Sandra Tausel, BA BA MA
Department of American Studies
University of Innsbruck
Innrain 52
6020 Innsbruck
Office hours
by appointment
Humanities building, 3rd floor, room 40308
Tel: +43 512 507-4176
Fax: +43 512 507-2879
E-Mail: sandra.tausel@uibk.ac.at
Sandra Tausel is a scholar of contemporary US-American literature and culture. Her Ph.D. project titled Reproductive Ageism: Narratives of Age-Based Reproductive Control explores the intersection between reproductive justice and age. Given the ever present debate regarding reproductive health care and bodily autonomy in the United States, she is particularly interested in ageist mechanism of societal control that (differently) affect women as well as trans and nonbinary persons during particular life stages.
University Employment
- 2019- 2024: University Assistant at the Department of American Studies, University of Innsbruck
- 2017-2019: OeAD Lector at Corvinus University Budapest, Hungary
- 2014- 2015 Fulbright Scholarship: FLTA at Gettysburg College, PA, USA
Publications
- Tausel, S. “Destination Flyover State: Examining the Transnational Perspective in Joachim Meyerhoff’s All the Dead Fly Up: America.” Flyover Fictions, edited by Sascha Pöhlmann and Cornelia Klecker, U. of Nebraska P. [forthcoming, 2025]
- Tausel, S. “Damned If We Do, Damned If We Don’t: Ageist Narratives of Reproductive Control.” Journal of the Austrian Association of American Studies (JAAAS), vol. 5, no. 1, Fall 2023, pp. 56-77.
- Tausel, S. “‘Shedding White Tears:’ A Critical Examination of White Womanhood and Emotional Entitlement.” WiN: The EAAS Women’s Network Journal, no. 3, 2022, pp. 1–26.2021
- Tausel, S. “Confronting the Center: Exposing Systemic Racism and Whiteness through The Hate You Give.” Libri Liberorum: Fachzeit für Kinder-und Jugendliteraturforschung, vol. 22, no. 56–57, 2021, pp. 103–17.
- Tausel, S. “Writing against the Stigma: Facial Disfigurement in R.J. Palacio’s Wonder.” The Disfigured Face in American Literature, Film, and Television, edited by Cornelia Klecker and Gudrun Grabher, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2022, pp. 92–111.
Education
- 2019- 2024: Ph.D. Candiate at the Department of American Studies, University of Innsbruck
- 2020: BA in German Studies, University of Graz
- 2015: Joint Degree MA in English and American Studies, University of Graz and Université Paris Diderot
- 2012: BA in English and American Studies, University of Graz
Research Interests
- Contemporary US-American literature
- Reproductive Justice
- Feminist Theory and Gender Studies
- US-American Politics and Social Justice issues
- Children's and Young Adult literature
Teaching
- Summer 2024: PS American Literature: ‘The Challenged and the Banned:’ Reading Books Banned in US-American Schools
- Winter 2023/24: PS American Literature: Representations of (M)Otherhood in Contemporary US-American Literature
- Winter 2023/24: PS American Cultures: ‘My Body, My Choice?’ - The Politics of Reproduction in the United States
- Summer 2023: VU Gender Studies
- Winter 2022/23: PS American Cultures: ‘Liberty, Equality, & Justice for Whom?’ Intro to Japanese American Incarceration
- Winter 2022/23: PS American Literature: Reading Beyond the Binary in Queer Young Adult Literature
- Summer 2022: VU Gender Studies
- Winter 2021/22: PS American Literature: ‘I Feel, Therefore I Am (?)’: A Critical Exploration of Affect in Contemporary Literature and Culture
- Winter 2021/22: PS American Literature: The Queer Young Adult Novel
- Winter 2020/21: PS American Literature: A Survey of U.S. American Women’s Writing
- Summer 2020: PS American Literature: A Survey of Young Adult Literature
- Winter 2019/20: PS American Literature: Gender, Feminism, and Identity: Character Construction in American Fiction and Culture
USU Study Abroad Co-Cordinator
Sandra Tausel is the co-coordinator of the Utah State University study abroad program at the University of Innsbruck. Follow the link for more information: