Research

Beyond German-language rap and popular music, my research focuses on media studies and digital humanities, environmental humanities, applied linguistics, and German and Austrian literature from early romanticism until the present. My work has been supported by a Digital Humanities Fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and an Ernst Mach Fellowship from the Austrian Exchange Service (OeAD). I have reviewed books on Austrian Studies and Media Studies for the Journal of Austrian Studies and the German Studies Review.

Publications

Journal Articles

"Perpetual Motion, Time, and Power: Christoph Ransmayr's Cox as Novel of the Anthropocene." The German Quarterly, vol. 95, no. 1, 2022, pp. 72-88. DOI: 10.1111/gequ.12248

With the Eaton Group. "A Multilingual Turn in German Studies: Premises, Provisos, and Prospects." Die Unterrichtspraxis / Teaching German, vol. 52, no. 1, 2019, pp. 14-31. DOI: 10.1111/tger.12082

"Reinventing Genius in the .com Age: Austrian Rap Music and a New Way of Knowing." Journal of Austrian Studies, vol. 51, no. 3, 2018, pp. 21-42. DOI: 10.1353/oas.2018.0039

Chapters in Edited Volumes

"The Weight of the Digital: Experiencing Infrastructure with InfraVU." Right Research: Modelling Sustainable Research Practices in the Anthropocene, edited by Geoffrey Rockwell, Chelsea Miya, and Oliver Rossier, Open Book, 2021, pp. 309-328. DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0213.19

"Cat Art and Climate Change: Collecting in the Data Anthropocene." Collecting in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Johannes Endres and Christoph Zeller, Camden House, 2022, pp. 165-178. DOI: 10.1017/9781800103382.011

Other Publications

My "Introduction to PowerShell" tutorial for The Programming Historian appeared in Summer 2016. Read it on The Programming Historian

I published a translation of Roger de Weck's essay "A Fine Self-Deception" in Transit in 2009. Read it on Transit.

Dissertation

The Poetic Loop: Austrian Music and Sonic Reproducibility

My dissertation analyzes Austrian rap music as an example of poetry in the age of its sonic reproducibility, showing how the aesthetic innovations of 70s DJs in the South Bronx continue to influence both the music and texts of contemporary rap songs, and how these aesthetics are intertwined with the epistemology of the internet age. I emphasize the special qualities of Austrian rap in contrast to rap from Germany, discussing not only cultural and linguistic differences, but also the significance of Austria's political neutrality. Without the presence of American military personnel, early Austrian hip-hop practitioners could make no claims to an authentic connection to a non-mediated hip-hop scene, thus making Austria a particularly clear example of artists constructing new and meaningful works from the detritus of the culture industry. An example, in other words, with relevance to the aesthetic situation of hip-hop in other countries, and indeed, to the situation of much of human culture in the 21st century. Read it here.

Blogging

I write the occasional blog post, mainly on ecoDH. A few favorites:

Sustainable DH, or: Smashing Things with Hammers

On Cyber Monday I Turned off my Router: Slowness in the Digital Humanities