Mari Jarris: President's Postdoctoral Fellow

Mari Jarris (they/them/theirs) is a 2022–23 President's Postdoctoral Fellow.

Department
German, Nordic, Slavic, and Dutch

President's Postdoctoral Fellow Program Mentors
Karen Ho and Matthias Rothe

Undergraduate Institution
Wesleyan University

Doctoral Institution
Princeton University

Dissertation Title
Revolutionary Utopianism and Subjectivation: Nikolai Chernyshevsky's and Lu Märten's Queer Aesthetic Paradigms, 1860s-1920s

Research Interests
Mari Jarris received their dual Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and in German Literature from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Their book project, "Utopia & Revolution: Socialism’s Queer Pasts and Futures", traces queer utopianism within transnational socialist movements from the 1860s to the present as a counternarrative to the dominant forms of scientific socialism. They are also working on a second book project that examines the visual and literary representation of queer identities in the Weimar Republic and early Soviet Union again the backdrop of German and Russian colonialism, arguing that ethnoracial hierarchies were co-constitutive of 'modern' queer sexualities. Additional research areas include nineteenth- and twentieth-century German- and Russian-language literature, socialist theories and movements, Marxist aesthetics, critical theory, feminist and queer theory, utopian literature, and contemporary intersectional German-language literature. They have received research grants from the German Fulbright Commission, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Coalition of Women in German, and American Councils Fellowships in Russia.