Ulla Haselstein

Professor Dr. Ulla Haselstein is a leading scholar in American literature and cultural studies, holding the C4-Professorship for North American Literature at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin (2004–2023). She previously served as Ordinaria for North American Literary History at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (1996–2004) and held academic positions at Universität Konstanz and UC Santa Cruz. Her habilitation (1996) at Freie Universität Berlin focused on intercultural exchange in literary texts.

• PhD: Universität Konstanz (1988), supervised by Wolfgang Iser
• Habilitation: Freie Universität Berlin (1996)

Her research spans American modernism, psychoanalytic theory, text-image relationships, diasporic literature, and cultural memory. She has published extensively on Gertrude Stein’s literary portraits and the cultural implications of seriality in modernist texts. Her recent work includes monographs on Stein and studies of coolness as a cultural phenomenon.

Her 15 most recent articles examine topics like Stein’s serial aesthetics, Mark Twain’s cultural legacy, allegorical representation, and spectral themes in Native American literature. These works reflect her interdisciplinary approach to modernist experimentation, gender studies, and transnational cultural dynamics.

• Harris Visiting Professorship, Dartmouth College (2024)
• Opus Magnum Stipendium der VolkswagenStiftung (2014)
• DRS Award for Excellent Supervision (2011)
• Warburg Forschungsprofessur (2009)
• DFG Publikationsförderung (2000)
• Dissertationspreis der Stadt Konstanz (1990)

Haselstein has directed major research clusters including the Excellence Cluster 'Temporal Communities' and 'Languages of Emotion.' She co-founded the Graduate School for North American Studies and leads international projects on Jewish-American writing. Her teaching integrates critical theory, gender studies, and cultural analysis across institutions in Germany, the U.S., and Europe.