Marthe-Siobhán Hecke, M.A., M.Ed.

Contact

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin (100%)

she/her/(they)

Email: [Email protection active, please enable JavaScript.] (add your pronouns to your email and feel free to use your chosen name)

Room 2-031, Rabinstraße 8, IAAK, 53111 Bonn

Phone: +49 (0)228 73-7638

Lecturer of Trust/Vertrauensdozentin

You struggle with your mental health? With the workload? With a lecturer? With other students? You have experienced or witnessed discrimination or hate speech? You need somebody to talk to? You do not feel safe? You don't know if university is for you? You have other questions? Contact me if you would like to talk to somebody who has nothing to do with registration periods or the organisation of exams (I am your lecturer of trust / "Vertrauensdozentin"). I can try to help you make sense of the situation and also recommend where you could go next, e.g. try out the university's counselling service etc.

Everything we talk about is confidential and this is a safe space for queer and other marginalised students!

www.iaak.uni-bonn.de/de/studying/health-issues

If you have a problem with me and would not like to contact me myself, please reach out to a member of staff that you trust, then they can take your issue to me anonymously. :)

FYI trans/non-binary/gender nonconforming students: Your name in the university systems can be changed even if you have not yet legally changed your name. https://www.chancengerechtigkeit.uni-bonn.de/de/aktuelles/vorgezogene-namensaenderung You can also create an email alias if you do not have an "Ergänzungsausweis" yet.

FYI neurodivergent/disabled students: You can apply for "Nachteilsausgleich", which would allow you to have more time for exams, term papers etc. Check this out: https://www.uni-bonn.de/de/studium/beratung-und-service/studieren-mit-handicap/nachteilsausgleiche

Office Hours via Zoom & In Person (+ Absences / Vacation)

How to book a spot for the Zoom and In Person (!) Office Hours: Please log into eCampus in order to book a 15-minute slot for the Zoom office hours (Tuesday, 10.15-11.00) or In Person Office Hours (Tuesday, 11.15-12.00). Office Hours during the summer term: 4.4., 11.4., 18.4., 2.5., 9.5., 6.6., 20.6., 4.7 Book your spot HERE (https://ecampus.uni-bonn.de/goto_ecampus_prtf_3097158_7327.html)!

• If no more spots are available (= visible via eCampus), I can add one or two people at each date at the end (you might need to wait a bit) or we can schedule another date. Contact me via email for that.
• If you cannot make it, please cancel via eCampus. It's really annoying if I'm waiting in vain and other students might want to book that spot last minute (bookings can be done 1 hour prior to the office hour).
• I also cannot see what you write in the "comment" section during the booking, send me an email if I need to know something in advance.
• Absences/Vacation: I try to respond to emails within 24 hours unless it's the weekend or I'm away (then give me two days at least) --> 25.6.-1.7. Ireland field trip; 7.-19.8. SUISS "Scottish Literatures" (Edward Morgan Scholarship for the Summer School in Edinburgh); 24.-25.8. ESSE conference (Milan, Italy); 22.9.-11.10. Scotland (vacation/research)

Term Papers & Bachelor's / Master's Theses

• Please keep in mind that my contract (no extension possible) ends 22.05.2025 (!), which is why I will not accept any more BA/MA supervisions from February 2025 (!) onwards. Also make sure that you plan this in when writing term papers from previous semesters. These will be accepted until 1st of April 2025 (!).
  
• Yes, you can still hand in term papers from previous semesters. Please contact me with a thesis / research question and a preliminary table of contents or rough idea. Please hand in your term papers as a PDF via email if you are not handing in your term paper in the term that you have taken the class. This should include: term paper + the signed Declaration of Authenticity + "Prüfungsformular für Hausarbeiten". I do not need a printed version by post and I will not sign the Prüfungsformular in advance.
• Yes, I can also be first or second supervisor for your bachelor's or master's thesis. Write me an email or book an office hour spot. I can also help you narrow down your topic.
• Stats of finished theses (= theses supervised and/or graded):
  2019: 6
  2020: 23
  2021: 44
  2022: 60
  2023: 9 (so far)

PhD Project:

"Living Memory" - (Re-)Writing and (Re-)Constructing Scottish Identities: the Literary Heritage of Nan Shepherd (working title)

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Uwe Baumann

Key words: Scottish Literary Renaissance, Modernism, Nature/Landscape Writing, Scots, Feminism / Rewriting the Canon, National Identity, Memory Studies, Walking/Hiking/Mountaineering, Proto-Ecocriticism

Teaching

• Summer Term 2017: Issues in Literary and Cultural Studies - Tutorial
• Winter Term 2017/2018: Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies - Tutorial
• Winter Term 2018/2019: World-Building in Fantasy & Sci-Fi (authors read in class: Nnedi Okorafor, Ursula Le Guin, Rebecca Roanhorse, Terry Pratchett, Tomi Adeyemi, NK Jemisin)
• Summer Term 2019: "If We Shadows Have Offended" - Fairies, Fairytales and Fantasy (authors read in class: William Shakespeare, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett)
• Winter Term 2019/2020: “It is quite a risk to spank a wizard for getting hysterical about his hair.” - Speculative Fiction: inspiration, adaptations, representation (authors read in class: Nnedi Okorafor, Ursula Le Guin, Diana Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman) + "I feel more myself in boy's clothes. Actually, Dad, I don't think I'm a girl at all." - Queer representation in fantastical TV shows (shows covered in class: San Junipero (Black Mirror), The OA, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Sense8 + more suggestions from the class)
• Winter Term 2019/2020 (Block): Writing in and about Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall (authors read in class: Nan Shepherd, Kate Roberts, Elizabeth Bowen, Daphne Du Maurier)
• Summer Term 2020: Power and Pitfalls of YA Literature (authors read in class: Jane Gardam, Jacqueline Woodson, Stephen Chbosky, Jandy Nelson, Angie Thomas) + Young Adults in Movies
• Winter Term 2020/2021: 2x Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies (authors read in class: William Shakespeare, Margaret Atwood)
• Winter Term 2020/2021: Black and Queer Lives Matter - (Good?) Representation in Young Adult Literature (authors read in class: Alice Oseman, Kacen Callender, Angie Thomas, Jacqueline Woodson, Stephen Chbosky, Jandy Nelson) + "I lost my temper at myself" - Young Adults in Movies
• Summer Term 2021: “It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black.” - Good (?) Representation in YA Literature (Issues in Literary and Cultural Studies) (authors read in class: Alice Oseman, Kacen Callender, Angie Thomas)
• Winter Term 2021/2022: 2x Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies (authors read in class: William Shakespeare, Louisa May Alcott, various poets)
• Summer Term 2022: "It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works" - Witches, wizards, and World Building (BA1) (authors read in class: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Hope Mirrlees, Maggie Stiefvater, Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, Diana Wynne Jones, Aiden Thomas, Nnedi Okorafor) + Crossing Thresholds: World Building in Fantasy and Beyond (MA1) with Sarah Fißmer (authors read in class: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Hope Mirrlees, Maggie Stiefvater, Seanan McGuire, Neil Gaiman, Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, Alix E. Harrow, Darcie Little Badger)
• Winter Term 2022/2023: Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies (authors read in class: William Shakespeare, Louisa May Alcott, various poets) + "All the World's a Stage? - Fun with Shakespeare (for Teachers) (Shakespeare + performances by the RSC and the National Theatre)
• Summer Term 2023: "From Page to Stage" + Field trip to Stratford upon Avon (authors read in class: a lot of William Shakespeare, Maggie O'Farrell); "Science Fiction and Popular Culture" (authors / franchises read in class: Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, E.M. Forster, Yevgeny Zamytin, George Orwell, Thomas More, H.P. Lovecraft, Judith Merril, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, Rebecca Roanhorse, Nnedi Okorafor, Erin K. Wagner, Becky Chambers + some "Star Trek" / "Star Wars")

Field Trips

2018: Field Trip to Scotland (Cairngorms/Highlands), organised as Vorsitzende Fachausschuss Keltologie

2019: Field Trip to Wales (Brecon Beacons), organised as Vorsitzende Fachausschuss Keltologie

2019: Field Trip to Scotland with Dr. Imke Lichterfeld + Don Lowman (sessions on Scottish Gaelic + Scotland/Tourism)

2022: Field Trip to Scotland with Dr. Imke Lichterfeld (sessions on Scottish Gaelic + Scots Literary Renaissance + Scottish Nationalism)

2022: Field Trip to the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK), 11 Bonn students cooperated with 11 Cambridge students as part of the CCARL Project. The students created teaching material for the A-Levels.

2023: Field trip to the University of Warwick (Coventry, UK): Podcast Project <3

2023: Field trip to Stratford upon Avon ("From Page to Stage")

2023: Field trip to Ireland (Dublin, Belfast)

Publications

2017. “Queerbaiting in the Harry Potter Series and in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” In: Marion Gymnich, Hanne Birk & Denise Burkhard, Eds. “Harry – yer a wizard”: Exploring J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Universe. Baden-Baden: Tectum. 193-204.

2020. "Of World Turtles and World Elephants: Terry Pratchett's Take on World Building" In: Marion Gymnich, Dieter Petzold & Denise Burtkhard, Eds. "Flora und Fauna in Fantastischen Welten / Flora and Fauna in Fantastic Worlds. Symposium 2019 in Bonn." Inklings. Jahrbuch für Literatur und Ästhetik 37. Berlin: Peter Lang. 181-198.

2021. "Fan Fiction Clad in Music - How Tolkien and Pratchett Inspire(d) Music" In: Maria Fleischhack, Patrick Schmitz & Christine Vogt-William, Eds. "Die Phantastik und die Musik / Music and the Fantastic." Inklings. Jahrbuch für Literatur und Ästhetik 38. Berlin: Peter Lang. 111-129.

2021. "But you will be a girl that heroes fear": Mia Corvere's Gender Portrayal and Queerness in Jay Kristoff's "Nevernight Trilogy". In: Neumeier, Beate; Rausch, Judith, et al., Eds. Gender and Sexuality in Australian Speculative Fiction. gender forum. Issue 81. 48-63. Available online: http://genderforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/07_Issue81_Hecke_GenderPortrayalandQueerness.pdf 

2022. "With Fire and blood, I will take it." - The Hero's Journey of Daenerys Targaryen? In: Uwe Baumann, Marc Laureys & Konrad Vössing, Eds. "Heroinnen und Heldinnen in Geschichte, Kunst und Literatur". Bonn University Press. Göttingen: Brill. 331-356.

2022. "Isolation as the Key for Survival: The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison (with Sarah Fißmer) In: Maria Fleischhack, Patrick Schmitz & Christine Vogt-William, Eds. "Transatlantische Metamorphosen / Transatlantic Metamorphoses" Inklings. Jahrbuch für Literatur und Ästhetik 39. Berlin: Peter Lang. 101-126.

2022. "Tracing Nan Shepherd’s Footsteps: Reading, Literary Travel, and Snakes" In: The Modernist Review #42: https://modernistreviewcouk.wordpress.com/2022/09/30/tracing-nan-shepherds-footsteps-reading-literary-travel-and-snakes/

Articles awaiting publications: Literature and Crises in Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartett (with Sarah Fißmer), Theology of Vampires in connection to "Hellsing Ultimate", Subverting and Queering Shakespeare's Gothic "Midsummer Night's Dream" (with Sarah Fißmer)

Editing

Editor of the German Inklings Society's Newsletter (with Carsten Kullmann). Read the newest newsletters here:

Issue 8 (1/2022): http://www.inklings-gesellschaft.de/userfiles/downloads/Inklings%20Newsletter%20-%20Ausgabe%208.pdf

Issue 9 (2/2022): http://www.inklings-gesellschaft.de/userfiles/downloads/Inklings%20Newsletter%20Issue%209.pdf

If you're interested in writing reviews for the Inklings Newsletter, please let Marthe know. You might be able to receive free advance reading copies of books and overall it's just a lot of fun!

Conferences

2017: "Happy Birthday, Harry. Harry Potter Students' Conference", University of Bonn; talk: "Queerbaiting in the Harry Potter Series and in The Cursed Child?"
2019: "Flora and Fauna in Fantastic Worlds", Inklings Society, Bonn; talk: "Of World Turtles and World Elephants – Terry Pratchett’s Ironic World Building"
2019: "Understanding Imaginary Worlds. A Students' Conference on World-Building in Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Beyond" (Co-Organisor); talk: "A very Scottish World-Building - the Nac Mac Feegles in Terry Pratchett's Tiffany novels"
2019: "10. BGECS-Jahrestagung", Bonn Group for Eighteenth-Century Studies; talk: "Outlander: Make Scots and Scottish Gaelic great (again)?"
2019: "Ossian - Der Große Betrug", talk at Deutsch-Irische-Gesellschaft Bonn
2020: “The secret changes of my soul / From joy to bitter woe” – Anne Brontë’s juvenilia as Speculative Fiction and an adult space for self-expression, talk at Anne Bronte at 200, University of Bonn
2020: Inklings Symposium "Music and the Phantastic", talk: "There's a feeling I get when I look to the West and my spirit is crying for leaving" - Rock Music lnfluenced by the Tolkienverse; postponed due to Covid-19.
2020: Co-Organiser of the Thurneysen Symposium. Postponed to 2023.
2021: “‘Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind’: Queering the Gothic Space in Shakespeare‘s A Midsummer Night‘s Dream on Stage”. Joint paper presentation (with Sarah Fißmer) at the OGOM Online Conference 2021 “‘Ill met by moonlight’: Gothic encounters with enchantment and the Faerie realm in literature and culture” at the University of Hertfordshire.
2021: “’The Summer’s Tale’ – Merging Past, Present, and Future in Ali Smith’s Summer in Times of a Pandemic”. Joint paper presentation (with Sarah Fißmer) at the New York City New School for Social Research 2021 virtual conference “Suspended Present: Downloading the Past and Gaming the Future in a Time of Pandemic”.
2021: ""There once was a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire" - Neil Gaiman's Feminist, Adult Fairy Tale Stardust on Screen". Inkling Society's Online Symposium on "Lost or Gained in Translation?".
2021: "Gender Relations, Womanhood,  and Landscape Writing in Lives of Girls and Women" at the "Alice Munro at 90:  Central  European  Interpretations"  Online  Conference  organised  by  Károli  Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary (KRE) and Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest.
2022: "Female Power, National Identity and Fairies: King of Morning, Queen of Day by Ian McDonald" at the Books Beyond Boundaries Northern Ireland Conference, organised by Ulster University, online.
2022: "The Literary Heritage of Nan Shepherd" at the World Congress of Scottish Literatures, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, in person.
2022: "Gothic Stories in Times of Crisis: The Haunting Season, Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights and Escapism during a Global Pandemic" at Gothic Interruptions, the 16th International Gothic Association Conference, Trinity College Dublin, in person.
2022: Presentation of the PhD project at the 16th ESSE Doctoral Symposium (with funding by ESSE), Mainz, in person.
2022: "We were safe. Safe from the outside world, at least. But sometimes the worst monsters are the ones within." - Ecocriticism, Dinétah Sovereignty, and Monsters in Rebecca Roanhorse's The Sixth World Series" at Fantastic Geographies, the 13th Annual Conference of the Association for the Research in the Fantastic, TU Dortmund. Paper could unfortunately not be delivered to due to technical problems.
2022: "Challenging Memory and History through Indigenous Futurisms in Darcie Little Badger's Elatsoe" at "Explorations in Counter-Memory", the Memory Studies Assocation Nordic 2022 Conference in collaboration with The Centre for Studies in Memory and Literature, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, online.
2022: "Memory Studies & "The Diaries of Anne Lister" (with Natalie Hungate) at the Anne Lister Research Summit 2022, online.
2023: "ADHS in Film und Fernsehen" at Neurodiverse Bewegtbilder: Über das Spektrum audiovisueller, künstlerischer und vernetzter Interventionen, Workshop der AG Fernsehen und der AG Medienwissenschaft und Dis/Ability Studies im Rahmen der Ausstellung „Rekorder. Neurodiverse (Medien)Kunst“ von akku e.V. - Autismus, Kunst und Kultur und der Artothek Hannover.

Awards

• Lehrpreis der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Bonn (2020) for "außerordentliche Verdienste und vorbildliches Engagement".
• Nominated again in 2021, together with David Moroney who won the Lehrpreis!
• Nominated again in 2022!
• YOU LOVELY PEOPLE NOMINATED ME AGAIN IN 2023. THANK YOU!!! <3<3<3
  

Research Interests

• Fantasy and Sci-Fi Literature, especially in connection to NAS, Postcolonial Studies, Indigenous literatures
• Irish, Welsh and Scottish-Gaelic (= Celtic) Literatures, Scottish Modernism / Scots
• Renaissance Drama / Contemporary British Theatre / Poetry
• Memory Studies, Creation of (National/Cultural) Identity
• Landscape / Nature Writing, Ecocriticism, Ethics
• Queer and Gender Studies, Feminism
• Fairies, Folklore, Myths, Legends
• Films / cinematography

Languages

• German, English, French, Latin, Scottish Gaelic
• Knowledge of: Irish Gaelic, Welsh, (+ very limited Cornish and Breton)

Memberships

• Inklings Society
• The Folklore Society (FLS)
• Deutscher Anglistenverband
• Memory Studies Association
• GAPS - Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies
• IASSL - International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures

Short CV

since 10/2018: Research Assistant (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin, 50%) and Junior Lecturer, since 11/2018: Mittelbauvertreterin / member of Vorstand; since 04/2020 full time position, 2020 Lehrpreis der Universität Bonn, since August 2020 lecturer of trust / Vertrauensdozentin, 2021 second nomination for Lehrpreis by the students of the department, 2022 Stellvertretendes Mitglied des Fakultätsrats der Universität Bonn; 2022 reelected as Mittelbauvertreterin / member of the board, 2022 third nomination for Lehrpreis by students of the department, 2022 PhD member of the "Strukturiertes Promotionsprogramm" committee, 2022 Stellvertretende Gleichstellungsbeauftragte Philosophische Fakultät

2016-2018: Student and then Graduate Assistant (Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft) at Coordination English (Studiengangsmanagement / Dr. Imke Lichterfeld, University of Bonn)

March 2017: Intern at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, GB

2016-2017: Student Assistant at Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), S14 Germanistik, deutsche Sprache und Lektorenprogramm

2016-2017: Tutor for BA First Year Literary Courses

2016: Founding member of the Fachausschuss Keltologie, 2016-2019: President of the FA Keltologie.

2011-2018: Read English Studies, Celtic Studies, German, Philosophy, Bildungswissenschaften (M.A., M.Ed., 2x B.A.) at Bonn University. First bachelor's thesis on Hannah Arendt's "On Violence"; second bachelor's thesis on Ossianic Poetry & Nationalism; master's thesis on Soundscape Ecology.

Writing Competition

The 6th Writing Competition is over and the winning pieces can be read here:
www.iaak.uni-bonn.de/de/research/resources/writing-competition

"Lingering Lines" has also been published. Check out the Writing Competition journal with winning pieces from the past 5 Writing Competition editions.

ENJOY!

University of Cambridge Partnership

Check out the for the second Proofreading Partnership here: flyer! (Deadline October 15!)

Apply by Nov 4 to be part of a field trip to the University of Cambridge & to plan, script, cut, and present short videos with Cambridge students (tandem) for Cambridge's CCARL project: flyer!

Reading Group - BSFG:

Bonn Speculative Fiction Group (BSFG) meets once a month and reads selected fantasy, sci-fi, or dys/utopian novels - literature that does things differently. There might be queer, feminist, poco or indigenous books.

Here are the books we've covered so far! Roshani Chokshi "The Gilded Wolves"; Terry Pratchett "The Wee Free Men"; Meg Elison "Book of the Unnamed Midwife"; Rebecca Roanhorse "Trail of Lightning"; Kirsty Logan "The Gloaming"; Ursula K. Le Guin "The Lathe of Heaven"; Hank Green "An Absolutely Remarkable Thing"; V.E. Schwab "A Darker Shade of Magic"; Naomi Novik "Uprooted"; Philip K. Dick "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"; Seanan McGuire "Every Heart a Doorway"; Natasha Pulley "The Watchmaker of Filigree Street"; Diana Wynne Jones "Howl's Moving Castle"; Becky Chambers "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet"; Genevieve Cogman "The Invisible Library"; NJ Jemisin "The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms"; Mary Robinette Kowal "The Calculating Stars"; Frank Herbert "Dune"; Neil Gaiman "Stardust"; C.L. Polk "The Midnight Bargain"; TJ Klune "The House in the Cerulean Sea"; Octavia Butler "Kindred"; Ann Leckie "Ancillary Justice"; Madeline Miller "Song of Achilles"; Neil Gaiman + Terry Pratchett "Good Omens"; Leigh Bardugo "Six of Crows"; Yevgeny Zamyatin "We"; Robert Holdstock "Mythago Wood"; Silvia Moreno-Garcia "Mexican Gothic"; Neil Gaiman "Sandman" (Audible audiobook!); T. Kingfisher "The Raven and the Reindeer"; Brandon Sanderson "The Emperor's Soul"; Michelle Paver "Dark Matter"; Darcie Little Badger "Elatsoe"; H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds" + "The Time Machine"; Yoon Ha Lee "Phoenix Extravagant" (in case you need some reading recommendations :D); Douglas Adams "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"; Susanna Clarke "Piranesi"; J.R.R. Tolkien "The Hobbit"; Anne Rice "Interview with the Vampire"; P. Djèlí Clark "A Master of Djinn"; Erin Morgenstern "The Night Circus", R.F. Kuang "Babel", Jeff VanderMeer "Borne", Travis Baldree "Legends and Lattes", Katherine Addison "The Goblin Emperor"

You can join the reading group any time, please write an email if you are interested. There are also weekly movie nights, D&D campaigns, a secret santa exchange, masked balls etc.! More info here: https://bsfg.home.blog/

You can also find us on Instagram & Facebook! Come over to the dark side, we have good books!

Take part in "Dear Friend" (no longer active)

Dear Friend was a collective pandemic art project inspired by Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower". All members of the university (be it staff or student) are welcome to participate. Hand in your letter now: Link
More about the project: perksoflivingthroughapandemic.wordpress.com/about-dear-friend/
Read the letters: perksoflivingthroughapandemic.wordpress.com/
Mental Health Resources (it's okay not to be okay): perksoflivingthroughapandemic.wordpress.com/resources/
What Hochschulkommunikation wrote about it: www.uni-bonn.de/neues/201edear-friend201c