2024

• Hintringer, Stefanie Klara, “Beating Traditional Domesticity: Sex, Drugs, Buddhism, Isolation, and the Road as Symbols of Non-Conformist Masculinity in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, The Dharma Bums, and The Subterraneans”
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt
• Hochsteiner, Laura Nadine, ““The World Will Finally See Us As We Are” - Dis/ability and Life Writing: Taking Control of the Narrative in Alice Wong's Year of the Tiger (2022)””
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Ulla Kriebernegg
• Koch, Rita Andrea, “Unlocking The Great Gatsby: Innovative Approaches to Teaching F. Scott Fitzgerald's Masterpiece in Today's Classroom”
  Supervisor: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Roberta Maierhofer
• Meister, Michael, “Intermedial Ecopoetry as Monumental Writer-Activism - Witnessing Slow Violence and Apprehending the Anthropocene in Craig Santos Perez's Habitat Threshold”
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Nassim Balestrini
• Neubert, Katie Beth, ““We Will Live!” Protesting America's Collective Memory of the Vietnam War in Viet Thanh Nguyen's Fiction”
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Nassim Balestrini
• Plieschnegger, Thomas, ““Living through fear or living through rap.” The Poetics of Kendrick Lamar's Concept Album DAMN (2017)”
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Nassim Balestrini

2023

• Aschauer, Anna, “(Re-) Learning to Be a Species: Richard Powers's The Overstory (2018) and Annie Proulx's Barkskins (2016) as Novelistic Attempts to Rethink the “Human””
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Nassim Balestrini
• Hunsky, Dolores, “Contemporary Trauma Narratives and Their Gothic Heritage: Exploring the Origin and Importance of Trauma Literature”
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Ulla Kriebernegg
• Lautner, David, ““God made this world, but he didn't make it to suit everybody”– An Ecocritical Perspective on Discourses of Genocide and Ecocide in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian””
  Supervisor: Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt

2024

• Ehmann, Saskia, ““The Old Bag You'll Actually Love” - Gendered Ageism in Advertisements””
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Ulla Kriebernegg
• Malis, Selina, “Who am I - The Construction of (Lost) Identities and their Connection to Memory in the The Maze Runner Books and Movies”
  Supervisor: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Klaus Rieser

2023

• Niedermayr, Maria, ““Nothing's more important than family”: Narrative and Visual Depiction of Family Conflict(s) in Disney and Pixar Animation Feature Films”
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt
• Pöttler, Elisabeth, ““Would you like to see disabled people depicted als people?”: Examples of Positive Disability Representation in the US Documentary Crip Camp”
  Supervisor: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Klaus Rieser

• Wenegger, Walter, ““It Means no Worries for the Rest of Your Days” – Sidekick Characters in The Jungle Book (1967/2016) and The Lion King (1994/2019)”
  Supervisor: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Klaus Rieser

Ongoing Dissertations:

• Färber, Andrea. Reimagining Relationships: Exploring Interactions between the Human and the More-than-Human in Climate Change Literature
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Nassim Balestrini
• Horvat, Jonatan. 'Before Life and After': An Intermedial Exploration of the Implications of Death and Salvation in Benjamin Britten's Four Anglo-American Operatic Adaptations
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Nassim Balestrini
• Iacobescu Dumitru, Rafaela Nicoleta. Female Choices of Self Expression in Contemporary Latino/a Literature and Culture
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt
• Knaus, Juliann. The Strength of My Roots: Hair as a Political, Cultural, and Historical Marker of Identity in Contemporary Multi-Ethnic Canadian Drama
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Nassim Balestrini
• Mitskidou, Paschalia. Virtual Reality, Escapism and Nostalgia in Contemporary American Literature and Culture Narratives 
  Supervision: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt, co-supervision with Tatiani Rapatzikou, Aristotle University, GR, and Jerome de Groot, University of Manchester, UK
• Neuwirth, Manuela. 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness' and Their Opposites: Mental Illness, Suicide, and Antinatalism in American Literature and Culture
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt
• Planinsek Zlof, Jerneja. Dysfunctional Families and the American Dream in Mid-20th-Century American Drama
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt
• Seitinger, Wilma: Representations of Aging in Graphic Novel
  Supervisor:Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Ulla Kriebernegg
• Shishko, Besmir. Mediating Individual and Collective Identities: Paula Huntley and Alice Mead as American Perspectives of the Kosovo
  Supervisor: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Roberta Maierhofer
• Steiner, Michael. Decoding Censorship Battles: The Stakeholders in Book Banning Efforts in US-American K-12 Education
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Nassim Balestrini
• SteinerPhilip. The Dance of the Media: Literary Features in Music, Film, and Video Games, and the Evolution of Intermediality
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt

Completed Dissertations:

2025

• Tayebi, Seyedhamed. Narratives and Representation of Contemporary America: A Critical Reading of David Foster Wallace
  Supervisor: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Roberta Maierhofer

2024

• De Bettin Padolin, Nina. Drama's Ecocritical Capabilities of Decolonizing Indigenous Epistemologies
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Nassim Balestrini

2023

• Makala, Liliia. Battles of the Uncanny: Naturalist Gothic Subtexts in U.S. War Fiction
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt

2022

• Bellerive, Karin. Murmurations. Écrire les vieillissements: une recherche-création Écrire ses vieillissements, ses rapports changeants à soi, à son père, à l'écriture, au temps. Université de Montréal, Canada
  Supervisor:Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Ulla Kriebernegg (external evaluator)
• Perwein, Christian. Human Ascension and its Perils - Transhumanism and Class in 21st Century Literature and Film
  Supervisor:Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Ulla Kriebernegg
• Trinkaus, Eva-Maria. Experiencing Life through Fiction: Lore Segal's Literary Foodscapes from Childhood to Old Age
  Supervisor:Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Ulla Kriebernegg

2021

• Whybrew, Si Sophie Pages. Neither One nor the Other: Non-Binary Gender Embodiment in Contemporary North American Speculative Fiction
  Supervisor:Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Ulla Kriebernegg

2020

• Christ, Susanne. Fictions of Dementia: Narrative Modes for Presenting Dementia in Anglophone Novels
  Supervisor: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Roberta MaierhoferCo-supervision with JLU Giessen as part of a cotutelle agreement
• Ederer, Petra. The Empowered Child: Discourses of Childhood in Time Travel Stories for Children and Young Adults
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr. phil. Stefan Brandt (co-supervision with University of Vienna )
• Franzetti, Sindija. The Epistolary Motif in a Post-Letter World
  Supervisor: Assoz.-Prof. Dr.phil. Silvia Schultermandl (co-supervision with Uppsala University)
• Weber, Stephanie. Staging the Freak. The (un)secret as a space and framework for the staging of extraordinary bodies in German- and English-language postmodern literature
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt (Co-supervision with the University of Vienna)

Ongoing Dissertations:

• Buchegger, Lisa. Fascinating Fiends - The Construction of the 'Villain' in American Film and Television 
  Supervisor: Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt
• Hinlicka, Kerstin. Sapphic Casualty Expectations - An analysis of the 'Dead Lesbian Syndrome' in 'The 100'
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Klaus Rieser
• Hladin, Florian. Metaphors of Aging in Cultural Representations
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Ulla Kriebernegg
• Klecok, Gabriele. Shaping the Modern Body - Joseph Pilates' 'Contrology' and the American Idea of Agency
  Supervisor: Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt
• Kreishan, Hanan. Invisible Wounds: The Affect and Dynamics of Gender Discrimination in the U.S. Military between 2012 and 2018
  Supervisor: Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt
• Kuckenberger, Verena Chiara. The porn women: Concepts of female sexuality and identification as a reception experience?
  Supervisor:innen: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Bettina Rablehofer and Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Klaus Rieser (second supervisor)
• Pešec, Lea. Drag Performers' Online and Offline Identities
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Klaus Rieser
• Schneider, Elisabeth. 'Saying 'No' Only Makes Me Want You More': The Representation, Recognition, and (Re)Distribution of Consent in Popular Media
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt
• Szendrei, Ágota Viktória: Beyond esoteric practice - The potential of arts in soft-skills trainings. Visual arts-based methods for sustainable human resource development
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Klaus Rieser

Completed Dissertations:

2025

• Rokvity, Alekszandra. Endometriosis, the Invisible Illness: A Study of the Social Discourse Surrounding Menstruation
  Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ulla Kriebernegg

2024

• Wallenstorfer, Dagmar. Diversity and Diverse Identities in Classroom Settings - A Multi-Level Instrument for Relational Diversity Education (MIRDE)
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Stefan Brandt

2023

• Haring, Nicole. Let's Talk about Gender: Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer in Education
  Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Roberta Maierhofer