Contexts and processes of development have become more central in adaptation studies than the examination of isolated phenomena and the interpretation of works of art as hermetic products devoid of interdependencies and contingencies. Since the field has transcended a previously prevalent occupation with questions of faithfulness and the notion that “originals” are per definitionem superior to “adaptations” (which are supposedly merely derivative), perspectives have opened up that allow for new definitions of art and culture. The dialog between disciplines is vital to the development of innovative theoretical approaches and methodologies for the investigation of adaptations. Therefore, this field of study encourages interdisciplinary exchange between Americanists – who approach adaptation from literary, cultural, and intermediality studies standpoints – and scholars from other disciplines.

The world of drama and performance has been inundated with new works that address anthropogenic climate change. The activities of Climate Change Theatre Action (CCTA), an initiative started by artists in Canada and the United States to publicize the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21) and continued every other year, clearly indicate that this thematic concern has impacted theater programming and other forms of public performances around the globe. This project focuses on developing a theoretical approach to stage representations of climate change. In her evolving and necessarily multi-part case study, Nassim Balestrini addresses Canadian-born playwright Chantal Bilodeau’s projected eight-play series The Arctic Cycle. In cooperation with various partners, N. Balestrini engages in studying the emerging aesthetics and the activist impetus of brief climate change plays in the CCTA corpus. By organizing local events, this project offers the opportunity to participate in CCTA as a means of reaching out to non-campus audiences. In 2017, the Pennyless Players performed in N. Balestrini’s American Studies seminar. In 2019, a collaboration between the Centre for Intermediality Studies in Graz (CIMIG) and Graz International Bilingual School (GIBS) culminated in a performance, discussion, and climate change artistic event at the Grazer Kunstverein. In 2021, Fulbright Specialist Shana Bestock from Seattle prepared dramatic performances with two American Studies seminars which were paired with panel discussions. In 2023, N. Balestrini and Nina De Bettin Padolin hosted a CCTA event at Literaturhaus Graz that featured the Pennyless Players, two climate change physicists associated with the Wegener Center, and high-school teachers from GIBS in order to contemplate fruitful cooperation between natural scientists, humanities scholars, and theater artists in the realm of climate change. Beyond that, the project includes collaboration with the Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (CLIC) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). Ultimately, it contributes to a better understanding of ecodrama and climate change activism.

This project emerged from the "Cultural Performance" network project (2015-2020) sponsored by the German Research Foundation. The DFG project focused on interfaces between transnational American Studies and performance studies-oriented research on American theater. My contributions are two case studies: the opera Heart of a Soldier (librettist: Donna Di Novelli, composer: Christopher Theofanidis), which premiered in San Francisco on September 10, 2011, and the award-winning musical In the Heights (first New York production in 2007) by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda's smash hit Hamilton (world premiere in 2015) has been part of my research agenda as well, as is shown in the section on life writing. While the DFG project will end in 2020, my interest in contemporary musical theater has not abated.

The resurgence of interest in poetry since the mid-1990s has not only brought a plethora of contemporary poets to the fore, but it has also fostered the demand for a new historiography of North American poetry and the inclusion of 'popular' forms of poetry (such as rap). Non-white poets have been particularly prominent in exploring new aesthetic pathways in their renditions of injustice and violence. This area of research seeks to combine the study of poet laureates of color, both in the United States and in Canada, with the study of other currently emerging poets of color that address social injustice and the historiography of racism, violence, and war. As appointees of governmental institutions, poet laureates act within politicized and culturally self-reflective arenas which reciprocally link their public image with specific practices regarding the production and distribution of poetry. Recent appointments on the federal level in the United States have contributed to the growing visibility of non-white poets. Significantly, these poets challenge their readership with anything but easily accessible works and with interventions in re-defining national collective memory. Alongside these federally celebrated poets, the project will also include studies of other contemporary poets who have gained visibility through prizes and through local or regional institutions. The central concern in selecting poets for case studies is the emergence of new aesthetic - and thus sensory and oftentimes intermedial - strategies that expand our understanding of poetic form.

Autobiographies, rap lyrics, visuals, and other elements of hip-hop artists' artistic and public personae have been misconstrued by authenticity-oriented reading practices that disregard the fact that all representations are aesthetic constructs. Much hip-hop life writing published since the 1990s modifies elements prominent in American autobiographical traditions. This project focuses on how hip-hop artists employ intermedial features to re-invent well-known traditions of combining prose and photographs in autobiographies and memoirs.

This project contributes to the DFG project "Americana: Aesthetics, Authenticity, and Performance" which has brought scholars in musicology and in American Studies into conversation. The genre designation "Americana" serves as an umbrella term and stand-in for popular music phenomena in the United States that have been linked to constructions of American-ness. Long-standing debates about the boundaries and characteristics of Americana in popular music lend themselves to inquiries into the shifting fates of genres, musicians, and specific works. As a phenomenon that was originally associated mostly with African American musicians and poets from the Bronx but has become a world-wide phenomenon, hip-hop is fraught with obsessive claims about authentic forms and practices. This project highlights how indigenous hip-hop artists in the United States, including Alaska, have made significant inroads into the variegated praxis of rap lyrics, videos, and performances, and how indigeneity fits into this Procrustean bed of expectations associated with hip-hop.