Simone Pfleger, PhD
Pronouns: they, them
Contact
Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts - Womens & Gender Studies
- pfleger@ualberta.ca
Overview
About
Simone Pfleger is Associate Professor of Gender and German Studies with dual appointments in Women’s and Gender Studies and Modern Languages and Cultural Studies. Their research is grounded in gender and queer theoretical methodologies and engages with notions of temporality, (political) subjectivity, affect, intimacy, and precarity in post-2000 German-language literature, film, and culture. Most recently, Simone has published in Feminist German Studies, Feminist Media Studies, and Seminar. Their first book Untimely Bodies, Untimely Aesthetics: Temporality, Relationality, and Intimacy in the Cinema of the Berlin School (McGill Queen's UP, 2023) foregrounds how queer conceptualizations of temporality can engage notions of subjectivity, relationality, and intimacy in visual representations. The book examines how many figures in Berlin School fims grapple with an unattainable desire for connection, placed in landscapes shaped by hegemonic heteronormative intimacies, and a linear temporal organization of life that conforms to mainstream, traditional rhythms, and milestones.
Their current project, titled "Making Strides," is an autoethnographic study, in which they participate in ultra-distance trail running events to then theorize the instability and fluidity of socio-culturally and historically contingent binary gender norms and work on policy changes for Alberta races.
Courses
GERM 340 - Introduction to the Study of Modern Literature
A survey of German-language literature in context since the Enlightenment. Prerequisite: GERM 212 or consent of Department.
GSJ 540 - Body Politics
An examination of contemporary theoretical approaches to bodies and embodiment, with particular emphasis on the ways that race, class, sexuality, gender, and (dis)ability shape bodily experiences. (Not open to students with credit in WGS 440.)
WGS 220 - Feminism and Popular Culture
Selected cultural forms from feminist perspectives. The focus is both on developing a feminist critique of cultural representations of women, and on considering the possibilities of feminist intervention in and production of popular culture.
WGS 402A - Honors Seminar and Project
Prerequisite: WGS 302.
WGS 402B - Honors Seminar and Project
Prerequisite: WGS 302.
WGS 440 - Body Politics
An examination of contemporary theoretical approaches to bodies and embodiment, with particular emphasis on the ways that race, class, sexuality, gender, and (dis)ability shape bodily experience. Prerequisite: Any 100 or 200 level WGS course, or consent of department.