nd place), German Department, University of Münster