Students may choose between three major pathways giving them the opportunity to

specialize further within any one of these areas of literary and cultural studies:
British Literature/Irish Literature/New English Literatures
American / North American (Canadian) Literary Studies (chair currently vacant)
Cultural / Media Studies
Current areas of research by the members of the academic staff in the field of
Anglophone literatures and cultural studies include
Theatre and drama through the ages
Narrative fiction (17th to 21st centuries)
Poetry (focus on 17th c. and contemporary lyrical verse)
Media and film studies
Popular culture and visual culture
Literature for children and young adults
Theories of literature and Cultural Studies (e.g. narratology, lyric theory, cognitive
poetics, cultural transfer, literature and spirituality)
British cultural studies
Irish literature and cultural studies
North American literature and cultural studies
South African literature and culture
Postcolonial studies and the New English literatures
Recent research projects include
World stage Vienna (project director Ewald Mengel)
Trauma, memory and narrative in the contemporary South African novel (project
director Ewald Mengel)
Flann O'Brien (project director Werner Huber)
Kanadische Literatur: Transatlantisch, Transkontinental, Transkulturell (project