PK: Constructive Peer Reviewing and Content-Editing as Editor and/or Colleague

In this two-part workshop practical techniques for peer review and content-editing are discussed.  When working on an edited volume or a special issue journal the editor is faced with numerous challenges, including how to use constructive criticism, yet still communicate concern with phrasing, writing style or content matter. When giving feedback in a blind peer review process, the reviewer faces similar challenges and will ideally compose their criticism in such a way that authors will be grateful for the feedback and use it. In this best practices workshop, attendees will learn to interact with colleagues in a manner that is productive and conducive to future collaboration. In the first session content-editing techniques will be outlined and practiced.  Attendees will have several weeks to complete a peer review and in the second session attendees will receive feedback. The group feedback session will allow all attendees to benefit from the specific strengths and weaknesses of peer review conducted by colleagues.

First session: November 21, 2019; 09 a.m. - 01 p.m. (Phil I, GCSC, R.001)

// Dr. Birte Christ teaches American Literature and Cultural Studies at the English Department of Justus Liebig University. She is research assistant to Prof. Dr. Greta Olson. Dr. Birte Christ has been working at Justus Liebig University since October 2009 and has previously held positions at the University of Bonn and the University of Freiburg. Her teaching and research interests include law and literature, transmedial narratology, women’s studies, middlebrow literature and culture, and approaches to teaching American literature and culture.

Dr. Birte Christ is the author of Modern Domestic Fiction: Popular Feminism, Mass-Market Magazines, and Middle-Class Culture, 1905-1925 (Winter 2012) and has co-edited three volumes: a collection of collaborative essays on the state of the field of American Studies, American Studies / Shifting Gears (Winter 2010; with Michael Butter, Christian Kloeckner and Elisabeth Schäfer-Wünsche), a more „popular“ book in German on the impact of 9/11 on American politics and culture, 9/11. Kein Tag, der die Welt veränderte (Schöningh 2011; with Michael Butter and Patrick Keller), and Obama and the Paradigm Shift – Measuring Change (Winter 2012; with Greta Olson). A special issue of Amerikastudien/American Studies on “Poetry and Law” is forthcoming 2017 (ed. with Stefanie Müller), as is a comparative volume entitled Death Sentences (ed. with Ève Morisi). Recent essays have appeared in Narrative, American Literary History, and Post-45. She is currently finishing her second book (Habilitation) on representations of capital punishment and their racial politics from the 1840s to the 1990s. She also works on further publications on poetry and law (with Stefanie Müller) and is preparing a larger project on middlebrow transnationalism (with Faye Hammill).