Markus Engelns

Dr. Markus Engelns is a Research Fellow at the Institute of German Studies - Literary Studies and Didactics within the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Based at the Essen Campus (Room R11 T06 D46), he actively contributes to teaching and research in literary/media studies while supervising BA/MA theses in Children's and Young Adult Literature.

His research spans media cultural studies, narratology, discourse analysis, and contemporary media forms including game studies, comic studies, and film studies. He investigates narrative structures in 20th/21st century literature, security discourses, pop culture phenomena, and e-learning applications for teacher training.

His seminal 2014 publication established a typology for analyzing narrative fractures in computer games, bridging game studies and literary theory by examining the interplay between simulation, play, and narrative levels. This work highlights how meaning emerges from the tensions within complex media objects.

Key recognitions include:

• Dissertation scholarship from the Rectorate of Bielefeld University
• 2015 Dies Academicus Prize for best humanities dissertation (University of Duisburg-Essen)

Dr. Engelns manages thesis supervision through structured Moodle allocations and organizes the Interdisciplinary Symposium for Image and Text research network, which hosts events like the Comic Conference 2016 and lecture series on 1968's literary consequences. His current habilitation project examines nuclear threat narratives across Cold War to Fukushima eras.