Editorial Note

In this issue of In Progress, we anchor the journal at the place where foundational ideas and inspirational articles are synthesized into each year’s volume: Hannover. Most of the content readers will encounter were conceived somewhere in our university’s Conti-Hochhaus, with a view of the Ihme-Zentrum across the river or an even more sweeping vista of the city. Although this locality is not unique to this issue, the present Open Section invites us to take a closer look at Leibniz University’s hometown. In Progress may be a graduate journal of North American Studies, and hence, our minds are often focused on an object of study an ocean away. Yet, we find ourselves based in seminar rooms, workspaces, and homes in a city quite literally in the middle of Germany; this is the perspective from which we question, learn, and publish. The Independent Studies section’s poems were written in a seminar room on a road that leads to the heart of the city; the idea for the Open Section came together in a classroom on the 6th floor of the Conti-Hochhaus, just where the classes that inspired many of the articles published in this issue took place. It is here that, year after year, new cohorts of aspiring academics come together to peer-review, brainstorm, and edit their first journal with support and guidance from Prof. Dr. Kathleen Loock and Dr. Felix Brinker. The present issue still prominently features the journal’s signature view across the pond to North American culture and media and includes a colorful and diverse range of academic and creative writing. At the same time, we also explore Hannover as the center of our academic and daily life, the vantage point that informs how we create In Progress.

Just like the previous issues, this issue’s Academic Section features a variety of topics and perspectives. Bita Shakoori’s article “Exoplanetary Pastoralism in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014),” takes us to the final frontier of space and explores the movie’s engagement in creating an extraplanetary American idyll. Coincidentally, this is not the issue’s only article that discusses a movie from Nolan’s filmography. Kristina Matthias’s article “Screening Memories for the Present: Oppenheimer (2023) and Its Ambivalent Message about the First Atomic Bomb” considers the movie’s role in the preservation of memories surrounding the creation of the atomic bomb in the face of an ever-dwindling number of eyewitnesses and analyzes what kinds of meanings these memories carry. Next, Philipp Kemeter’s article “Narrating Empathy in Contemporary British Short Stories” combines stylistics and the sociology of literature to read Helen Oyeyemi’s short story “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” (2016) against a selection of other recent British short fiction, ultimately identifying first-person narrative as a shared aesthetic pattern that is used to evoke empathy among a white, middle-class, female British readership. Then, Charlie Anton Geitlinger’s article “Haunting Presences in Warsan Shire’s Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head (2022)” reads between the lines of the Somali-British poets’ work and investigates (neo-)colonial scars on Black (women’s) bodies. Finally, Meret Röver tackles anti-evolutionism and compares it with the more contemporary notion of anti-genderism in a close reading of records surrounding Tennessee’s 1925 Scopes Trial. 

This issue’s Independent Studies Section features a diverse array of poems written in the context of Dr. Abigail Fagan’s seminar “Poetry Workshop” in the summer term 2025. Constructed as a workshop, students were not only invited to write but to collaborate, share, and experience. In their poetry, the authors showcase different techniques: Fenja Ilsemann’s poem “Wonderland” explores newfound friendship in an unlikely place. Teresa Donath contemplates friendship and ageing in “A letter shaped like a half moon.” In “Poetry in the Eye,” Farima Fallah digs deeper into the essence of poetry. The jarring effect of time and the soreness of unfulfilled dreams is examined in Tutku Büşra Öktem’s “Then and Now.”Farah Salaheddin plays around with form in her poem “Rejected” and its reflections on apologizing. Niklas Zabe connects humor, grief, and materiality in “Underweartaker.” Christine Poljanskij probes the relationship to and loss of a dog in her poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Dog,” and Celina Plaß deals with the similarity of emotions in her poem “Anxiety/Love.”

In the Open Section, titled “HannoCollage,” readers are invited to explore the journal’s place of origin, Hannover, from the perspective of a group of Leibniz University students. First, Zeynep Ahsen Mortas poetically traces the graffiti beyond the Ihme-Zentrum in “The City of Hannover, in Color.” Ibrahim Chowdhury’s “On Graffiti” presents an interview with local graffiti artist Daniel that deepens our insight into the people who make Hannover their own. Then, Shohana Tanjim and Zeynep Ahsen Mortas explore the life story of a more contemporary iconic site in “Ihme-Zentrum: A City Within Walls, Stories on Concrete.” We enter the historic old town through “Layers of History: Interview with Dr. Edel Sheridan-Quantz about the Ballhofplatz” by Paulina Schäfer. Finally, the photo project “Symbiosis: Eilenriede City Forest” by Fenja Ilsemann portrays a wholly different, and yet just as authentic, organic part of the vibrant city that is Hannover. 

Another such part of Hannover, and just as diverse in perception and interaction, are the students who created these projects and the In Progress journal. As usual, the current issue is a result of the collaboration between the students from the seminar “Editing A Scholarly Journal” taught by Prof. Dr. Kathleen Loock and Dr. Felix Brinker in the winter term 2025/26, and the editorial board. We’d like to thank the participants of the seminar – Nandita Bala, Ibrahim Chowdhury, Alexander Joseph Gomez, Fenja Ilsemann, Evelyn Teresa Johnson, Annika Kraft, Zeynep Ahsen Mortas, Christine Poljanskij, Raul Quinque, Paulina Schäfer, Rebeka Sultana, Shohana Tanjim, and Hafiza Sultana Zarin – for their hard work, boundless creativity, and manifold contributions to this issue. We also want to thank our current team of associate editors – Eiman Alkhatib, Farima Fallah, Elaheh Ghasemi, Annabel Grothstück, Philipp Kemeter, Annika Kraft, Kristina Matthias, Ioana-Marina Pantelici, Christine Poljanskij, Raul Quinque, Farah Salaheddin, Paulina Schäfer, and Niklas Zabe – for their ongoing efforts to shape this journal and make it work. Additionally, we’d like to express our gratitude towards our general and managing editors – Prof. Dr. Kathleen Loock, Dr. Felix Brinker, Dr. Lilean Buhl, and Lujain Youssef – for their guidance and persistence. Last but not least, we’d like to thank all the authors for their contributions to this issue. You have formed the essence of this collaborative project. We hope to inspire many more students to share their work with the world.

Copyright (c) 2026 Chrissi Poljanskij, Raul Quinque, and Paulina Schäfer.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.