Katharina Motyl is assistant professor at the American Studies department of the University of Mannheim and the coordinator of the research network. Her second-book project is tentatively titled “Dependent in the Land of Liberty: Drugs, Addiction, and Power in U.S. Culture from the Early Republic to the ‘War on Drugs.’” Her publications include a special issue of Studies in American Naturalism on “Intimate Knowledge in American Naturalism and Realism” (2021; co-edited with Katrin Horn) and the edited volumes Who Can Speak and Who Is Heard/Hurt? Facing Problems of Race, Racism and Ethnic Diversity in the Humanities in Germany (2019; co-edited with Mahmoud Arghavan, Nicole Hirschfelder, and Luvena Kopp) as well as The Failed Individual – Amid Exclusion, Resistance, and the Pleasure of Non-Conformity (2017; co-edited with Regina Schober); articles have appeared in Interconnections: Journal of Posthumanism and European Journal of English Studies, among other publication venues. She obtained her PhD with a dissertation on Arab American literature since 9/11 from Free University of Berlin in 2013. In addition to the research interests apparent in the abovementioned publications, Dr. Motyl investigates the nexus between digital anti-feminism and the proliferation of science denial, cultures of U.S. (settler) imperialism, the expressive culture of Black America, as well as Native American literature and culture. Her research project in the network is entitled “Subversive ‘Institutional’ Knowledge: The Emergence of Black Power in Prison and of a Pan-Indian Consciousness in Boarding Schools / Residential Schools.”