Lorena Bickert

Lorena Bickert is a Lecturer in the American Studies Section at the University of Bamberg's Faculty of Humanities and Cultural Studies. She completed her Ph.D. in American Literature and Culture magna cum laude in February 2024 with a dissertation titled "Eco-Heroism: Embodied Ecological Crisis in Contemporary North American Fiction." Previously, she served as a PhD student at the same institution from 2019-2023 with a Cusanuswerk Scholarship.

Her academic background includes:

• Master's degree in English and American Studies from the University of Bamberg (2018-2019)
• First State Examination in English/Spanish from the University of Bamberg (2018)
• ERASMUS exchange at Universidad de Huelva, Spain (2014-2015)
• Undergraduate studies in English and Spanish at the University of Bamberg (2012-2018)

Lorena's research centers on the intersections of ecocriticism, speculative fiction, gender studies, and nineteenth-century American poetry. Her work examines how contemporary literature addresses ecological crises through innovative narrative forms and representations of heroism. She has co-organized the 2021 conference "Speculative Fiction and Ethics," the 12th Annual Meeting of the Society for Fantasy Research.

Her scholarly publications demonstrate a consistent focus on reimagining heroism in contemporary speculative fiction, particularly examining how marginalized perspectives reshape traditional heroic narratives in ecological crisis contexts. Both her major publications analyze alternative visions of heroism in apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic North American fiction.

Lorena maintains active professional memberships:

• German Society for American Studies (since 2021)
• Society for Fantasy Research (since 2021)

As an educator, she teaches diverse courses including "Introduction to British and American Cultural Studies," "Eco-Heroines in American Literature and Culture," "America on Stage: Diversity and Representation in American Drama," and "American Women's Poetry." Her teaching integrates research interests, particularly examining representations of diversity, environmental concerns, and gender in American cultural production.