PD Dr. Melissa Kennedy

Areas of interest

• Literary Economics
• Postcolonial and other Anglophone cultures and literatures
• Indigenous cultures and literatures
• EFL Pedagogy of literature and culture studies 
• Innovations in narrative form and function

Current Research Projects

• 2018-2022    PHOÖ Storying Our World: Literary and Pedagogical Perspectives on 
  Human Economics (Principal Investigator)
• 2019-2023    DFG Scientific Network Methodologies of Economic Criticism (contributing member)
• 2020-2024    PHOÖ The ABC Approach to Literature in the Classroom (Principal Investigator)

Supervision (University of Vienna & PHOÖ)
B.A., B.Ed., M.A., PhD in English Culture, Literature and Literary Pedagogy 

Teaching (B.A., B.Ed., M.A. University of Vienna & PHOÖ)

      Literary Economics

• Imagined economies; narratives for 21st Century; the financial crisis 
• Representing wealth and poverty in fiction, documentary and film 
• Capital fictions of London and New York
• Ecocriticism; resistance and protest

     Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures 

• Indigenous; Australasian, New Zealand and Pacific Literature
• Multicultural London; immigrant fiction

     Literary Pedagogy

• Young Adult literature; World fiction youth identity 
• Literature and Culture in the EFL Classroom
• Comics and computer games in EFL

Education

• 2016    University of Vienna Venia Docendi, Habilitation in English Literature and Culture. Habilitationsschrift: “Postcolonial Economics: Reading Inequality in Colonial, Neocolonial, and Neoliberal Capitalism”
• 2005-2007    University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand and Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France Ph.D. in international cotutelle. Thesis title: “Striding Both Worlds’: Witi Ihimaera and Cross-Cultural Influence in Maori Writing’    
• 2003-2004    Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France DEA, Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies, (Equivalent Masters)
• 2002-2003    Faculté des Lettres, Arts et  Sciences Humaines, Nice, France Maîtrise d’Anglais (Equivalent Honours)
• 1998        International House, London, UK CELTA, Cambridge University Certificate in English Language Training
• 1996-1998    University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Linguistics

Employment

• Since 2018    University of Education Upper Austria, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures Professor of English Literature and Cultural Studies
• 2017-2018    Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Centre for Language Studies Part-time External Lecturer in Literature and Culture and Media Studies
• 2015-2018    University of Passau, Chair of English Studies Part-time External Lecturer in Literature and Culture and Media Studies
• 2012 –        University of Vienna, Institute of English and American Studies Part-time External Lecturer in Literature and Culture and Media Studies; Visiting Professor Winter semester 2016-2017; Privatdozentin and postgraduate supervisor from 2017
• 2008-2012    Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, Japan Assistant Professor of English and Culture and Media Studies, Faculty of Intercultural Communication
• 2004—2007     Inlingua, Dijon, France English as a Foreign Language senior teacher and teacher trainer
• 2002—2005     University of Technology, Nice Côte d’Azur and Dijon External lecturer, English for Academic Purposes
• 2000—2002     Faculté des lettres, Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France Teaching Assistant Department of English
• 2000—2002    International House London, Istanbul, Nice Teacher EFL, English for Academic Purposes, Business English 

Single-Authored Monograph    

Narratives of Inequality: Postcolonial Literary Economics. Palgrave Macmillan:  London, (Fall 2017) https://www.springer.com/br/book/9783319599564

Striding Both Worlds: Witi Ihimaera and New Zealand Literary Tradition. (Amsterdam &
New York: Rodopi, 2011). 
            Reviewed in:
            Alistair Fox, “Literary Contradictions”, New Zealand Books (Spring 2014: 12-13).
            Peter H. Marsden, Review, Postcolonial Text, Vol 6. No 4 (2011)
            Chris Prentice, “Rearticulating Politics and/as Aesthetics”, Journal of New Zealand Literature                    No.29:1 (2011: 154-159).
            Lydia Wevers, Review, Journal of Postcolonial Writing Vol. 49:1 (February 2013: 114-116).

Editor
Co-editor with Helga Ramsey-Kurz, Uncommon Wealths in Postcolonial Fiction. Leiden & 
    Boston: Brill, December 2017.

Co-editor with Janet Wilson, Pacific Critiques of Globalization special issue of Interventions 
Journal of Postcolonial Studies. Vol 19, no. 7, December 2017. 

Sole editor, IAFOR Journal of Literature and Librarianship. International Academic Forum
(IAFOR) open-access e-publications iafor.org/literaturejournal.html
    Interpretative Encounters Vol. 2.1 (Spring 2013).
    Journeys of Discovery Vol. 1.1 (Spring 2012).

Co-editor with J. George Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Journal of 
    Language, Culture and Communication Vol. 12.1 (Fall 2010) –Vol. 14.2 (Spring ‘13).

Book Chapters
“Imaginary Economies: Narratives for the Twenty-First Century.” Imagined Economies – 
Real Fictions. New Perspectives on Economic Thinking in Great Britain, edited by Jessica Fischer and Gesa Stedman, Bielefeld: Transcript, May 2020. 

 “How to be Rich, Popular, and Have It All: Conflicted Attitudes to Wealth and Poverty in
Post-Crisis Fiction.” In Uncommon Wealths in Postcolonial Fiction. Eds., Ramsey-Kurz & Kennedy. Leiden & Boston: Brill, December 2017. 287-304.
 
“Economic Inequality in Postcolonial Fiction” in The Bloomsbury Introduction to 
Postcolonial Writing: New Contexts, New Narratives, New Debates, ed., Jenni Ramone. (London: Bloomsbury, 2017, 53-69). 

“Approaches to Teaching Witi Ihimaera” in MLA Options for Teaching on Australian/New 
Zealand Literature. (New York: MLA, 2017, 55-66). 

“The Postcolonial Slum” in Re-Inventing the Postcolonial (in the) Metropolis, Cross/Cultures
Readings in the Post/Colonial Literatures in English, ASNEL papers (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2016, 3-16). 

“The Māori Renaissance” in A Cambridge History of New Zealand Literature, ed., Mark
Williams. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016: 277-288).  

“Urban Poverty and Homelessness in the international Postcolonial World”, in 
Postcolonialism: Globalization, Labour, and Rights, ed., Janet Wilson, Pavan Malreddy, Birte Heidemann, and Ole Birk Laursen. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015: 57-71). 

“Ökonomische Ungleichheiten im postkolonialen Slum” in Just Politics? - Ökokritische 
Perspektiven im postkolonialen Raum, ed., Lina Fricke, Anna von Rath, Elisabeth Nechutnys, Christoph Senf. Transl. Svenja Gelfert. (Münster: Unrast Verlag, 2014: 43-57).

“The Englishness of Maori Writing” in Diasporic Subjectivity and Cultural Brokering 
in Contemporary Post-Colonial Literatures, ed. Igor Maver. (Rowman and Littlefield: Maryland, 2009: 101-113).

Journal Articles
Reading Like Economists to Reimagine the Humanities.” Studia Neophilologica, vol. 92, no. 
1, Spring 2020.

“Maori Economic Inequality: Reading Outside Our Comfort Zone.” All that Glitters Is Not 
Gold: Pacific Critiques of Globalization, special issue of Interventions: Journal of Postcolonial Studies, vol. 19, no. 7, 2017, pp. 1011-1025. 

“Language, Pictures, Sounds: the Many Lives of Little Red Riding Hood”, in Lit Matters: The 
Liberlit Journal of Teaching Literature. Vol. 1.2, (May 2016, 178-195). 

“Early Ainu and Maori postcolonial theatre: Postman Heijiro and Te Raukura”, in Journal of 
Postcolonial Writing Vol. 50.3 (May 2014: 329-340). 

“The Call of the West Coast and the Reality of Rain”, in Journal of New Zealand Literature 
    No. 32     (Nov. 2013: 74-94).

“All Our Pasts before Us: Hamish Clayton’s Wulf”, in Journal of New Zealand Literature 
    No. 31     (March 2013: 150-172).

“Theoretical Encounters: Postcolonial Studies in East Asia”, in IAFOR Journal of Literature 
    and Librarianship Vol. 2.1 (Spring 2013: 7-16).

 “Literary Journeys and Journeys in Literature”, Introduction in IAFOR Journal of Literature 
    and Librarianship Vol. 1.1 (Spring 2012: 4-9). 

“New Directions in Postcolonial Studies” in NUCB Journal of Language, Culture and 
    Communication Vol. 13.2 (Spring 2012: 3-12).

“Contemporary Tradition: Reconfiguring Ainu Identity in Modern Japan.” NUCB Journal of 
    Language, Culture and Communication. Vol. 10.2 (Spring 2009: 37-45).

“Inside the text: The private side of Maori writing” in Journal of Postcolonial Writing. Vol. 
    45.1 (2009: 61-69). 

“Are you for Real? Witi Ihimaera’s Eidolon Camouflage.”  Moving Worlds: A Journal of 
    Transcultural Writings. Vol. 8(2), 2008.

“How Maori Culture Won the West.” Les Cahiers du CICLaS. No. 11, April 2007.

Reviews 
“Jennifer Lawn, Neoliberalism and cultural transition in New Zealand literature, 1984‒2008: 
Market fictions” in Journal of Postcolonial Writing. (Online January 2017). 

“John Marx, Geopolitics and the Anglophone Novel,1890–2011” in Journal of Postcolonial 
    Writing. (June 2014: 748-49). 

“Neil Lazarus, The Postcolonial Unconscious” in Journal of Postcolonial Writing. Vol. 48, 
    No. 2, (May 2012: 219–232).