Elisabeth Lechner

Elisabeth Lechner is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna, currently working on a habilitation project on culinary life writing in British literature, i.e. the role of food in women's auto/biographical writing. She completed her PhD at the University of Vienna in 2020. Situated at the intersections of literary, cultural and media studies as well as affect & body studies, her research on ‘disgusting’ female bodies, body positivity and digital feminist activisms was published academically and as the German non-fiction book Riot Don't Diet! Aufstand der widerspenstigen Körper (2021, 3rd edition).

Apart from engaging in various forms of science-public communication and conducting workshops on media literacy, body shaming and lookism over the last few years, more recent publications include “#Feminist – Naming Controversies and Celebrating Points of Connection and Joy in Current Feminisms” (together with Greta Olson) and co-editing the collective volume Caring for Cultural Studies (2022).

She is active on social media as @femsista.

2016/2017 CO-Organisation of Lecture Series “Screening Pleasure”with Linda Williams & Clarissa Smith – Grant Applications, Invitation of Guest Speakers, Exam. More info here. 

2016          CO-Organisation of “Trash. Postgraduate Conference” –Conception, Call for Papers, Invitations, Paper Selection, Grant Applications, Publication. http://www.univie.ac.at/trash/  

Summer Term 2018 KO Critical Media Analysis – Course Convenor and Lecturer “Are You Beach Body Ready? Approaching Body Studies Through the Body Politics of Advertising”, University of Vienna      

Summer Term 2018 Lecture Series “(Be)Coming Home” – Lecture “Girls at Home – Feminist Insights into the Private Sphere(s) of Contemporary US Television”, University of Vienna             

Summer Term 2017 Lecture Series “Screening Pleasure” – Lecture “Discussing the Complexities of ‘Disgusting’ Sex in Lena Dunham’s Girls”, University of Vienna

2012 – 2015 Teacher for German as a Foreign Language at Alpha Sprachinstitut (1010 Vienna)

Sept. – Oct. 2013 Teacher for German as a Foreign Language at the Sumy State University (Ukraine)

2012 - 2013 Tutorial for the Course Introduction to Slavic Studies – Department of Slavic Studies, University of Vienna 

September - December 2017: Research Stay at Goldsmiths, University of London, with Prof. Lisa Blackman

Since October 2016: Uni:Docs Fellow at the Department of English, University of Vienna 

Since September 2015: PhD in English and American Studies, University of Vienna 

Working Title: "Beyond Disgust: The Popfeminist Politics of Body Positivity"

September 2015 – August 2016: Internship at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy (BMWFW)

June – July 2015: Participant at the Harvard Institute for World Literature (IWL) in Lisbon  

October 2011 – January 2015: MA Russian Studies, Graduation with Distinction at the University of Vienna 

MA Thesis: “Pop, Porn and Postfeminism – Femininity and Masculinity in the Music Videos of 21^st- Century Russian-speaking Girl Bands” (written in German, available here)

October 2011 – November 2013: MA Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, Graduation with Distinction at the University of Vienna

MA Thesis: “The Plays of Tanika Gupta - Introducing a Contemporary British Playwright” (available here) 

October 2008 – Summer 2011: 

BA Studies: English and American Studies at the University of Vienna

BA Studies: Slavic Studies (Russian) at the University of Vienna

Graduate Fellow at the Vienna Doctoral Academy: Theory and Methodology in the Humanities

Member of the Gender Studies Association Austria

Sept. 2016 – Sept 2019  Uni:Docs PhD Scholarship for the completion of the dissertation “Beyond Disgust: The Popfeminist Politics of Body Positivity”

Winter Term 2012  Student Award of the English and American Studies Department, University of Vienna for the Seminar Paper “Gazing at the Quilting Murderess: Conceptions of Womanhood in Atwood’s Alias Grace”

Various Performance Scholarships for excellent grades (in both BAs & MAs)