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Astrid Haas

Associate Professor, American Literature and Culture
Department of Foreign Languages
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  • E-mailAstrid.Haas@uib.no
  • Phone+47 55 58 51 69
  • Visitor Address
    Sydnesplassen 7
    HF-bygget
    5007 Bergen
  • Postal Address
    Postboks 7805
    5020 Bergen

My research covers periods, genres, media, and theoretical approaches to North American literatures, cultures, and history from the 18th century to the present. I am particularly interested in the following areas:

  • Early North American Studies
  • (Post-)Colonial American Studies
  • Travel Writing, Autobiography, and Drama
  • Inter-American and Atlantic Studies 
  • Transnational Migration and Border Studies
  • the Black and Latinx Diasporas
  • Gender and Sexuality Studies
  • Science Studies, Medical and Environmental Humanities
  • US American Popular Culture

 I am a full or affiliate member of the following research groups and networks:

  • Research Group "Aesthetic Imaginaries," University of Bergen
  • Research Network "Black Americas: Transdisciplinary Dialogues and Hemispheric Perspectives"
  • Research Centre for Migration, Diaspora, and Exile, University of Central Lancashire, UK
  • Center for Inter-American Studies, Bielefeld University, Germany

Recent Conference Presentations

Haas, Astrid. “Undocumented Border Crossing and Migrant Activism: The Artivism of Mexican American Graphic Fiction.” International Conference Representations of Border Crossings in Media, Literature, and the Arts. University of Central Lancashire, UK, 15/12/2022.

Haas, Astrid. “Black Narrative Self-Making in a Changing Scene: The Life and Adventures of James Beckwourth.” International Conference Life Writing, Creativity, and the Social. Bielefeld University, Germany, 24/06/2022.

Haas, Astrid. “Contesting Borders of Genre and Geography in Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative.” 12th MESEA Conference. University of Central Lancashire Cyprus Campus, Cyprus, 27/05/2022.

Haas, Astrid. “Waves of Emancipation: Olaudah Equiano’s Atlantic Travels beyond the Middle Passage.” International Conference Black Mobilities in the Atlantic World. University of Central Lancashire (online), 13/01/2022.

Haas, Astrid. "Black Mission and Mobilization Across Borders." 6th Biennial Conference, International Association of Inter-American Studies. Texas A&M International University, US (online), 13/11/2021.

Haas, Astrid. "Island (Im)Mobilities: Free and Coerced Movements in the Narratives of Ashton Warner and Mary Prince." 44th Annual Conference, Society for Caribbean Studies. University of Wales, UK (online), 8/7/2021.

Haas, Astrid. "The 'Other America': African American Studies in the GDR." 67th Annual Meeting, German Association for American Studies. University of Heidelberg, Germany (online), 19/6/2021.

Haas, Astrid. "To Canada and Beyond: Samuel Ringgold Ward's Transborder Mobility and Activism." 66th Annual Convention, British Associatoin for American Studies (online), 8/4/2021.

Recent Public Talks, Lectures, and Book Launches

Book Launch Roundtable Discussion, featuring Astrid Haas as contributor to Embodying Contagion: The Viropolitics of Horror and Desire in Contemporary Discourse. Winchester School of Art, UK (online), 14/07/2021.

Book Launch, featuring Astrid Haas on Lone Star Vistas: Travel Writing on Texas, 1821-1861. University of Central Lancashire (on site and online), 16/03/2022.

Haas, Astrid: “Versatile Elements: Water and Mobilities in Caribbean Slave Narratives.” Black History Month Lecture, University of Central Lancashire (online), 13/10/2021.

Haas, Astrid. “Black Mobilities in the 19th-Century Indigenous Borderlands.” University of Bremen, Germany (online), 20/05/2021.

Haas, Astrid. “Canaan Limited: Canada in Slave and Neo-Slave Narratives.” Black History Month Lecture, University of Central Lancashire (online), 21/10/2020.

Haas, Astrid, Alan Rice, and Sarah Cullen. "Applying for and Hosting an EU-Funded MSCA Fellowship (All Research Areas)." Webinar, University of Central Lancashire (online), 23/6/2020.

Event Organization

Convener: Conference Black Mobilities in the Atlantic World. Institute for Black Atlantic Research, University of Central Lancashire (online),13-14/01/2022.

Co-Convener: Conference of the International Postgraduate Forum, Bielefeld University. Exploring the Periphery: Perspectives from Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, Literary and Cultural Studies Bielefeld University, 8-9/11/2013.

Co-Convener: Research Group “E Pluribus Unum: Ethnic Identities in Transnational Integration Processes in the Americas.” Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld University, Germany. Nine conferences and workshops, 2008-2009.

Co-Convener: Academic Association “Genus—Münsteraner Arbeitskreis für Gender Studies.” University of Münster, Germany. One conference and seven lecture series, 2000-2005.

I teach courses on various genres and periods of North American Literature and Culture. I am particularly interested in the following areas.

  • Early American Studies
  • Transnational North American Studies
  • Atlantic and Inter-American Studies
  • North American Short Fiction, Autobiography and Travel Writing
  • American and British Crime Fiction and Drama
  • Black Diaspora and Latinx Studies
  • Gender and Sexuality Studies
  • Science Studies
  • US American Cities, Regions, and Popular Culture

Monographs

Haas, Astrid. Lone Star Vistas: Travel Writing on Texas, 1821-1861. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2021.

Haas, Astrid. Stages of Agency: The Contributions of American Drama to the AIDS Discourse. Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 2011.

Edited Volumes and Journal Issues

Haas, Astrid, ed. The Harlem Renaissance from an Inter-American Perspective. Special Issue of FIAR: Forum for Inter-American Research 7.2 (July 2014). http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/cias/fiar/pdf/072/FIAR072-01-71-Complete-Har....

Haas, Astrid, and María Herrera-Sobek, eds. Transfrontera: Transnational Perspectives on the U.S.–Mexi­co Borderlands. Special Issue of The American Studies Journal 57 (May 2012): http://www.asjournal.org/57-2012/

[Haas, Astrid, et al., as] Genus—Münsteraner Arbeitskreis für Gender Studies, ed. Von schönen und anderen Geschlechtern: Schönheit in den Gender Studies. Frankfort/M.: Lang, 2004.

Journal Articles

Haas, Astrid. "Native Bondage, Narrative Mobility: African American Accounts of Indigenous Captivity." Journal of American Studies 56.2 (May 2022): 242-66. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875821000852

Haas, Astrid. “'Currents of Progress', 'Toy Store for Tourists': Nineteenth-Century Mexican Liberals View Niagara Falls.” Journal of Transnational American Studies 10.2 (Winter 2019/20). 165-85. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7hp561nv

Haas, Astrid. “A Changing Game: Ethnicity, Gender, and Nation in the U.S. American Soccer Film.” Comparative American Studies 12.4 (December 2014): 301-15.

Haas, Astrid. “Introduction.” The Harlem Renaissance from an Inter-American Perspective. Ed. Astrid Haas. FIAR: Forum for Inter-American Research 7.2 (July 2014): 4-9. http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/cias/fiar/pdf/072/FIAR072-04-09-Haas1.pdf

Haas, Astrid. “Un continente ‘de color’: Langston Hughes y América Latina.” The Harlem Renaissance from an Inter-American Perspective. Ed. Astrid Haas. FIAR: Forum for Inter-American Research 7.2 (July 2014): 36-54. http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/cias/fiar/pdf/072/FIAR072-36-54-Haas2.pdf

Haas, Astrid. “Borderlands Identities and Borderlands Ideologies in Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop.” Transfrontera: Transnational Perspectives on the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands. Ed. Astrid Haas and María Herrera-Sobek. The American Studies Journal 57 (May 2012). http://www.asjournal.org/57-2012/willa-cathers-death-comes-for-the-archb...

Haas, Astrid, and María Herrera-Sobek. “Introduction.” Transfrontera: Transnational Perspectives on the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands. Ed. Astrid Haas and María Herrera-So­bek. The American Studies Journal 57 (May 2012). http://www.asjournal.org/57-2012/introduction-transfrontera/

Haas, Astrid. “Canon y Cálculo: Jaime Escalante, Richard Rodriguez y el debate educativo latino en­tre asimilación y multiculturalismo.” FIAR: Forum for Inter-American Research 4.1 (May 2011). http://interamericana.de/volume-4-1/haas/

Book Chapters / Articles

Haas, Astrid. "Langston Hughes and Mexico." Langston Hughes in Context. Ed. Vera M. Kutzinski and Anthony Reed. Literature in Context Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 150-59.

Haas, Astrid. “Borderlands Identities and Borderlands Ideologies in Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop.” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 421. Ed. Carol A. Schwartz. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2022. 101-09.

Haas, Astrid. “‘This Long Disease, My Life’: Bodies of Contagion in Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me.” Embodying Contagion: The Viropolitics of Horror and Desire in Contemporary Discourse. Ed. Sandra Becker, Megen de Bruin-Molé, and Sara Polak. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2021. 199-217. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/47586

Haas, Astrid. “Saint or Scoundrel? Representing Padre Martínez in Early (Auto)Biogra­phy and Fiction.” InterAmerican Perspectives in the 21st Century: Festschrift in Honor of Josef Raab. Ed. Olaf Kaltmeier and Wilfried Raussert. Trier, WVT; New Orleans: University of New Orleans Press, 2021. 121-31.

Haas, Astrid. “Prairie Promises, Lone Star Limits: Depictions of Texas in German Travelogues from 1830-1860.” Deutschland und die USA im Vor- und Nachmärz: Politik—Literatur—Wissen­schaft. Ed. Birgit Bublies-Godau and Anne Meyer-Eisenhut. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2018. 235-53.

Haas, Astrid. “From Göttingen to Galveston: Travel Writing and German Migration to Texas, 1830-1848.” Migration in Context: Literature, Culture, and Language. Ed. Marcus Hartner and Marion Schulte. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2016. 135-51.

Haas, Astrid. “Mexican Travelers and the ‘Texas Question,’ 1821-1836.” Hemispheric Encounters: The Early United States in a Transnational Perspective. Ed. Gabriele Pisarz-Ramírez and Markus Heide. Francfort/M.: Lang, 2016. 117-32.

Haas, Astrid. “Un continente ‘de color’: Langston Hughes y América Latina.” Key Tropes in Inter-Ame­rican Studies: Perspectives from The Forum of Inter-American Research. Ed. Wilfried Raussert et al. Trier: WVT; Tempe: Bilingual, Press, 2015. 265-80.

Haas, Astrid. “Between Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny: Spanish American Travel Narratives of Jacksonian America.” Mobile Narratives: Travel, Migration, and Transculturation. Ed. Eleftheria Arapoglou, Mónika Fodor, and Jopi Nyman. New York: Routledge, 2014. 30-42.

Haas, Astrid. “United on the Playing Field? Ethnic and Race Relations in U.S. American Youth Team Sports Films.” New World Colors: Ethnicity, Belonging, and Difference in the Americas. Ed. Josef Raab. Trier: WVT; Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press, 2014. 247-65.

Haas, Astrid. “Remedial Laughter: American Stage Comedy about AIDS.” Communicating Disease: Cultural Representations of American Medicine. Ed. Carmen Birkle and Johanna Heil. Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 2013. 243-64.

Haas, Astrid. “Worte als Waffe, Theater als Therapie: Der Beitrag der Literatur zur Wahrnehmung von AIDS.” Gesellschaft braucht Wissenschaft—Wissenschaft braucht Gesellschaft: Mobilität, Kommunikation, Interaktion. Ed. Ludwig Schultz et al. Stuttgart: Thieme, 2013. 171-86.

Haas, Astrid. “A Continent of Co­lor: Langston Hughes and Spanish America.” Expanding Latinidad. Ed. Luz Angélica Kirschner. Trier: WVT; Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press, 2012. 177-94.

Haas, Astrid. “Latin Skillz: The Fusion of Rap, Film, and Sport in the Mainstreaming of U.S. Latina/o Culture.” Cornbread and Cuchifritos: Ethnic Identity Politics, Transnationalization, and Transculturation in American Urban Popular Music. Ed. Michelle Habell-Pallán and Wilfried Raussert. Trier: WVT; Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press, 2011. 151-66.

Haas, Astrid. “A Raisin in the East: African American Civil Rights Drama in GDR Scholarship and Theater Practice.” Germans and African Americans: Two Centuries of Exchange. Ed. Larry A. Greene and Anke Ortlepp. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2011. 166-84.

Haas, Astrid. “Discourses of Belonging: Language and Identities in Gay Asian American Drama.” Moving Migration: Narrative Transformations in Asian American Literature. Ed. Johanna C. Kardux and Doris Einsiedel. Contributions to Asian American Literary Studies 5. Münster: Lit, 2010. 139-60.

Haas, Astrid. “‘To Russia and Myself’: Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and the Soviet Union.” Transatlantic Negotiations. Ed. Christa Buschendorf and Astrid Franke. Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 2007. 111-31.

Haas, Astrid. “Coloring the Crisis: Representations of Blackness in American AIDS Drama.” Complexions of Race: The African Atlantic. Ed. Fritz Gysin and Cindy Hamilton. Münster: Lit, 2005. 139-55.

Haas, Astrid, and Christian Schmitt. “Einleitung.” Von schönen und anderen Geschlechtern: Schönheit in den Gender Studies. Ed. Genus—Münsteraner Arbeitskreis für Gender Studies. Frankfurt/M.: Lang, 2004. 7-11.

Handbook and Encyclopedia Articles

Haas, Astrid. “Travel Writing.” The Routledge Handbook to the Culture and Media of the Americas. Part I: Literature and Music. Ed. Wilfried Raussert, Giselle Anatol, and Joachim Michael. London: Routledge, 2020. 252-60.

Haas, Astrid, and Luz Angélica Kirschner. “Race.” InterAmerican Wiki: Terms—Con­cepts—Critical Perspectives. Bielefeld University, 2012. https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/cias/wiki/r-Race.html

Haas, Astrid. “Lafayette Players” and “Lafayette Theatre.” Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Vol. 2. Ed. Cary D. Wintz and Paul Finkelman. New York: Routledge, 2004. 676-79.

Artist Interview and Articles in Art Exhibition Catalogues

Haas, Astrid, and Alexia Schemien. “Revisiting the Ancestral Past, Envisioning Chicana Lives: An In­terview with Santa Barraza, Artist of the Borderlands.” Interculturalism in North America: Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Beyond. Ed. Josef Raab and Alexander Greif­fenstern. Trier: WVT; Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press, 2013. 259-74.

Haas, Astrid. “Verlassene Orte—gefundene Räume: Dokumentation des Symposions Das erinnerte Haus.” Das erinnerte Haus. Exh. Cat., Museum Folkwang, Essen, 2004. 39-67.

Haas, Astrid. “‘leben zu erzählen’: Die Arbeiten von Rosana Palazyan.” Magische Expeditionen: Streif­züge mit rätselhaften Empfindungen. Exh. Cat. Museum Folkwang, Essen, 2002. 11-15.

Haas, Astrid. “Strukturen der Kontemplation.” Didier Trenet. Exh. Cat., Museum Folkwang, Es­sen. Cologne: Salon, 2001. 9-13.

Reviews

Haas, Astrid. "Review of Ariane Schröder, Biological Inf(l)ections of the American Dream: Contagious Disease and Narrative Containment in U.S. American Literature and Culture.” Amerikastudien / American Studies 67.4 (2022): 543-45.

Haas, Astrid. “Review of Helmbrecht Breinig, Hemispheric Imaginations: North American Fictions of Latin America.” Comparative Literature Studies 56.4 (2019). 854-57.

Haas, Astrid. “Review of Gina M. Bright, Plague-Making and the AIDS Epidemic: A Story of Discrimination.” Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 251.1 (2014): 209.

Open Access to Full Texts

Many of my journal articles and book chapters are available open access at the academic repository The Stacks. See https://thestacks.libaac.de/browse?rpp=20&offset=20&etal=-1&sort_by=-1&t...

    Black Inter-American Mobility and Autobiography in the Age of Revolutions, 1760-1860.

    In my current interdisciplinary project, I explore the ways transnational autobiographies by black authors address different forms of black mobility in the Americas during the Age of Revolutions and its aftermath (1760-1860). During that time, different black-authored narrative text genres emerged in the region. Among them are four major types of black autobiography: slave narratives, Indian captivity narratives, spiritual autobiographies, and Black memoirs-as-travelogues. In these, different forms of (im-)mobility played a defining role in shaping black identities and experiences. Drawing on the approaches of Inter-American Studies, Black Atlantic Studies, Mobility, and Autobiography Studies, my project closes a gap in the scholarship of Black Diasporic agency, mobility, and authorship the Americas and the Atlantic World.

    This research project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 834975. For more information, please visit the project website: https://bimaar.net

    Fields of competence 
    19. – 21. århundret
    African American Literature
    Age of Revolutions
    American literature
    American Studies
    Literature and Science
    Medical Humanities
    Modernism