Anglophone Studies
From Indo-Global Perspectives to Feminism
This page gives an overview of the research projects and groups of the Anglophone Studies in cooperation with different Indian partner institutions variyng in topic from Indo-Global-Perspectives to Feminism.
Reorienting the Modern: Indo-Global Perspectives (started in 2024 / ongoing)
Situated within the framework of JMU's focus group 'Modernity and Contemporaneity' (Kolleg Moderne und Gegenwart), the project 'Reorienting the Modern: Indo-Global Perspectives' aims to contribute to the difficult process of opening up the deep-seated Western-centric approach to history and potentiality.
Participating Scholars: Prof. Dr. Zeno Ackermann (British Cultural Studies, JMU) / Prof. Dr. Gesine Drews-Sylla (Slavonic Studies, JMU) / Dr. Justyna Kurowska (Indology, JMU) / Prof. Dr. Kirsten Sandrock (English Literature, JMU) / Prof. Dr. Maryann Snyder-Körber (American Cultural Studies, JMU)
Cultural Studies Colloquium (started in 2018 / ongoing)
As an important element of JMU Cultural Studies, the Cultural Studies Colloquium (CSC) brings together advanced and graduate students to reinvestigate the cultural studies tradition and to retool its approaches for the contemporary world. As far as possible, the format of the respective seminars is not only transdisciplinary but also transnational, with a special emphasis on the (online) participation of students from our Indian partner institutions Jamia Millia Islamia and JNU in Delhi.
Our efforts to transnationalize the CSC have been conducted as part of the DAAD-funded initiative WUEGLOBAL.
Publication: TOBIAS JETTER (ed.), Global Cultural Studies? – Engaged Scholarship between National and Transnational Frames (Würzburg UP, 2023).
Mobile Feminisms: Gender, Social Media, Transnational Connections (2023–2024)
What happens when feminism goes mobile, traveling across time and space as well as medial frameworks, cultural repertoires, and nation-state bounds? The project “Mobile Feminisms: Gender, Social Media, Transnational Interactions” explores this key question for a transnationally oriented feminist studies with an approach that is itself fundamentally transnational. Established and early-stage scholars at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University, New Delhi and Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg have worked together since 2023, exploring feminism’s mobility in case studies drawn from the wide-ranging global public created by social media. The resulting analyses push back against assumptions of an online monoculture as well as online-only culture. Digital interaction is instead understood in terms of travel, difference, and, thus, within the longer trajectory of globalization as a historical process and subject of theorization. Most decidedly, online interactions reveal their fundamental connections to offline conditions and local commitments.
A collected volume “Mobile Feminisms: Gender, Social Media, Transnational Interactions” is currently in preparation for publication in early 2026.
The project was cross-funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) and the Indian University Grants Commission (UGC) from 2023 through 2024.
The collaboration has further been supported by the University’s Women’s Representative (Büro der Universitätsfrauenbeauftragte, UFB) and the Siebold Collegium for Advanced Studies (SCIAS) at JMU Würzburg.
Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Simi Mahlhotra (JMI) and Prof. Dr. MaryAnn Snyder-Körber (JMU)
Participating Scholars in the Mobile Feminisms Research Group:
• Prof. Dr. Simi Malhotra – English – Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi
• Sakshi Dogra, M. Phil – English – Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi
• Suman Bhagchandani, M. Phil – English – Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi
• Dr. Jennifer Leetsch – Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies – Universität Bonn
• Dr. Mareike Spychala – American Studies – Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg
• Prof. Dr. MaryAnn Snyder-Körber – American Cultural Studies – Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
• Sophie Renninger, M.A. – American Studies – Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
• Lukas Hellmuth, M.A. – American Studies – Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
• Nina Wintermeyer – Mobile Feminisms Project Assistant – Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
• Şelale Hannah Erduran – Mobile Feminisms Project Assistant – Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
New Terrains of Consciousness: Globalization, Sensory Environments and Local Cultures of Knowledge (2019–2021)
Systematically and transnationally combining sensory studies, ecocriticism and globalization studies, the project New Terrains of Consciousness compared cultural practices and cultural legacies of worldmaking in India, the Anglophone 'West' and Germany. It proceeded from the conviction that a multilateral focus on the cultural production, intellectual re-construction and historical transformation of sensory environments can offer new perspectives on 'globalization' as an ongoing – and often asymmetrical – processes of re-negotiating the relationships between 'local' and 'global', 'national' and 'transnational', 'traditional' and 'modern' sites of agency.
The project was funded by the INDIAN MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT through the SCHEME FOR PROMOTION OF ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH COLLABORATION (SPARC).
Participating scholars and institutions: ZENO ACKERMANN (British Cultural Studies, JMU Würzburg) / ISABEL KARREMANN (English Dept., University of Zürich) / SIMI MALHOTRA (English Dept., Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi) / NISHAT ZAIDI (English Dept., Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi)
Conference: Globalization and New Terrains of Consciousness (9-10 Feb. 2021)
Publication: Terrains of Consciousness: Multilogical Perspectives on Globalization (Würzburg UP, 2021).
Literature in a Globalized World: Creative and Critical Perspectives (2016–2020)
Conducted as a teaching and research project, Literature in a Globalized World allowed students and early career researchers to build a profile in literature and globalization studies. The key measure in this programme consisted in a wealth of seminars, workshops, lectures as well as Winter and Summer Schools hosted in Delhi and Würzburg and taught jointly by lecturers of JMU Würzburg, JNU Delhi and other international guest professors.
The project was funded by the GERMAN ACADEMIC EXCHANGE SERVICE (DEUTSCHER AKADEMISCHER AUSTAUSCHDIENST | DAAD) and the UNIVERSITY GRANTS COMMISSION India (UGC) under the joint programme DIP/IGP (DEUTSCH-INDISCHE PARTNERSCHAFTEN / INDO-GERMAN PARTNERSHIPS).
Participating scholars and institutions: ZENO ACKERMANN (British Cultural Studies, JMU Würzburg) / ISABEL KARREMANN (English Dept., University of Zürich) / SAUGATA BHADURI (Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU], Delhi)
