Sandra Mayer
- Department of English and American Studies
- Department of English and American Studies
Email: sandra.mayer@univie.ac.at
Curriculum vitae
Sandra Mayer is a Hertha Firnberg Research Fellow in English Literature. She studied English and History at the universities of Graz, Sussex, and Vienna, where she received her doctorate in English Literature for a thesis on the reception of Oscar Wilde’s works on twentieth-century Viennese stages. Her book, Oscar Wilde in Vienna, was published by Brill Rodopi in 2018. In 2014, she was awarded an Erwin Schrödinger Research Fellowship by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) to undertake postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford’s English Faculty and Wolfson College, where she worked on a project exploring the intersections of literature, politics, and Victorian celebrity culture in the life and career of Benjamin Disraeli. This research forms part of her current FWF-funded project Art and Action, which investigates the complex interrelations of literary celebrity and politics in and through autobiographical life-writing genres. She also holds a postdoctoral research affiliation with the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, where she co-ordinates the Centre’s “Life-Writing and Celebrity” research strand. Her co-edited special issue on "Life Writing and Celebrity" for Life Writing has just been published as an edited volume by Routledge.
Her conference on "Art and Action: Literary Authorship, Politics, and Celebrity Culture", originally to be hosted by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities in March 2020 but cancelled due to Covid-19, was rescheduled as a series of Zoom webinars. More information and recordings available here.
Research Interests
- literary celebrity and authorship
- life-writing
- cultural transfer and reception studies
- literary networks and cosmopolitanism
- literature and culture of the Victorian Age and the Fin de Siècle
- Neo-Victorianism
Organisation of Conferences etc.
- Lecture series "Celebrity & Memory: Victorian and Neo-Victorian Perspectives" (with Sylvia Mieszkowski & Monika Pietrzak-Franger), English Department, University of Vienna, winter term 2020/21.
- Workshop "Writing Activism" (with Katherine Collins), The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, 26 February 2019
- Discussion panel "Literary Celebrity and Political Persona" (Kirsty Gunn, P David Marshall, Rachel Potter), Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, 14 May 2018
- Day symposium "Transnational Lives and Cosmopolitan Biographies" (co-organised with Philip Ross Bullock), Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, 17 March 2018
- Half-day colloquium "Life-Writing and Female Celebrity", Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, 4 November 2017
- Day symposium "Celebiography: Celebrity and Life-Writing in Dialogue", Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, 19 November 2016
- Day symposium "Art and Action: The Intersections of Literary Celebrity and Politics", The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, 5 March 2016
- Lecture series "Cultures of Celebrity", English Department, University of Vienna, winter term 2015/16
- Day symposium "The Many Lives of Benjamin Disraeli", The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, 24 March 2015
Celebrity Studies: A Historical Perspective
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
Art and Action: Authorship, Politics, Celebrity
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Public
Performances of the Celebrity Self: Benjamin Disraeli and Oscar Wilde
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Public
The Booker Prize and Celebrity Performance: Authorial Cross-Field Migrations between Literature and Politics
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Making Mischief: David Hare and the Celebrity Playwright's Political Persona
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Die Aktualität von W.H. Auden
Sandra Mayer (Speaker), Timo Frühwirth (Speaker) & Helmut Neundlinger (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Public
Lionism, Home Stories, Birthday Books: The Politics and Poetics of Victorian Celebrity Culture
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Trading Oscar Wilde in the Fin-de-Siècle Viennese Marketplace
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Panel Discussion: Oscar Wilde in Vienna: Pleasing and Teasing the Audience
Sandra Mayer (Speaker), Stefano Evangelista (Speaker), Mary Luckhurst (Speaker) & Dominic Janes (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Roundtable: Patterns of Victorian and Neo-Victorian Celebrity
Sandra Mayer (Speaker), Charlotte Boyce (Speaker), Danielle Dove (Speaker) & Patricia Pulham (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
“She was not ambitious, though she enjoyed success”: Harriet Martineau and the Enabling and Disabling Potential of Celebrity Authorship
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Roundtable: Life-Writing: Theory and Practice
Sandra Mayer (Speaker), Elisabeth Bronfen (Speaker), Hermione Lee (Speaker), Svenja Goltermann (Speaker) & Gesine Krüger (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Panel Discussion: Literary Celebrity and Political Persona
Sandra Mayer (Contributor), P David Marshall (Speaker), Kirsty Gunn (Speaker) & Rachel Potter (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Roundtable: Transnational Lives and Cosmopolitan Biographies
Sandra Mayer (Contributor), Stefano Evangelista (Speaker), Claudia Olk (Speaker), Jürgen Schlaeger (Speaker) & Laura Marcus (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
"'My Secret Life': Victorian Erotic Memoir as Life-Writing Genre"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Roundtable Celebrity and Life-Writing: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives
Sandra Mayer (Contributor), Hermione Lee (Speaker), Philip Bullock (Speaker), Ruth Scobie (Speaker) & Lindsay Shapero (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Seminar Celebrity and Life-Writing: Exploring Intersections
Sandra Mayer (Speaker) & Julia Lajta-Novak (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
"'The Most Brilliant of Paradoxes': Benjamin Disraeli, Oscar Wilde and Cross-Field Performances of Celebrity"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Autobiographisierungsstrategien im Nachlass Benjamin Disraelis
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
"Approaching Celebrity across Periods and Disciplines"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Roundtable "Historical Re-evaluations of Celebrity in the 18th and 19th Centuries"
Sandra Mayer (Contributor), Ruth Scobie (Contributor), Tom Mole (Speaker), Simon Morgan (Speaker), Faramerz Dabhoiwala (Speaker) & Jessica Goodman (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
"A Romantic Legacy: Benjamin Disraeli and Early-Victorian Celebrity Culture"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
"'Continental Reputation Equalling Posthumous Fame'? Disraeli's Literary and Political Celebrity in an International Context"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
"The Prime Minister as Celebrity Novelist: 'Lothairmania' and Disraeli's 'Double Consciousness'"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
"'A Strange Mingling': Disraeli as literary Celebrity and Celebrity Politician"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Public
"Following the Primrose Path: Intersections of Literary and Political Fame in Commemorations of Benjamin Disraeli"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
"'What is He?' Victorian Images of Benjamin Disraeli as Literary Celebrity and Celebrity Politician"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
"Literary Biography and Celebrity: Re-Evaluating Victorian Authors from the Perspective of Celebrity Studies"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
"The (Not So) Secret Fall of Oscar Wilde: Literary Celebrity and its Afterlives in Contemporary Biofiction and Popular Culture"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Science to Science
Disparate Images: The 'Work vs Life' Topos in Contemporary Biofictions of Victorian Authors
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
'En-Nobeled' Irishmen in Vienna: Nobel Prize Winners W. B. Yeats and Bernard Shaw in the Austrian Media
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
En-Nobeling Literary Celebrity: Authorial Self-Fashioning in the Nobel Lectures of Elfriede Jelinek and Harold Pinter
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
Literary Cosmopolitans and Agents of Mediation: Oscar Wilde and Fin-de-Siècle Viennese Artistic Networks
Sandra Mayer (Invited speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
The Importance of Being a Literary Commodity: Trading Oscar Wilde in the Theatrical Marketplace
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
The Art of Creating (and Remaining) a Great Sensation: Canonising and Reinterpreting Oscar Wilde on Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Viennese Stages
Sandra Mayer (Invited speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
The Importance of Commemorating a Literary Celebrity: Oscar Wilde and Literary Memorial Culture
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
Wild(e) Imaginings: Reinventing Oscar Wilde in Contemporary Theatre and Popular Culture
Sandra Mayer (Invited speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
"Practically Rewritten - and Sexually Reoriented": The Critical Controversy Surrounding the Viennese Première of Elfriede Jelinek's Adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
(Re)Politicised and Over(Sexualised) - Wild(e) Treatments on Twenty-First-Century Viennese Stages
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
"London Dandy Meets Viennese Bonvivant: The Cultural 'Other' in Oscar Wilde's Society Comedies on Viennese Stages"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
"An Artefact of Commodified Culture: Trading Oscar Wilde in the Viennese Literary Marketplace"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
"An Irishman in Vienna: The Viennese Theatrical Reception of Oscar Wilde in the Twentieth Century"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
Two Irishmen Abroad: Constructions of National Identity and Its Impact on the Theatrical Reception of Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
"A 'First-Rate Theatrical Fashion Item': Trading Wilde in the Fin-de-Siècle Viennese Literary Marketplace"
Sandra Mayer (Speaker)
Activity: Talks and presentations › Talk or oral contribution › Other
Department of English and American Studies
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 8 (Campus)
1090 Wien
Room: 3F-O1-11