Sarah Nike Makeschin
University of Passau Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin
Germany

After having finished my Magister in American Studies and Modern and Recent History at the University of Passau in 2010, I worked at the Department for Cultural Studies (University of Passau) as study program coordinator for two years.  In 2012 I entered my current position as research assistant at the Department for American Culture and Media Studies (Prof. Karsten Fitz) at the University of Passau.

My PhD project with the working title: “The ‘Imagined Presidency’: Between ‘Ritual’ and ‘Narrative’—Deliberating American Identity in 21^st-Century Election Campaigns: Barack Obama 2008—A Case Study” deals with the role of performative establishment of identity narratives in American election campaigns set in the age of globalization. 

My further research interests focus on the negotiation of the American political sphere in 20^th/ 21^st-century television and film productions, as well as the construction of America’s wars in post-WW II cultural production. Here I am currently working on an interdisciplinary research project, together with the History Didactics Department, comparing the representation of the experience of WW II in 21^st-century American and German TV-(mini-) series.