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List of Contributors
John Dean is Professor of American Studies and Cultural History at the University of Versailles, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, in France. He previously co-chaired the American Studies Program at the University of Strasbourg and was Director of Crosscultural Studies at the University of Syracuse, Strasbourg. Dr. Dean has frequently directed courses on U.S. Cultural Studies and given guest lectures at teacher training workshops in Germany (Akademie für Lehrerfortbildung, Dillingen) and throughout Europe from Sicily to Denmark. He was a Resident Scholar at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Michigan (2002–2005, alternate sessions), as well as at the Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University, Indiana (1998, 2003), and at the Center for Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz (2001). For years he taught graduate courses at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado, Boulder, during the summer. His research topics include Heroism Studies, the Sociology of Mass Media, American youth culture’s evolution in the 20th and 21st centuries, techniques for visual decoding American icons, patterns of corruption and violence in the U.S., patterns of social and cultural resurgence in the U.S., and ultimately U.S. social reform as traced and illustrated via U.S. popular culture. Among Dean's most recent publications are: the forthcoming, 2010, peer-reviewed issue of Transatlantica – revue d’études américaines (AFEA), Guest Executive Editor on the subject of “The Businessman as Artist in American Civilization”; “Heroes in a World of Global Connection: U.S. and European Heroism Compared” in: Heroes in a Global World, Cresskill, NJ, 2008; Organized Crime in the US from Prohibition to the Cold War, Paris 2002; Culture and Technology, Paris 2001; Media & News in the United States since 1945, Paris 1997; and European Readings of American Popular Culture, Westport, CT, 1996.
David Goldfield is Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. His research interests include the American South, Urban History and the Civil War era. Amongst his recent publications are The American Journey: A History of the United States, Upper Saddle River 2009, Southern Histories: Public, Personal, and Sacred, Athens 2003, and Still Fighting the Civil War: The American South and Southern History, Baton Rouge 2002. He is also the editor of the Encyclopedia of American Urban History, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2007. His current research project focuses on the “Rebirth of a Nation: America during the Civil War Era.”
Reinhard Isensee has earned his Ph.D. in American Literature from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. He has been a faculty member at the American Studies Program at Humboldt University for many years and has taught lectures and seminars on various topics of American literature, culture, and history. He pursued his post-doctoral research in 20th Century-American Adolescent Literature and completed his Habilitation in 2001. It was published as a book titled The Other Reader: Erzählkonstruktionen im Jugendroman der USA seit den 1960er Jahren, Frankfurt 2003. With a particular interest in transatlantic and transnational issues, he has more recently focused in his research on (visual) media studies with a special emphasis on the cultural work of digital media. His recent publications include Picturing America. Trauma, Realism, Politics and Identity in American Visual Culture, Frankfurt 2007 (co-editor with Antje Dallmann and Philipp Kneis) and Transcultural Visions of Identities in Images and Texts. Transatlantic American Studies, Heidelberg 2008 (co-editor with Wilfried Raussert). Dr. Isensee has repeatedly held long-term as well as short-term guest professorships at colleges and universities in the United States and several European universities.
Christine Meissner works as an instructor at Abendgymnasium Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, and has been teaching languages in diverse adult education settings. She studied English and Dutch at the University of Leipzig and is currently working on a project that examines neuroscientific aspects of second chance education. She also carried out a pilot study about coaching for adult learners in a formal learning process, qualifying teachers as coaches to eliminate barriers toward learning. She is a text book author with a German publishing house as well.
Jörg Nagler is Professor of American History at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena. His research focuses on 19th century U.S. History, Immigration History, African-American History, and the Civil War. He is the author of Abraham Lincoln, Amerikas großer Präsident: Eine Biographie, München 2009. Amongst his numerous other publications are: Nationale und Internationale Perspektiven amerikanischer Geschichte. Eine Festschrift für Peter Schäfer, Frankfurt 2002 (editor); Nationale Minoritäten im Krieg: "Feindliche Ausländer" und die amerikanische Heimatfront während des Ersten Weltkrieges, Hamburg 2000; On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861–1871, New York 1997 (co-editor with Stig Förster); People in Transit: German Migrations in Comparative Perspective, 1820–1930, New York 1995 (co-editor with Dirk Hoerder). He is currently working on a project analyzing the shifting collective memory of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil Rights movement.