“Off the Road: Researching Automobility and the Environment,” Guest Lecture by Timo Müller, March 20th 2026
Guest Lecture We cordially invite you to Timo Müller’s guest lecture at the “Crafting the Future Through Interdisciplinary Grants” workshop, jointly organized by the Department of American Studies at the University of Konstanz and the Department of Music at the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria. At the workshop, Timo Müller will speak about insights […]
‘A Venture into the Void of Un-vironmental Thought’, Talk by Natalie Dederichs (University of Cologne), 29th January 2026
Lecture We warmly invite you to the lecture “A Venture into the Void of Un-vironmental Thought” by Dr. Natalie Dederichs. When: Thursday, January 29, 5:00–6:30 p.m. Where: University of Konstanz, Room H 305 Dr. Natalie Dederichs’s research focuses on the study of literary texts that engage with environmental issues, particularly at the intersection of ecocriticism and […]
Timo Müller (University of Konstanz) Presents the Off the Road Project at FISH Online Panel on Automobile Infrastructures, 9th December 2025
Talk The OffRoad Project is represented at an online panel hosted by the Federation of Infrastructure Scholars in the Humanities (FISH). The event, co-organized by Caroline Levine, takes place on December 9 from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. (ET) and is held via Zoom. The panel focuses on automobile infrastructures and brings together three leading scholars in […]
The OffRoad Project Hosts “Infrastructure | Time | Aesthetics: An Exploratory Workshop”, 4th–5th December 2025
Workshop We are pleased to announce the exploratory workshop “Infrastructure | Time | Aesthetics“, held on 4–5 December 2025 at the Bischofsvilla. Everyone is warmly invited to attend. The workshop assembles scholars from across the humanities to explore new ways of thinking about sociocultural dimensions infrastructure, with a focus on questions of time and aesthetics. […]
Research Update from Gilberto Mazzoli on the Environmental History of Roadkill
Blog post Gilberto Mazzoli, postdoctoral scholar in North American Environmental History, has recently published a new blog post for the OffRoad project, presenting ongoing research on the environmental history of roadkill. The post, titled “Collisions: Driving Through Digital Humanities in Search of Roadkill,” is available here. Last year, Gilberto was awarded the ESEH–Gale Fellowship in […]
Interdisciplinary Workshop “Environmental Humanities Meets History of Knowledge” at the University of Konstanz, 20th-21st November 2025
Workshop Join us for the interdisciplinary workshop “Environmental Humanities meets History of Knowledge” on 20–21 November 2025 at the University of Konstanz. The event features two hybrid keynote lectures open to everyone: Prof. Dr. Florian Sprenger on “Virtuelle Environments – Roboter als Umgebungsmaschinen” and Prof. Dr. Stephanie Zehnle on “‘Jungle Bells’: Ecology, Metallurgy and Secrecy […]
The OffRoad Project Welcomes Pascal Ehrlich as a Doctoral Researcher, 1st August 2025
Welcome! We welcome Pascal Ehrlich to the ERC Off the Road research group at Uni Konstanz. His research focuses on citizenship and automobility in American fiction, examining how the car, as a literary motif, shaped concepts of American citizenship. His dissertation, “The Engines of Democracy: How the Car Influenced American Citizenship,” argues that driving was frequently […]
The OffRoad Project Welcomes Jonathan Stafford as a Postdoctoral Researcher, 10th June 2025
Welcome! Today we welcome Dr. Jonathan Stafford to the ERC Off the Road research group at Uni Konstanz. A cultural historian of mobility, Jonathan’s research will focus on early automobilities in the U.S. and the production of environmental knowledge.
‘Parkways: Pastoral Aesthetics and the Beginnings of Automobility’, Talk by Timo Müller (University of Konstanz), 20th January 2025
Lecture In the first decades of its existence, automobility was a thoroughly environmental experience. Most roads were mud or sand paths, and most cars were open to the air. Drivers had to pay attention to the material conditions of the road, to the weather, flora, and fauna. Automobility thus created new ways of perceiving and […]
OffRoad Database is Available Online
New on our website The Offroad database is finally available on our website! This database collects American road literature from the early decades of automobilty! To check it out, see the menu item “Database”!