Birte Christ

Birte Christ is an Associate Professor in the English Seminar at the Faculty of Humanities, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. She maintains her office in room 559 of the Brecht Building (Wilhelmstraße 50) and holds regular office hours on Fridays from 10-12h, with registration available via list in front of her office or by email.

Dr. Christ specializes in American cultural studies with a particular focus on visual representations of the death penalty in American society. Her research examines how cultural narratives shape public understanding of capital punishment across different historical periods. She analyzes the evolution of these representations from the 1890s to contemporary times, exploring how visual media constructs meaning around this controversial legal practice.

Her most recent publication, Imagining the American Death Penalty: The Cultural Work of Popular Visual Representations (Oxford University Press, 2025), represents her second major scholarly work. The book traces the negotiation of the death penalty in popular US culture through analysis of early silent films, crime movies from the 1950s and 1960s, and television shows at the turn of the 21st century. This research sits at the intersection of American studies, visual culture, criminal justice, and media studies.

As a faculty member in the English Seminar with specific affiliation to the American Studies Department, Dr. Christ contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship examining the relationship between cultural production and legal institutions in American society. Her work provides critical insights into how visual narratives influence social and political discourse surrounding capital punishment.