Stefanie Müller

Prof. Stefanie Müller is a Full Professor and Chair of North American Literature at the John F. Kennedy Institute of Freie Universität Berlin. She holds a Habilitation (2018) and a Ph.D. (2011) in American Studies from Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, and a Magister Artium in American and English Studies (2006). Her research spans American literature, focusing on corporate storytelling, climate change narratives, Indigenous sovereignty, and law-literature intersections.

• Education
  • Habilitation, American Studies, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (2018)
  • Dr. phil., American Studies, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (2011)
  • Magister Artium, American and English Studies, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (2006)

Müller’s research projects include Scale in Environmental Literatures, analyzing genre-specific representations of climate crisis temporality and space; The Legal Grounds of Contemporary Indigenous Poetry, exploring land sovereignty and settler-colonial law; and Model/ling Collectives, bridging economic theory and literary collective agency. Her recent articles and monographs emphasize posthumanism, corporate aesthetics, and decolonial narratives.

Her scholarly contributions include the monographs The Corporation in the Nineteenth-Century American Imagination (2023) and The Presence of the Past in the Novels of Toni Morrison (2013), alongside co-edited volumes on collective agency, financial temporality, and law-poetry dynamics. She has received grants such as the Volkswagen Symposia Grant (2020) and the Feodor Lynen Fellowship (2014-2016).

• Scientific Awards
  • Volkswagen Symposia Grant (2020)
  • Best Article Award (2019)
  • Return Fellowship (2017)
  • Feodor Lynen Fellowship (2014-2016)
  • Finalist, Toni Morrison Society Book Prize (2012-2015)

At Freie Universität Berlin, Müller teaches courses such as The American Renaissance Reconsidered and History and Memory in African American Literature. She has supervised doctoral students Francesco Bacci, Julie Dickson, and Simone Sannio. Her work is deeply embedded in interdisciplinary frameworks, connecting literature with economics, law, and environmental justice.