Verena Baier

since 01/2026 Affiliated member of the research network "Margins of Memory" of the Leibniz ScienceCampus Europe and America in the Modern World at the University of Regensburg

2018-2025 Doctoral candidate in american studies
Dissertation project: Bookshelf Battlegrounds: Life Writing and the Left-Right Divide of 1980s US Nicaragua Activism (summa cum laude; awarded the Faculty of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Prize of the University of Regensburg)

04/2025 - 09/2025 Lecturer at the Chair of American Studies, University of Augsburg

since 2024 Assistant professor at the Chair of Media Studies, University of Regensburg

2019-2024 Managing Assistant of the Doctoral Programme of the Faculties of Philosophy at the University of Regensburg (PUR)

Doctoral candidate in american studies since 2018
Dissertation project: Bookshelf Battlegrounds: Life Writing and the Left-Right Divide of 1980s US Nicaraguan Activism

2023 Research grant from the Coordination Centre for Equal Opportunities at the University of Regensburg

2023 Research grant from the FAZIT Foundation

2018-2022 Doctoral scholarship holder of the Foundation of German Business (sdw)

2022 Visiting scholar at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), UC Berkeley; research stay at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University

2019/20 Visiting scholar at the Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley

2017/18 Assistant professor at the Chair of American Studies, University of Regensburg (substitute)

2017 State Examination teaching degree (specialisation) in English, Spanish, education, University of Regensburg

2017 B.A. American studies, University of Regensburg

Publications

Essays

Left on the Web: The Digital Afterlives and Connective Memories of 1980s US Nicaragua Solidarity” In: cultura & psyché, Special Issue Media and Memory in the 21st Century: Psychological and Sociocultural Perspectives (double-blind peer review; in Begutachtung)

Nicaragua in the Rearview Mirror: Life Writing by Leftist US Activists since the 1980s (2025). In: Erbil, Duygu; Rigney, Ann & Vlessing, Clara (Hg). Remembering Contentious Lives. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73450-2_7

Mit Diepold, Markus et al. (2023). Remembering Transnational Memory Cultures and American Studies. In: COPAS (Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies). 24, Nr. 1.

“Whose Tomorrow is Tomorrow?” Remembering (Past) Futures in Autobiographical Writings of the US-Nicaragua Solidarity Movement and the Contra War, 1979-1991 (2019). In: COPAS (Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies). 20, Nr. 1.

Collective Writing – Writing Collectives: Die Konstruktion Kollektiver Identität in Life Writings der US-Nicaragua-Solidaritätsbewegung der 1980er (2019). In: Zeitschrift für Kultur- und Kollektivwissenschaft. 5, Nr. 1.

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Editorships

Mit Markus Diepold et al. (2023). Remembering Transnational Memory Cultures and American Studies. In: COPAS (Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies) 24, Nr. 1.

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Conference reports and blog articles

Mit Belia, Vasiliki (2022). Conference Review: Remembering Contentious Lives. In: IABA/SNS Blog, Students and New Scholars Network der International Auto/Biography Association.

Mit Heger, Tamara (2021). Workshop Report: Narrated Lives, Remembered Selves: Emerging Research in Life Writing Studies. In: Frictions (Europe, America and Global Transformations).

Sometimes the Past is Just Around the Corner: Impressions from Berkeley (2021). In: Frictions (Europe, America and Global Transformations).

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Conference organisation

Masterclass „Von schönen Leichen, Nachtfantasien und dem Denken in Bildformeln“ mit Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Elisabeth Bronfen (Universität Zürich), Promotionskolleg (PUR), Universität Regensburg, 27. Juni 2024.

Tag des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses, Jahreskonferenz der Promovierenden der Philosophischen Fakultäten (PUR), Universität Regensburg (2019-2024)

Remembering - Transnational Memory Cultures and American Studies, 32. Jahreskonferenz des Postgraduate Forum (PGF) der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien (DGfA), Universität Regensburg, 10.-12. November 2022 (mit Markus Diepold, Lena Gotteswinter, Tamara Heger, Bill Henderson, Christian Knittl, Jon-Wyatt Matlack, Efthalia Prokopiou, Katharina Röder und Jiann-Chyng Tu, Universität Regensburg)

Masterclass „Performance Beyond the Pale“ mit Prof. Dr. James Harding (University of Maryland), Promotionskolleg (PUR), Universität Regensburg, 15.-16. Dezember 2021

Internationaler Workshop „Narrated Lives – Remembered Selves: Emerging Research in Life Writing Studies“ mit Keynotes von Prof. Dr. Sidonie Smith (Ann Arbor), Prof. Dr. Julia Watson (Columbus) und Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee (Mainz), Universität Regensburg, 13.-14. Mai 2021 (mit Tamara Heger, Universität Regensburg)

International Regensburg-Brno PhD-Conference, Telč, Tschechien, 11.-13. November 2019 (mit Promotionskolleg (PUR) und Department of English and American Studies, Masaryk-Universität, Brünn)

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Selected lectures (since 2021)„Vietnam 2.0 in Nicaragua: Veterans, Memory, and the Rewriting of US Military Identity in the 1980s and Beyond.” In Their Own Words: A Conference on Veterans’ Memoirs, CUNY, New York (April 2026) 

„Leben erzählen, Geschichte schreiben: Erinnerungskämpfe im linken und rechten U.S.-Nicaragua-Aktivismus der 1980er Jahre,“ Kolloquium am Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte, Prof. Dr. Christine Krüger, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (Februar 2026)   

„Rambo Reloaded: The Rambo Archetype in U.S. Far-Right Online Culture,” Workshop: Karens, Tradwives and Mechahitlers: Internet Archetypes as Indicators of a Transatlantic, Collective Unconscious?, Department for Interdisciplinary and Multiscalar Area Studies (DIMAS), Universität Regensburg (November 2025)

„Narratives of Activism – Horizons of History: The Sediments of Time in US Life Writing on the Nicaraguan Revolution from the 1980s to the Present,” Netzwerktagung zum 10-jährigen Jubiläum der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft, Universität Regensburg (September 2025)

„Revolution Revisited Online: The Making of Divergent Digital Memoryscapes by US and Nicaraguan Activists After the 2018 Nicaraguan Protests”, Annual Meeting of the Memory Studies Association (MSA), Karls-Universität, Prag (Juli 2025)

„Digital Archives as Living Memoryscapes: Continuing US Nicaragua Activism Online and (Re-)Writing History”, GAAS Conference „Archiving America / American Archives”, Universität Siegen (Juni 2025)

„Enduring Memories?: Life Writing of 1980s US-Nicaragua Activism Through Frictions and Transitions”, Annual Meeting of the Memory Studies Association (MSA), Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima (Juli 2024)

„’I was a very small part of that history’: Writing Lives and Legacies in the Left-Right Struggle of 1980s US-Nicaragua Activism”, Summer Workshop: Narrating HiStory History in Literature – Literature in Historiography, Universität Regensburg (Mai 2024)

„Archiving Hope: Remembering Activism in Collaborative Life Writings of the 1980s US-Nicaragua Peace and Solidarity Movement”, Remembering Contentious Lives, Universität Utrecht (September 2022)

„Remembering Nicaragua – Remembering Heroes? Life Writings by US Volunteers in the Nicaragua Peace and Solidarity Movement and the Contra War, 1979-1990”, Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley (März 2022)                                           

„Where and When Is Nicaragua? Remembering Transnational Activism in Life Writings of the US-Nicaragua Peace Movement and the Mercenaries of the 1980s Contra War”, International Auto/Biography Association Asia-Pacific Conference, University of Adelaide (online, November 2021)

„The Making of Communicative Networks”, Annual Conference „Social Networks, Social Distances”, Southern Atlantic Modern Language Association, Atlanta (online, November 2021)

„Zwischen Konflikt und Kompromiss: Autobiographische Erzählungen von Religiösen Organisationen in der US-Nicaragua-Friedens- und Solidaritätsbewegung der 1980er“, Jahrestagung der Görres-Gesellschaft, Universität Regensburg (September 2021) 

„Rambos and Martyrs: The Making of Heroes in Life Writings of the US-Nicaragua Solidarity Movement and Contra War of the 1980s”, Department of North American History, John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin (Juni 2021)

WiSe 2025/26: Of leaflets, riot grrrls and hactivism: Radical media cultures and media of anarchism in the course of time

WiSe 2025/26: Graphic Memoirs: Autobiography and Memory in Comics

SoSe 2025: Digital Memoryscapes: Digital Media and Collective Memory

SoSe 2025: FLOTUS in Focus: Life Narratives, Media and the Cultural Memory of the US First Ladies

WiSe 2024/25: Act Now, Speak Later? Activist Life Narratives and the Cultural Memory of the New Social Movements

WiSe 2024/25: Myths, spaces, identities: The Multimedia and Transnational Representation of the American West

Summer semester 2025; Lectureship at the Chair of American Studies, University of Augsburg: Life Writing and History

WiSe 2017/18 and SoSe 2018; Chair of American Studies, University of Regensburg: Introduction to English and American Literary Studies