People

Faculty Profiles

  • Sophie Labenski
  • Sophie Labenski
  • Graduate Student
  • At Rutgers Since: 2024
  • Primary Areas of Specialization: Fin-de-Siècle British Literature, Monstrosity, Urban Studies, Sexuality, Film, Book and Media History
  • Field of Interest: Book and Media History, Film, Gender & Sexuality, Victorian
  • About:

    Sophie Labenski holds a B.A. from Freie Universität Berlin (2020) in English and German Philology with a focus on teaching and an M.A. from Dartmouth College (2022) in Comparative Literature. She is awaiting two more M.A. degrees to be awarded (one in English Studies and one in Modern German Literature from Freie Universität Berlin). She has served as a language teaching assistant for the Duke University in Berlin Program and has experience as a teaching assistant for two courses at Dartmouth. In 2024, she began her PhD at Rutgers University.

    Her research focuses on fin-de-siècle British literature, with a particular interest in how monstrosity, urbanity, and sexuality intersect in literary and cultural texts. In addition, she has a secondary specialization in film and media studies and has worked extensively in the field of Digital Humanities.

    In both her research and teaching, Sophie examines how literature and media engage with cultural anxieties, particularly in relation to representations of the body, space, and societal norms.
  • Awards:

    Award for Excellence as a Teaching Assistant in the German Department- Dartmouth College, 2022
  • Other Publications:

    "The City of Nightmares: Occultism, Ecstasy, and the Literature of Late-Victorian London" (2022). Comparative Literature M.A. Essays. Dartmouth College. Available at:  https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/complit_essays/2.
  • Education: B.A. Freie Universität Berlin (2020), M.A. Dartmouth College (2022)