postdoctoral fellow
dept. of humanities, social and political sciences, eth zurich
Feminist utopianism, SF & climate fiction
About
Dr. Sarah Lohmann is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer at the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (Lehrstuhl Professor Andreas Kilcher) at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland, having previously held two postdoctoral positions (under Professor Ingrid Hotz-Davies) at the University of Tübingen in Germany. She holds a PhD in English literature from Durham University, UK, for a thesis entitled ‘The Edge of Time: The Critical Dynamics of Structural Chronotopes in the Utopian Novel', completed in 2020 under the supervision of Professors Patricia Waugh and Simon James. Dr. Lohmann is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice. Dr. Lohmann's research and teaching focus on feminist utopian literature, particularly of the late 20th and early 21st centuries; utopian studies in general; science fiction and science-fictionality; systems theory; women’s writing; climate and environmental fiction; Gothic literature; and analytic philosophy.
Dr. Lohmann is currently preparing her PhD thesis for publication as a monograph as well as writing a 'Habilitation' or second book on Afrofuturist, Indigenous futurist and Asianfuturist climate fiction. She has also recently published a peer-reviewed article, ‘“Wheels turning in opposite directions”: Objective Temporality, Utopia and the Individual in Sheri S. Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed’, in Fafnir - Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, and additionally contributed a book chapter on utopia as living organism to the Festschrift Transgressive Utopianism: Essays in Honor of Lucy Sargisson, published in the Ralahine Utopian Studies Series by Peter Lang Publishing in March 2021. Moreover, she is working on a commissioned short monograph on Marge Piercy's novel Woman on the Edge of Time for the new series Palgrave SFF: A New Canon by Palgrave Macmillan, as well as on contributions to a forthcoming science fiction textbook. Dr. Lohmann has also presented her work at numerous national and international conferences and in invited talks, including two keynote speeches, as well as in several podcasts, including as co-host (with Dr. Adam Stock of York St John University) of a guided tour of York's utopian urban heritage for the York Festival of Ideas 2018. In 2017, Dr. Lohmann served as Project Officer for the exhibition 'Time Machines', on time travel and narrative, displayed at Palace Green Library, Durham.
As a German/American originally from Munich, Germany and previously a long-time resident of the UK, Dr. Lohmann is the proud holder of two native tongues (English and German), two master’s degrees from the University of St Andrews in addition to her PhD (English literature and philosophy), three nationalities (German, US and UK), and twenty-six houseplants. In her free time, she enjoys yoga, hiking/hillwalking, and choral singing (previously in the Durham University Choral Society, currently still in the Kammerchor Concerto vocale an der Universität Tübingen).