Franziska Friedl

Having studied English and German philology at Heidelberg and Nottingham University, Franziska Friedl graduated with distinction with an M.A. in English Studies and an additional state exam in English and German philology after applying Roland Barthes’ semiological concept of political myth to The Hunger Games trilogy in her MA thesis. 

Un-Settling Narratives: The Mythical Making and Unmaking of the USA in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Texts

In her dissertation, Franziska Friedl examines the subversive power of the zombie in post-apocalyptic reimaginings of the American frontier, city, and wilderness. Drawing on cultural studies, media studies, and literary studies, her spatially-oriented project aims to understand to what extent these narratives challenge the authority of the myth of American settlement by focusing on the configuration of body and space in portrayals of a fictional United States after the end of global world order. She analyzes how spatialized authority is being negotiated through the construction and deconstruction of symbolic settlement structures, arguing that contemporary narratives of the zombie apocalypse portray a counter-myth of American settlement.