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Katharina Vester Associate Professor History

Degrees
PhD, American Studies, University of Bochum
MA, American Culture, University of Potsdam and Free University of Berlin

Languages Spoken
Fluent in English and German, State certificate in Latin and ancient Greek, Reading knowledge of Spanish
Bio
Katharina Vester is Associate Professor of History & American Studies at 麻豆视频 in Washington, D.C. She specializes in cultural theory, transnational studies, and the dynamics of power in everyday practices. She was Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Bochum from 2002-2007, where she earned her Ph.D. summa cum laude. She holds an MA in American Culture from the University of Potsdam and the Free University of Berlin.

Her book A Taste of Power: Food and American Identities was published in November 2015 by the University of California Press. It discusses identity narratives and resistance to hegemonic norms of gender, race and sexuality in culinary discourses.

Other publications include "Regime Change: Gender, Class, and the Invention of Dieting in Post-Bellum America" in the Journal of Social History (Fall 2010) and "Queer Appetites, Butch Cooking 鈥 Recipes for Lesbian Subjectivities," Queers in American Popular Culture, edited by Jim Elledge (Praeger, 2010). She is the editor, with Kornelia Freitag, of Another Language: Poetic Experiments in Britain and North America, in series: Transnational and Transatlantic American Studies (LIT Verlag, 2008).
See Also
History Department
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call 麻豆视频 Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Fall 2024

  • AMST-400 Interpreting American Culture

  • HIST-302 Topics United States History: American Victorian Culture

  • HIST-480 Senior Thesis in History I

  • HNRS-050 Honors Supplement: Interpreting American Culture

Spring 2025

  • CRGC-460 Capstone Research Seminar

  • HIST-481 Senior Thesis in History II

  • HIST-670 Visual & Material Culture

Partnerships & Affiliations


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Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

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  • Summa cum laude for doctoral dissertation, Ruhr-Universit盲t Bochum, 2007
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  • DAAD Doctoral Fellowship (German Academic Exchange Service), 2004-05
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  • American Studies Prize, best M.A. thesis, Universit盲t Potsdam, 2002
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  • American Studies Prize, best seminar paper, Universit盲t Potsdam, 2000 听

Selected Publications

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  • Kornelia Freitag and Katharina Vester, eds., Another Language: Poetic Experiments in Britain and North America, in series: Transnational and Transatlantic American Studies (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2008).
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  • 鈥淭ender Mutton: Recipes, Sexual Identity and Spinster Resistance in Gertrude Stein,鈥 in Kornelia Freitag and Katharina Vester, eds., Another Language: Poetic Experiments in Britain and North America, in series: Transnational and Transatlantic American Studies (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2008).
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  • 鈥溾業 Yam What I Am鈥: Identit盲tsstiftende Texte aus der afro-amerikanischen K眉che鈥 [Identity Construction in Texts from African American Foodways], in Peter Drexler, ed., Negotiating Diversity: Aspects of Identity in Anglophone Culture (Berlin: Trafo Verlag, 2003), 191-208.听
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  • 鈥淚nternational Students - Transnational Research,鈥 in Walter Gr眉nzweig, ed., The United States in Global Contexts: American Studies after 9/11 and Iraq听 (M眉nster: LIT Verlag, 2004).
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  • 听鈥淭urning the Holocaust into 200,000 Square Feet of Cement.鈥 Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, October 21, 2005.
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  • 听鈥淒as dritte Geschlecht. Male Warbrides, musizierende Transvestiten, und Metrosexuality: Die Herstellung von Heterosexualit盲t als听听听 hegemonialer Diskurs.鈥 [The Third Gender: Male Warbrides, Musical Transvestites, and Metrosexuality: The Creation of Heterosexuality as a Hegemonic Discourse.] Schwubile (January 2004).
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  • Editor, Food and Culture, student online journal, 2008.

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TRANSLATIONS

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  • Herta Nagl-Docekal, Feminist Philosophy, trs. Katharina Vester (Boulder: Westview Press, 2004).
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  • 听鈥淓xcellent鈥 translation - Linda L贸pez McAlister in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy.
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  • Ottmar Ette, Literature on the Move, trs. Katharina Vester (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2003). 听

Professional Presentations

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  • 鈥淨ueer Appetites, Butch Cooking,鈥 Lavender Languages & Linguistics, Washington, D.C., 2009.
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  • 鈥淩educing Women: Politics and Power in Early Diet Discourses,鈥 inaugural Patrick Clendenen Conference, Washington, D.C., 2008.
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  • Commentator, 鈥淣ew Directions in Queer Excavations,鈥 Lavender Languages & Linguistics, Washington, D.C., 2008.
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  • 鈥淏eauty and the Feast: Diet and the Female Body in American Popular Culture,鈥 Postgraduate Forum of the German Association for American Studies, Dortmund, 2005.
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  • 鈥淭ender Mutton: Recipes, Sexual Identity and Spinster Resistance in Gertrude Stein,鈥 Another Language 鈥 Contemporary U.S. Poetic Experiments in a Changing World, Bochum, 2005.
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  • 鈥溾橠ate with a Dish鈥 - Kochen und Konstruktion von M盲nnlichkeit in den USA der 30er und 40er Jahre鈥 [Cooking and the Construction of Masculinity in the USA of the 1930s and 40s], International Doctoral Colloquium, Bochum, 2004.
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  • 鈥淰iral Discourse and Cultural Infection: Alejandro Morales鈥 Rag Doll Plagues,鈥漅epresentations of Chicana/o Culture(s): Images, Texts, Products, Potsdam, 2002.听 听 听