Ruth Mayer

Ruth Mayer holds the Chair of American Studies at Leibniz University Hannover, teaching American literature and culture from the 17th century to the present with a focus on theoretical and formal questions. She directs the research projects "Contingency and Contraction: Modernity and Temporality in the United States, 1880-1920" and "Multiplication: Modernity, Mass Culture, Gender". Her work intersects with the Centre for Atlantic and Global Studies and she serves on the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Humanities.

• Education: Habilitation (University of Cologne, 2000), Doctorate (Free University Berlin, 1994), Master of Arts (Free University Berlin, 1991)

Mayer's research spans popular culture (especially seriality and serialization), media history, globalization, science studies, and cultural contact. Her current projects analyze modernity's temporal and mass-cultural dimensions, while past work includes diaspora studies and trans-Pacific interactions. Recent publications focus on modernity's deferral mechanisms, periodical press aesthetics, and gendered mass culture.

Her 15 most recent articles (2017-2024) investigate topics like serial narrative logic, mass culture's gendered aesthetics, temporal dynamics in silent cinema, and epistemic media formats. These works connect to broader sub-fields including transatlantic modernism, queer theory, racial representation, and media standardization.