Felicitas Macgilchrist

Dr. phil., studied Psychology, Education and Applied Linguistics. PhD in Cultural Sciences (2009) from the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. 

From 2004 to 2005, Felicitas Macgilchrist was visiting scholar at New York University. She was lecturer at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences from 2006 to 2007 and has been research associate at Ghent University, Belgium, since 2007. In 2011 she was visiting scholar at Ghent University. She has taught English, discourse analysis and cultural studies in Russia, Germany, Vietnam, Belgium and the USA. 

Her research interests lie primarily in ethnographic discourse analysis, post-foundational theories, and conflicts over "official" knowledge and cultural memory in increasingly heterogeneous societies. Further details here. Publications include Journalism and the Political which analyses international news coverage of post-Soviet Russia, including the Beslan hostage-taking, Gazprom, Litvinenko and human rights issues. The book demonstrates the (re)production of the ‘common-sense’ social order in which one particular area of the world is more developed, civilized and democratic than other areas. However, it also suggests that journalism is precisely the site where the instability of this global social order becomes visible. 

Project

In January 2009, Felicitas Macgilchrist joined the Georg Eckert Institute as research fellow in the research area "Education and Globalization". Her project “Educational Media: Production, Praxis, Politics” explores how knowledge(s) and shared memories are produced in contemporary schools. Combining ethnographic and discourse analytical methods, the project investigates the production and use of educational media. Given the contemporary perception that our social world is increasingly heterogeneous, and that shared knowledge/memories are precarious and contingent, the project pays particular attention to conflicts over which knowledges and memories are thought to be of most worth in today's educational media production practices.

Monograph

• Journalism and the Political: Discursive tensions in international news coverage of Russia. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2011)

Articles (peer reviewed)

• (2012) Blogs, genes and immigration: Online media and minimal politics. Media, Culture & Society, 34(1), 84-101. (with Inse Böhmig).
• (2011) Schulbuchverlage als Organisationen der Diskursproduktion: Eine ethnographische Perspektive. Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation, 31(3), 248-263. (pdf)
• (2011) Ethnographic Discourse Analysis and Social Science. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1), Art. 18. (with Tom Van Hout). (pdf)
• (2011) Translating Globalization Theories into Educational Research: Thoughts on Recent Shifts in Holocaust Education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 32(1): 145-58. (with Barbara Christophe). (pdf)
• (2011) Position Paper: Towards a Linguistics of News Production. Journal of Pragmatics. 43(7): 1843-1852. (with NewsTalk&Text Research Group). (pdf)
• (2011) Humboldt meets Bologna: Developments and debates in institutional writing support in Germany. Canadian Journal for the Study of Writing and Discourse, 23(1). (with Katrin Girgensohn) (pdf)
• (2010) Framing the news: An ethnographic view of business newswriting. Text & Talk 30(2): 169-191. (with Tom Van Hout)
• (2007) Positive Discourse Analysis – Contesting Dominant Discourse by Reframing the Issues. In CADAAD (Critical Approaches to Discourse across Disciplines) 1(1): 74-94. (pdf)
  

Other articles and book chapters (selection)

• (2012) Kolonialismus und Modernisierung: Das diskursive Ringen um Afrika bei der Schulbuchentwicklung. In Manuel Aßner, Jessica Breidbach, Abdel-Amine Mohammed, David Schommer & Katja Voss (Eds.), AfrikaBilder im Wandel? Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 195-208. (with Lars Müller). (pdf)
• (2011) Schulbücher und Postkolonialisms: Die Praxis der Schulbuchentwicklung. In Karl. W. Hoffmann & Philippe Kersting (Eds.), "Afrikaspiegelbilder" - Was erzählen und europäische Afrikabilder über Europa? Mainz: Mainzer Kontaktstudium Geographie.
• (2011) Shaping the global: Theory and methods for exploring the production of globalization with educational media. In Susanne Knudsen, Jesus Rodriguez & Mike Horsley (Eds.), Local, National, and Transnational Identities in Textbooks and Educational Media, 101-111. (with Barbara Christophe).
• (2010) Publish or Perish? A genre approach to getting published in leading English-language journals. In Katrin Girgensohn (Ed.) Kompetent zum Doktortitel: Konzepte zur Förderung Promovierender. (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag), 155-168.
• (2009) The view from elsewhere: Western mediation of potential sources of Russian dislocation. In Philipp Casula & Jeronim Perovic (Eds.), Identities and Politics During Putin's Presidency. (Stuttgart: ibidem), 334-354.
• (2009) Gazprom, Ukraine und die deutschen Medien - Das Neujahrstrio. Telepolis (3 January).
• (2009) Vom Osten zum europäischen Kern: Die Deutsche Berichterstattung über Polen. In I. Kollak & A. Kołodziej-Durnaś (Eds.), Formen des sozialen Lebens im multikulturellen Europa. (Berlin: Schibri).
• (2007) Metaphorical Politics – Is Russia ‘western’ or not in the UK, US and German press coverage of the Russian-Chechen conflict? In C. Baker, C. Gerry, B. Madaj, E. Mellish & J. Nahodilova (Eds.), Nation in Formation: Inclusion and Exclusion in Central and Eastern Europe. (London: SSEES Occasional Papers), 73-90.
• (2007) Z Zachodu do centrum Europy: obraz Polski i Polaków w niemieckich sprawozdaniach prasowych. In I. Kollak & A. Kołodziej-Durnaś (Eds.), Formy życia społecznego w wielokulturowej Europie: polsko-niemieckie introspekcje. (Szczeczin: Economicus), 7-24.
• (2006) Bond and The Return of the Evil Empire. Telepolis (26 November).
• (2005) Terrorist or Freedom Fighter? Evaluation in ‘objective’ press texts. In Hartmut Lenk and Andrew Chesterton (Eds.) Contrasting Text Types in the Press, (Hildesheim: Georg Olms), 59-78.

Documentary film

•  (2009) Mein Mauerfall: Berliner Zeitzeugen erzählen. Berlin: ZeitZeugenBörse. (with Gertrud Achinger).

Contact: