Heike Paul is invited to give a talk as part of the lecture series "Machtmissbrauch", organized by the Women's Representatives of the the Faculty of Humanities, Social Scienes, and Theology, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. The talk is titled "Machtmissbrauch und #Metoo im Film: Wie Hollywood von sich selbst erzählt" and takes place on Wednesday, May 27, 6pm. For more information on the talk (in German) see here, and for more information on the lecture series, including the zoom link,

As part of the seminar “Writing America: The United States at 250”, organized by the Centro Studi Americani in Rome, Heike Paul is invited to give two talks and participate in a roundtable discussion. On Tuesday, May 12, Heike Paul gives a talk on “Narratives of American Beginnings: ‘Lost Colonies’ and Historical Imagination.” Her second talk, on Wednesday, May 13, is about “Civil Sentimentalism versus ‘Toxic Empathy’: Affective Politics of Order and Belonging.” Additionally,

Together with Martin Schulze-Wessel and Carlo Masala, Heike Paul joins the new research group “Neoimperialismus als Herausforderung der Gegenwart“ (Neoimperalism as the Challenge of the Present) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW) as a PI. The research group runs from 2026 to 2029. For more information (in German), see here.

The Austrian Academy of Sciences (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften) has elected Heike Paul as a new Corresponding Member Abroad in the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences. For more information, see the press release (in German) here. © ÖAW/Niko Havranek © ÖAW/Niko Havranek © ÖAW/Niko Havranek

Heike Paul is invited to give a talk on “The Frontier Myth” at the University of Zurich on April 13. The guest lecture is part of Nicole Koenigsknecht’s seminar “(Re)imagining the American West.”

Heike Paul and Astrid Séville have published a volume on renunication ("Verzicht") as a key concept in contemporary political, social, and academic discourse. It is often associated with a certain unease or reluctance, which does not foster a culture of objective debate. The contributors offer a long-overdue interdisciplinary discussion of the concept, systematizing and reflecting on the various meanings of renunciation. In doing so, they focus on a historically grounded clas