Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sarah Heinz
Sarah Heinz

News: For an individual appointment in the summer term 2026, please contact me via email.

Consultation hours: During the summer term 2026, I am on sabbatical.

There will be no regular office hours between 1 March and 30 Sept 2026. For an individual appointment, please contact me via email.

Summer term 2025
124080 VK BEd 08a.3: VK Literature and Language Education - Acting Out: Teaching Theatre and Drama in the EFL Classroom
124268 AR Cultural/Media Studies 1/2 (AR) - Representing Tourists and Tourism in the Media
128110 VO Popular and Media Cultures VO / Cultural Studies - MA M01 - Re-Assessing Home in Contemporary Cultural Production
Heinz, S. (Accepted/In press). Book Review: Liz Tomlin: Staging Class Conflict in the UK. MEDIENwissenschaft Rezensionen/Reviews, 43(2).

Heinz, S. (Accepted/In press). Wasting Space: Desirable Home Spaces and the Ambivalent Moralisation of Luxury in the Lockdown Thriller. AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 51(2).



Heinz, S., & Aubel, K. (2025). Introduction: The Politics of Home. In S. Heinz, & K. Aubel (Eds.), The Politics of Home (Vol. 14, pp. 1-14). Universität Leipzig. https://ul.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A97891/attachment/ATT-0/

Heinz, S. (2025). 'Stay at Home': British Lockdown Novels and the Politics of Home and Homeland in COVID-19 Brexit Britain. In K. Tyler, S. Banducci, & C. Degnen (Eds.), Reflections on Polarisation and Inequalities in Brexit Pandemic Times: Fractured Lives in Britain (pp. 29-54). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003454137-3

Heinz, S. (2025). 'That passing glimpse': Home as Precarious Idyll and the Frictions of Late Nineteenth-Century Bourgeois Subjectivity in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Stories. In F. Frei Gerlach, & S. Schneider (Eds.), Idylle als Denkraum im 19. Jahrhundert: Literaturen, Künste, Medien (pp. 373-390). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111241425-015

Heinz, S., & Aubel, K. (Eds.) (2025). The Politics of Home. Universität Leipzig. Coils of the Serpent: Journal for the Study of Contemporary Power. Vol. 14 https://coilsoftheserpent.org/category/issue-14-2025/

Heinz, S. (2024). Mobilizing the Cozy Homestead: Sedentarist Notions of Home and Irish Traveller Belonging in Paul Rotha's No Resting Place (1951). In R. Mladenova (Ed.), Counterstrategies to the Antigypsy Gaze (pp. 235-249). Heidelberg University Publishing. https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.1039

Heinz, S., & Schmitt, M. (2024). Home on the Estate: (Un)Mapping British Homelands in Attack the Block. Journal for the Study of British Cultures, 31(1), 95-110. https://doi.org/10.33675/JSBC/2024/1/9








Heinz, S. (2021). Making yourself at home: Performances of whiteness in cultural production about home and homemaking practices. In S. Hunter, & C. van der Westhuizen (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Critical Whiteness Studies (1 ed., pp. 258-268). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429355769-21



CV

Since July 2017: Full Professor for English and Anglophone Literatures at the English Department, University of Vienna, Austria

Apr. 209-May 2020: Parental Leave

Aug. 2018: Returning Visting Scholar at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

Apr. 2016-June 2017: Parental Leave

Apr. 2015-March 2016: Guest Professor at the English Department, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany

Jan.-Apr. 2015: Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

May 2014: Oral Habilitation Presentation, granting of the venia legendi "Anglistische Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft" [English Literary and Cultural Studies]

2013: Submission of Habilitation at the School of Humanities, University of Mannheim, Germany

Title of Habilitation Treatise: "The Relative Skin: Whiteness in Contemporary Irish Literature and Film"

2009-2014: Juniorprofessor for British Literary and Cultural Studies at the School of Humanities, University of Mannheim

2008-2009: Juniorprofessor for English Literature/Cultural and Media Studies at the School of Humanities, University of Passau, Germany

2006-2008: Instructor at the Department of British Literary and Cultural Studies (Chair of English Literature and Culture, Anglistik II, Prof. Dr. Meinhard Winkgens) at the University of Mannheim

2003-2006: PhD in English Literature (summa cum laude)

Title of Doctoral Thesis: "Die Einheit in der Differenz: Metapher, Romance und Identität in A.S. Byatts Romanen" [Unity in Difference: Metaphor, Romance and Identity in A.S. Byatt's Novels]

1997-2003: Master of Arts in English, Linguistics, and Media and Communication Studies at the University of Mannheim

Born 1978 in Groß-Gerau, Germany

Teaching and Supervision

Among others, I have held lectures, facilitated seminars, and organised workshops in the following areas:

• Contemporary British drama and narrative literature
• The contemporary Anglophone novel
• Theories of intersectionality and race, specifically whiteness
• Theoretical and narrative conceptualisations of transcultural encounters
• Filmic, dramatic, and narrative representations of race, gender, class, and nation from Shakespeare to today
• Cultural discourses of identity, normality, and normalisation

For a full list of my courses, course evaluations, and my teaching dossier, see my personal homepage: http://sarah-heinz.de/

I welcome supervision proposals in all these areas. If you are interested in doing a thesis project with me, please come to my office hours and bring any material that you might find helpful to outline your idea and research plan.

Research Interests

• Postcolonial Theory, specifically Critical Whiteness Studies, Intersectionality, and Critical Race Theory
• Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, specifically the Contemporary Novel
• Transnational Discourses of Home and Homeland in Contemporary British and Anglophone Literature and Cultural Production
• British Drama and the Novel since 1800
• Contemporary Irish Literature, Film, and Culture in the Context of Postcolonial Studies and Globalisation
• Intermediality, Intertextuality, and Adaptation
• Theories of Identity and Subjectivity

'Through a glass, darkly': Re-Orientating British #Tradwife Content through Domestic Noir

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

20 Nov 202522 Nov 2025

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Hoard or Nothing: The Extreme Materialities of Home as the 'Good Place'

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

9 Oct 202511 Oct 2025

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


"Hush Now. Walk." - Walking and/as Home in Sarah Moss' The Fell

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

28 Mar 202529 Mar 2025

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Wasting Space: Raum als Verschwendung im englischsprachigen Lockdown-Roman

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

4 Nov 2024

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Keep Calm and Go Quietly Mad: Representing Homemaking Practices under Lockdown in Sarah Moss' The Fell

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

24 Jun 2024

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Australia and/as White Property

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

18 Jun 2024

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionOther


The Politics of Banality: Literary Representations of Homemaking Practices under Lockdown in Sarah Moss' The Fell

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

25 Jan 2024

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Re-Assessing Home in Contemporary Lockdown Fiction in English

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

12 Dec 2023

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Bride and Prejudice: Representing Irish Traveller Communities in Britain in Channel 4's My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

25 Nov 2023 → …

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


The Politics of Home in the Lockdown Novel in English

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

27 Oct 202328 Oct 2023

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Home on the Block: Decentring White, Middle-Class Adulthood in British Council Estate Comedy

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

17 Nov 202219 Nov 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Mobilizing the Story of Home: Lockdown and Quarantine in COVID-19 Fiction from East Africa

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

2 Sept 20225 Sept 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


'There is no way out': The Re-Assessment of Home in Peter May's Thriller Lockdown

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

30 Jun 20222 Jul 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


At Home in the Pandemic: Lockdown Novels and the Politics of Home under COVID-19

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

23 Jun 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Stay at Home: Lockdown Narratives and Politics of Identity in British Covid-19 Cultural Production

Heinz, S. (Keynote speaker)

10 Nov 2021

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Unsettling the State: Disturbing Sedentary Notions of Home in Irish Traveller Films

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

1 Nov 2021

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Panel discussion after staging of Neil LaBute's play Wrecks

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

12 Oct 2021

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Home, Heimat, Zuhause: Einführung zum Workshop "Home on Campus"

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

20 Sept 2021

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Reading Lockdown: Disturbing Sedentary Notions of Home in COVID-19 British Fiction

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

10 Sept 2021

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Lockdown! Re-Assessments of Im/Mobility in COVID-19 British Fictions of Home

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

20 Mar 2021

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Whose House is this?: Everyday Bordering and the Intersection of Home and Nation in British Property TV Shows

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

21 Nov 2020

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Applying for a Juniorprofessur in Germany: Experiences from the Field

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

28 Oct 2020

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Mobilizing Homes: Representing Home Spaces in Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

17 Nov 2018

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


'Father was an eagle': Narrative Adaptation as Postcolonial Critique in Chigozie Obioma's The Fishermen

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

6 Nov 2018

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Un/welcomed Homes: Negotiating Homing Desire in Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

14 Sept 2018

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Sechs Mal Schneewittchen: Eine Vorlesung darüber, was Bücher mit anderen Büchern zu tun haben

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

16 Jul 2018

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Home Sweet Home?: The Politics and Practices of Home in Anglophone and British Writing

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

4 May 20185 May 2018

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Laudatory speech for winner of Helene Richter Award 2017

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

21 Sept 2017

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


The Immobilized Family: Home and Homeland in the Nigerian Novel

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

15 Sept 2017

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Unhomely Spaces and Improper Houses: Representations of Whiteness and Class on British Television

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

23 Sept 201526 Sept 2015

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


The Individual Subject and Genre Theory

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

18 Sept 2015

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Postcolonial Whitenesses in the Contemporary Anglophone Novel

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

25 Jun 2015

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Postcolonial Studies: Postcolonial Literature and the Intersection of Race and Gender

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

15 Dec 2014

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Presentation of project "The Colour of Power" and discussion of research during PhD colloquium

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

14 Nov 2013

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Presentation of plans to establish a German Association for Irish Studies

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker) & Rennhak, K. (Invited speaker)

21 Jun 201323 Jun 2013

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


The Whiteness of Europe: Skin Discourses and Skin Colour in Irish Literature and Film

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

24 Apr 201326 Apr 2013

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


"My whole life is betwixt and between": The White Trash Body and Problems of Intersectionality in Sebastian Barry's The Pride of Parnell Street and Irvine Welsh's Skagboys

Heinz, S. (Speaker) & Schmitt, M. (Speaker)

5 Apr 20136 Apr 2013

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Presentation of project "The Colour of Power"

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker) & Schmitt, M. (Invited speaker)

10 Sept 201212 Sept 2012

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Staging the Body Politic in Irish Contemporary Drama: Sebastian Barry's The Pride of Parnell Street and Gianina Carbunariu's Kebab

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

7 Jun 201210 Jun 2012

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Ireland Online: Diaspora, Virtual Communities and the Question of National Identity

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

19 Sept 201022 Sept 2010

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


An Old Myth in New Guises: Gender and Violence in Contemporary Rewritings of Cathleen ni Houlihan

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

26 Jul 201030 Jul 2010

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Irish Identities in the U.S. Census and in American Literature

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

26 Mar 201029 Mar 2010

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


From Utopia to Heterotopia: Irish Writers Narrating the Spanish Civil War

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

3 Sept 20096 Sept 2009

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Relative Whiteness: The Irish and the Question of the Skin

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

27 Jul 200931 Jul 2009

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


The Whiteness of Irish Drama: The Irish and their Black Other

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

4 Jun 20097 Jun 2009

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Kreatives Schreiben im Literaturunterricht

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

14 Nov 200815 Nov 2008

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Teaching Autobiography: The Reintegration of Theory through Creative Writing

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

5 Oct 20088 Oct 2008

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


"If you think you know Shakespeare ... think again": Julie Taymors Shakespeare-Adaption Titus

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

13 Jun 2007

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Minute Dramas in Compressed Spaces - Neil LaBute's Short Play Cycle Autobahn

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

17 May 200720 May 2007

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


"Funny thing, memory, isn't it?" - Constructing and Deconstructing Memory in Michael Frayn's Donkey's Years

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

25 May 200628 May 2006

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Inside and outside language - Body and Language as Borders of Identity in Contemporary Philosophy and Literature

Heinz, S. (Speaker)

5 Nov 20047 Nov 2004

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Sprachskepsis und ihre Überwindung am Beispiel von A.S. Byatts Roman Possession

Heinz, S. (Invited speaker)

25 May 2004

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Department of English and American Studies

Spitalgasse 2
1090 Wien
Room: 3G-O2-31

T: +43-1-4277-42461

sarah.heinz@univie.ac.at