Waldemar Zacharasiewicz is a professor of American Studies and director of the Canadian Studies Centre at the University of Vienna, a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and vice president of the International Society of Travel Writing. He has recently co-edited Transatlantic Exchanges: The American South in Europe – Europe in the American South (Wien: Verlag der ÖAW, 2007) and Native Americans and First Nations: A Transnational Challenge (Paderborn: Schoeningh, 2009). His research areas include the literature and culture of the American South, imagology and travel literature, Canadian fiction, and ethnic voices in North America. Among his numerous publications in these fields are three further monographs and more than seventy articles. He has also edited or co-edited fourteen collections of essays, mainly in these areas.

For more information on his publications and teaching activities, please click here.

E-mail: waldemar.zacharasiewicz@univie.ac.at

Eugen Banauch is a part-time assistant and lecturer at the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna. He studied English and German literatures and cultures in Brighton, Vienna, and Ottawa and holds postgraduate degrees from the University of Vienna and the University of Sussex. His PhD thesis completed in winter 2007 won the Science Award 2008 of the Austrian-Canadian Society and has recently been published as Fluid Exile. Jewish Exile Writers in Canada (Heidelberg: Winter, 2009). His interests (research and otherwise) include Jewish Canadian and German Canadian Literatures, Bob Dylan, Postmodern Fiction, Popular Cultures, American- and Canadianization. He currently acts as member of the board of the Center for Canadian Studies, Vienna, and of the Austrian Association for American Studies. He was a Co-leader of the Graduate Forum of the Association for Canadian Studies from 2006-2008, and is an Alumnus of the Salzburg Global Seminar and the Study of the Institutes of the US, Univ. of Louisville.

Teaching activities: Introductory Literary Seminars (focus on Canadian and US-American Literatures), Lectures on Canadian Cultural Studies, Lectures on American Civilizations, Survey of Literatures in English 2 - Literature and Culture from the Early 17th to the Late 19th Centuries.

E-mail: eugen.banauch@univie.ac.at

Ranthild Salzer has studied English and Drama Studies at the University of Vienna. In her MA thesis of 2009 she focuses on the uniqueness of character relationships in the complex fictional world of Henry James. Her approach to one of the great masters of the psychological novel is based on narratology and the socio-historical background of 19th century America and England. Since July 2008 she has worked as a research assistant for Prof. Dr. Zacharasiewicz. Her research focused on the image of the American South in the works of Tennessee Williams. In this new project Ranthild’s focus will be on Asian Canadian authors, especially on Fred Wah. In between her studies Ranthild hosts a weekly Jazz radio show on Radio Orange.

E-mail: ranthild.salzer@univie.ac.at

Katerina Nussdorfer studied English Language and Literature at the University of Skopje, and Liberal Studies/Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in Chicago. After the completion of her first degree (Mag. phil.), she went on to study towards an MA in International Economics at the Institute of Economics in Skopje, Macedonia. She is currently doing her PhD at the University of Vienna, focusing on the topic of food as a cultural identity of immigrants represented in North-American Literature.

Email: kpejovska@gmail.com

Leopold Valenta is an undergraduate student of English and Biology at the University of Vienna. His main interests lie with Anglophone literature of the 18th to 21st century, with a focus on contemporary ecological literature of North America. His other interests mainly surround the question of native and immigrant heritage as well as folklore and legends in North America. He is currently working as a research assistant for Prof. Zacharasiewicz's FWF project: "Canadian Literature: Transatlantic, Transcontinental, Transcultural.” He is also the webmaster for the project's homepage.

E-mail: leopold.valenta@gmail.com