Katrin Isabel Schmitt

Junior Member

Academic Career

Katrin Isabel Schmitt is a doctoral researcher in the field of Literary and Cultural Studies, focusing on North American Studies, at the University of Konstanz. She is currently working on her dissertation project titled “Beginning after the End: Narrative and Trauma in Twenty-First Century North American Post-Apocalyptic Fiction” under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Reingard M. Nischik and Prof. Dr. Silvia Mergenthal. In March 2020 she was awarded a doctoral scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Prior to her dissertation, Katrin successfully completed her state exam in German and English (teaching degree) at the University of Konstanz, including a stay abroad at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

Katrin was a research associate for Prof. Nischik, Chair of North American Studies at the University of Konstanz. She worked on research projects and taught courses for graduate and undergraduate students. Prior to that, she had already been employed as a research assistant for the department for two years.

Additionally to her research, Katrin is employed as a start-up officer at the university’s startup-initiative Kilometer1. Here, she is specialising in strategical and operational marketing and communication activities.

Get in touch with me: katrin.schmitt@uni-konstanz.de / Twitter: @katisstrophe

Let’s connect on LinkedIn!

Interests

  • Enivronmental Humanities
  • Speculative Fiction
  • North American Studies
  • Contemporary Literature
  • Narratives of Catastrophe
  • Trauma Studies
  • Science Communication
  • Innovation and Knowledge Transfer

Dissertation Project

In my PhD project, I examine contemporary North American post-apocalyptic novels, focusing on trauma and narrative. This study is highly significant for current research as contemporary ‘Western’ societies are shaped by a fundamental sense of catastrophe, which is not least mirrored in recent literary trends. Thus, the corpus of my project covers canonical and critically acclaimed twenty-first century American and Canadian post-apocalyptic novels, such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, and Margaret Atwood’s acclaimed MaddAddam trilogy.

Although the concepts “apocalypse” and “trauma” are usually used in different contexts and disciplines, my project demonstrates them to be closely interlinked as both concern events that cause radical internal and external changes. In literary works such issues are addressed both structurally as well as on the level of plot – especially concerning issues of narration and narratability. To approach such representations, I developed a three-phase model characterizing the post-apocalypse: 1. Catastrophe; 2. Destruction; and 3. New Beginnings. The apocalypse is read as the initial catalyst of change, to then consider the post-apocalyptic world as a liminal space between the preceding and the new, as a time of radical change that is still significantly influenced by what has been before. In addition to portrayals of the end of the world, a focus is placed on (potential) new beginnings within which political, philosophical, economical, and bioethical questions and values are renegotiated.

Talks and Teaching Experiences

  • March 2021: Talk “Post-Apocalyptic, Post-Human? Margaret Atwood’s Biocentric Vision in the Madd Addam Trilogy” at the 42. International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts: “Climate Change and the Anthropocene" in Orlando, Florida (online)
  • January 2021: Talk “The Wrong Kind of Viral: Post-Apocalyptic Pandemics in Contemporary North American Fiction” at Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics in Fiction, Film and Culture hosted by Cappadocia University, Turkey (online)
  • Winter term 2017/2018: Seminar “Margaret Atwood’s Dystopian Fiction” at the Department of Literature, Art, and Media Studies at the University of Konstanz
  • July 2017: Conference chair and student assistant, "Canada Across Borders: Comparative Perspectives" (Emerging Scholars’ Forum of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-speaking Countries)
  • Summer term 2018: Seminar “North American Post-Apocalyptic Short Fiction” at the Department of Literature, Art, and Media Studies at the University of Konstanz.

Publications

Schmitt, Katrin Isabel. “The Wrong Kind of Viral: Post-Apocalyptic Pandemics in Contemporary North American Fiction.” SFRA Review, vol. 51, no. 2, Spring 2021.

Memberships and Projects

  • Board member at the Konstanz Research School at the University of Konstanz since April 2022
  • Board member at the Doctoral Students' Convention, Faculty II (Humanities) at the University of Konstanz since November 2021
  • Initiator and organizer of the project “Collaborative Working Times for Doctoral Students” at the University of Konstanz since January 2021
  • Doctoral student representative at the Committee on Research (AFF) at the University of Konstanz since November 2020
  • Founder and member of the writing group “Schreiberlinge” since May 2020
  • Doctoral Scholarship holder at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation since March 2020