Dr. Ruth Gehrmann

What does my research in the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1482 focus on?

As co-leader (together with Mita Banerjee) of the project “Best Agers/Best Places: Successful Aging and Spatial Human Differentiation,“ I focus on the relationship between “successful aging” and living environments.

Together with Mita Banerjee and Marlene Winkler, I examine three spaces in which “successful aging” is lived and presented in distinctive ways. My focus lies on retirement on cruise ships, which I analyze as floating spaces where older adults settle permanently and form a mobile, often exclusive community. I am particularly interested in how these maritime worlds function as enclosed “best places” and what forms of (self-)segregation emerge there.

What shapes me and my research?

I am very interested in the intersection between the humanities and other disciplines. The field of medical humanities offers new possibilities in this regard, and my PhD project focused on the representation of organ transplantation in medical and literary narratives. I am particularly invested in engaging with texts that often receive less attention, such as young adult fiction.

What brought me to the CRC?

After completing my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Constance and Augsburg, I was part of the DFG Research Training Group “Life Sciences, Life Writing,” which gave me the opportunity to spend a semester as a visiting scholar in the Narrative Medicine Program at Columbia University in New York. As a lecturer at the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, I was particularly excited about the opportunity to teach seminars on a variety of topics, such as young adult fiction and illness in literature. In addition to conference visits in English-speaking countries, I have had the opportunity to teach at York University in Toronto.

Foto: Stephanie Füssenich