Laura Handl
Curriculum Vitae
| since 2025 | Research Assistant the Chair of American Studies |
| 2022-2025 | Research Associate at the Chair of American Studies in the project "The Rise of the Manifesto in Contemporary US-American Debates on Diversity" | TU Dresden, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) |
| since 2023 | Doctoral student, project: "Narrating Anger in Contemporary Queer-Feminist Manifestos" (WT) | TU Dresden |
| 2020-22 | Master of Arts in American Studies | TU Dresden |
| 2017-20 | Consultant & Planner | Mediaplus GmBH, Munich |
| 2016-17 | Trainee Consulting & Planning | Mediaplus GmBH, Munich |
| 2012-16 | Bachelor of Science in Media Communication | Julius-Maximilians-University, Würzburg |
Publications and presentations
Handl, Laura. "Afrofuturist Dreams; or Queering Imagination across the Boundaries of Fictionality." Panel "Representing Queer Journeys across Genre, Language, and Media." Queer Journeys in North American Literature & Culture, University of Innsbruck, 14–15 November 2025.
Handl, Laura. "Narrative Systems as Formalist Methodology." Interdisciplinary Methodologies and Creative Perspectives for Researching Mental Health and Social Problems: A Conference for PhD Students, Department of Social Work, Gothenburg University, February 11-12, 2025.
Handl, Laura. "Embracing the Low Road? Hating men in Manifestos." Panel "'Affect and 21st-Century Feminist Manifestos." MLA 2025, held in New Orleans, January 11, 2025.
Handl, Laura and Carsten Junker. "Gaga Manifestos." Activist Writing: History, Politics, Rhetoric, edited by Pierre-Héli Monot, David Bebnowski, and Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier, intercomverlag, 2024, pp. 173-184.
Handl, Laura. "Contemporary Manifestos and the Feminist Intimate Public Sphere." Panel "Female Activism in and through Text." 34th Annual Conference of the Postgraduate Forum (PGF) of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS/DGfA): (Re-)Shaping the Public
Sphere: Cultural Productions as/and Interventions, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen, November 21, 2024.
Handl, Laura. "Manifesto of Palimpsestism; or, The Manifesto is Undead, Long Live its Palimpsest'." Panel "'Contractions." The Forms of Academic Work: Practices, Taxonomies, Perspectives, International Workshop, Center for Advanced Studies, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, October 10, 2024.
Handl, Laura. "'Be the red worm in the dirt. Be the honeysuckle on the vine': Queer Southern Place-making in A Dirty South Manifesto (2020)." AmLit - American Literatures, vol. 4, no. 2, Oct 2024, pp. 105-22.amlit.eu, https://doi.org/10.25364/27.4:2024.2.6.
Handl, Laura. "'Go ahead, be a monster. You deserve it.' The Sardonically Angry Voice of Why I am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto (2017)." Panel "'Sensing' Affect: Voice and Tone in US Literature." DGfA/GAAS Annual Meeting 2024: American Soundscapes, University of Oldenburg, May 25, 2024.
Handl, Laura. "Politics of Anger and Trauma Disclosure in Michelle Bowdler's Is Rape a Crime? A Memoir, an Investigation and a Manifesto (2020)". Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies, vol. 25, no. 1, Aug. 2024, pp. 46-64, doi:10.5283/copas.387.
Handl, Laura. "'Go ahead, be a monster. You deserve it.' The Sardonically Angry Voice of Why I am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto (2017)." Panel "'Sensing' Affect: Voice and Tone in US Literature." DGfA/GAAS Annual Meeting 2024: American Soundscapes, University of Oldenburg, May 25, 2024.
Junker, Carsten & Laura Handl. "Solidifying Solidarities-Formalizing Self-Reflexivity and Self-Positioning in the Genre of Meta-Manifesto."' Panel "Collaboration, Solidarity and Animal Agency as Affordances of SelfReflexivity." Recentring Form(s) in and of the Margins: The Politics of Self-Reflexivity, VUB Brussels, 26 April 2024.
Handl, Laura. "Affecting from the Margins: Politics of Trauma Disclosure in Queer Manifesto Memoirs." Panel "Queering Affect: Exploring Emotional Landscapes in Queer Studies." 33rd Annual Conference of the Postgraduate Forum (PGF) of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS/DGfA): Spaces of Affect in the Americas, Leibniz University Hannover, November 11, 2023.
Handl, Laura. "Anger without Catharsis: Femme Monsters and Politics of Emotion." Panel "Feminist SFF in Transformation" in the Category "Feminist & Queer Futures." Disruptive Imaginations. Joint Annual Conference of the Science Fiction Research Association & Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung, TU Dresden, August 18, 2023.
Handl, Laura. "Interview with the Vampire (2022-): Reframing the Queer Vampire," Panel VI. DeMarg 5: Tracing Forms of De/Marginalization. International conference of the European Research Network on Discourses of Marginality and Demarginalizations, TU Dresden, 23 June 2023, https://demarg.eu/activities.
Junker, Carsten and Laura Handl. "Project Presentation: The Upsurge of the Manifesto in Contemporary Debates on Diversity in the United States," Panel "Research Window: Insights into Current DeMarg-relevant Projects." DeMarg 5: Tracing Forms of De/Marginalization. International conference of the European Research Network on Discourses of Marginality and Demarginalizations, TU Dresden, June 24, 2023, https://demarg.eu/activities/.
Research interests
- (Queer/feminist) manifestos
- cultural politics of anger
- Queer Studies and Gender Studies in popular discourse
- Pop culture and marginalization