The Blog Editors

Maryann Henck
Maryann Henck, M.A.
I think of myself as a jack-of-all-trades and mas­ter of one: dra­ma and per­for­mance – on as well as off stage; it’s a per­son­al pas­sion that I avid­ly pur­sue in my life, stud­ies, and teach­ing. After accept­ing a Ful­bright Schol­ar­ship for the West­fälis­che-Wil­helms Uni­ver­si­ty in Mün­ster and com­plet­ing my Mas­ter’s Degree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, I found myself back in Ger­many and have been lec­tur­ing in North Amer­i­can stud­ies at Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty in Lüneb­urg since 2000. When I’m not stag­ing plays and dra­mat­ic read­ings, I offer sem­i­nars – not only on North Amer­i­can dra­ma – but also on eth­nic stud­ies as well as writ­ing cre­ative fic­tion. Cur­rent­ly, I am try­ing my hand at cre­ative non-fic­tion in the new­ly found­ed Amer­i­can Stud­ies Blog.

Blog posts by Maryann Henck

Prof. (apl.) Dr. Maria Moss
I received my doc­tor­al degree in one of my life-long pas­sions – Native Amer­i­can Stud­ies – from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg in 1993 and my post-doc­tor­al degree from the Free Uni­ver­si­ty Berlin in 2006. I have been teach­ing North Amer­i­can Stud­ies at Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty Lüneb­urg since 2007.

In addi­tion to numer­ous pub­li­ca­tions on Native issues, I have recent­ly branched out into the fields of ani­mal ethics and Crit­i­cal Ani­mal Stud­ies. The fol­low­ing forth­com­ing arti­cles are evi­dence of my lat­est pas­sion: “A Whale of a Prob­lem: Indige­nous Tra­di­tion vs. Eco­log­i­cal Taboo,” “‘Their deaths are not ele­gant’: Ani­mals in Mar­garet Atwood’s Writ­ings,” and “From With­in Fur and Feath­ers: Ani­mals in Native Life and Lit­er­a­ture.” My oth­er fields of teach­ing and research include cre­ative writ­ing, Cana­di­an Stud­ies, and envi­ron­men­tal lit­er­a­ture. Writ­ing cre­ative non-fic­tion for the Amer­i­can Stud­ies Jour­nal blog will be a new chal­lenge which I embrace wholeheartedly.

Blog posts by Maria Moss

Torben Schmidt
Prof. Dr. Tor­ben Schmidt
Prof. Dr. Tor­ben Schmidt is Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish Didac­tics at the Insti­tute of Eng­lish Stud­ies at Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty Lüneb­urg. His fields of inter­ests are for­eign lan­guage learn­ing and the dig­i­tal media, self-direct­ed learn­ing and project work in the Eng­lish as a For­eign Lan­guage (EFL) class­room, teach­ing EFL in ele­men­tary schools, dra­ma in edu­ca­tion, and the teach­ing of lis­ten­ing and speak­ing. He is a two times win­ner of the Hans-Eber­hard-Piepho Prize for Com­mu­nica­tive Lan­guage Teach­ing. Tor­ben Schmidt has worked as an edi­tor and author of EFL teach­ing mate­ri­als and text­books. Since 2013 he has been an Edi­to­r­i­al Board mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Stud­ies Journal.


Dr. Sab­ri­na Völz
In 1998, I received my Ph.D. in Ger­man Lit­er­a­ture from Penn­syl­vania State Uni­ver­si­ty. I have been North Amer­i­can stud­ies and Eng­lish class­es at Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty Lüneb­urg for over twen­ty years.  

My teach­ing and research inter­ests encom­pass Ger­man Amer­i­can his­to­ry and cul­ture, North Amer­i­can eth­nic lit­er­a­tures and film as well as cre­ative non-fic­tion. Recent pub­li­ca­tions include “Lee Daniels’ The But­ler: Over­com­ing the Trans­gres­sions of Pre­cious and Nego­tiating the Dou­ble Blind,” and “Doc­u­ment­ing Oral His­to­ry and Lessons in Truth Telling in Nadia McLaren’s Muffins for Granny and Tim Wolochatiuk’s We Were Chil­dren.”  

My cur­rent project on Jew­ish Amer­i­can Stud­ies began with Film Direc­tor Ethan Bensinger’s vis­it to Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty in 2015. Upcom­ing arti­cles include an entry on Bernard Mala­mud in The Hand­book of the Amer­i­can Short Sto­ry (De Gruyter Press) and an arti­cle enti­tled, “The ‘Games’ Peo­ple Play: The Dan­gers of Holo­caust Sim­u­la­tions and Thought Exper­i­ments in Nathan Englander’s and Ellen Umansky’s Short Sto­ries and Beyond. 

Join­ing the edi­to­r­i­al team of the Amer­i­can Stud­ies Blog has helped me to fur­ther explore the pos­si­bil­i­ties of life writ­ing, not only as an aca­d­e­m­ic but also as an avid blog­ger. When I am not teach­ing, doing research, writ­ing blogs, or vis­it­ing my fam­i­ly and friends in Iowa, I can be found on Twit­ter. Fol­low me @srvoelz

Blog posts by Sab­ri­na Völz


The blog edi­tors are mem­bers of the Insti­tute of Eng­lish Stud­ies and of the Zen­tralein­rich­tung Mod­erne Sprachen (ZeMoS) at Leuphana Uni­ver­sität Lüneb­urg, Germany.