English and American Studies

How to complete your master programme?

As part of the final phase of your MA programme, you need to consider three important aspects:

  1. Complete all courses and hand in your documents as soon as possible
  2. Write your MA thesis
  3. Prepare for the MA defence

All formal aspects regarding the master's thesis and registration for the final exam are handled by the StudyServiceCenter (SSC).

Ian Ehm

Your steps to the master's thesis

Master's theses are academic theses which serve to demonstrate your ability to work on academic topics independently and in an adequate manner in terms of content and methodology. You decide on the topic of your master's thesis in agreement with your supervisor. 

Make sure to obtain approval for your topic and your supervisor early on when you start working on your thesis. Your supervisor may, if necessary, suggest a colleague who holds a doctoral degree as co-supervisor. Please note that you also have to obtain approval for co-supervisors.

The aim is to develop a master's thesis project that you can realistically complete within six months. However, you are not obliged to complete your master's thesis within this period.

Find a supervisor for your master's thesis

Below you can find a list of all the potential supervisors at our department. This list is supposed to help you plan and select a topic for your MA or PhD thesis.

Please contact a potential supervisor once you have a clear idea of what you would like to write about. You should keep an open mind about any suggestions they may have, especially in case your topic is too narrow in focus or not focused enough.

Some supervisors may not currently accept any new students because they already supervise too many theses, or turn you down because your topic doesn't match their areas of expertise.

NOTE! Senior PostDocs as thesis supervisors are marked with:

* supervision of up to two theses per year

** supervision on special request

Thesis Supervisors

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Christiane DALTON-PUFFER

  • Classroom discourse analysis
  • Content-and-Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
  • Instructed foreign language learning
  • Learner language
  • Word-formation in English

Univ.-Prof. Dr. M. Evelien KEIZER

  • Linguistic analysis of Present-day English: models and approaches (in general)
  • Functional approaches to linguistic analysis (in particular Functional Discourse Grammar)
  • Cognitive approaches to linguistic analysis (in particular Cognitive Grammar)
  • Linguistic categorization and prototype theory
  • Syntax, semantics and pragmatics (and the interaction between them)

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Nikolaus RITT

  • History of English in the widest sense
  • Language variation and change (all levels of description)
  • Phonetics and Phonology
  • Morphology
  • Linguistic theory and metatheory

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Britta SCHNEIDER, PhD

  • Sociolinguistics
  • Multilingualism, creolisation and language contact
  • Language and gender
  • Digital language practices
  • (Critical) discourse analysis
  • Sociolinguistic approaches to LLMs
  • The role of bodies, materialities and technologies in language 

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Barbara SEIDLHOFER

  • English as a Lingua Franca
  • Variation in contemporary English
  • English in intercultural communication and multilingualism
  • Applied linguistics for language teacher education
  • Sociolinguistics
  • Text and discourse analysis

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Ute SMIT

  • CLIL / EMI (English-medium instruction), esp. at the tertiary level
  • English language use and learning in and around the classroom (incl. motivation)
  • Genre analysis and ESP (English for specific purposes)
  • Analysing English discourse in various settings (incl. computer-mediated communication)
  • English-focussed language planning and policy (incl. attitudes)

Ass.-Prof. Igor YANOVICH, PhD

  • Corpus linguistics, especially with historical corpora
  • Historical linguistics
  • Phonological description
  • Quantitative analysis of linguistic data
  • Semantics and pragmatics 

Assoc.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Dieter FUCHS

  • James Joyce
  • High Modernism
  • Shakespeare
  • Early Modern Period
  • Irish Studies (C18-C20)

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Alexandra GANSER

  • Cultural studies, cultural theory and American popular culture
  • Mobility studies, transatlantic American studies and the Black Atlantic
  • Gender Studies
  • Visual Cultures and Intermediality
  • Native American Studies
  • Eco-criticism and scientific discourse

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sarah HEINZ, Privatdoz. 

  • Contemporary British drama and narrative literature
  • The contemporary Anglophone novel
  • Theories of intersectionality and race, specifically whiteness
  • Theoretical and narrative conceptualisations of transcultural encounters
  • Filmic, dramatic, and narrative representations of race, gender, class, and nation from Shakespeare to today
  • Cultural discourses of identity, normality, and normalisation

Dr. Tatiana KONRAD, MA* 

  • Environmental Humanities
  • Health Humanities
  • War/Genocide Studies
  • American Studies
  • Anglophone Postcolonial Studies

Assoc.-Prof. Dr. Julia LAJTA-NOVAK, M.A.

  • Life writing, biofiction, biopics
  • Poetry and (inter)mediality
  • Spoken Word (esp. poetry performance & stand-up comedy)
  • Restoration verse satire
  • Gender studies
  • Black British literature

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sylvia MIESZKOWSKI, Privatdoz. MA

  • British literature
  • Cultural analysis
  • Poststructuralist theory
  • Gender studies and queer theory
  • Literary sound studies
  • British popular culture

Mag. Dr. Martina PFEILER

  • Cultural Studies and U.S.-American Popular Culture
  • U.S.-American Poetry incl. Poetry Slams, Poetry Films, E-Poetry
  • Melville Studies and Moby-Dick
  • Identity Politics (Gender, 'Race'/Ethnicity, Class; intersectionality)
  • 19th, 20th, and 21st Centuries U.S. Literature incl. Digital Literature
  • U.S.-American Protest Cultures in Literature and Media
  • Teaching Literary Classics Today 

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Monika Maria PIETRZAK-FRANGER

  • British Cultural Studies
  • British Literature (1800-)
  • Adaptation, Inter- and Transmediality Studies, Visual Culture
  • Literature, Culture and Science, Medical Humanities
  • Gender Studies
  • (Auto)biographic Fiction

Dr. Kevin POTTER, BA MA*

  • Marxist theory
  • Deleuze and Guattari
  • Migration and philosophies of movement
  • Affect Theory
  • Postcolonial Studies
  • Palestine

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Susanne REICHL, Privatdoz.

  • Black and Asian British Literature
  • Time travel in fiction and other media
  • The teaching of literature and culture at school
  • Selected aspects of British Cultural Studies
  • Selected aspects of literature for children and young adults

Mag. Dr. Ranthild SALZER*  

  • American Studies
  • Gender Studies
  • Masculinity Studies
  • Comics Studies
  • Film and Media Studies

Dr. Marta WERBANOWSKA* 

  • African American / Black literatures
  • Black Studies
  • Literatures of environmental justice
  • Caribbean literatures and theories
  • Poetry and poetics
  • Ecocriticism, posthumanism, new materialism
  • Environmental Humanities

Ass.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Katharina WIEDLACK

  • Cultural Studies
  • Popular Culture
  • TV, Film and Media Studies
  • Gender and Queer Studies
  • Disability Studies
  • Critical Race Studies

ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr. Eva ZETTELMANN

  • Narratology
  • Lyric theory
  • Cognitive poetics
  • Poetry C16 - C21

Mag. Dr. Armin BERGER, MA*

  • Language testing and assessment
  • The interface between testing, assessment, learning and teaching
  • Feedback in foreign language learning
  • Teaching and assessing speaking

Mag. Dr. Helen HEANEY, BA*

  • Language testing
  • Second and foreign language reading
  • Innovative methods in EFL

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Julia HÜTTNER, MSc

  • Language Teacher Cognition
  • Language Teacher Development
  • Classroom Discourse Analysis
  • Bilingual educational programmes, including CLIL/EMI
  • ESP and Genre Analysis
  • Spoken Language in the classroom
  • Disciplinary Language in the classroom

Mag. Dr. Karin RICHTER*

  • Pronunciation learning and teaching
  • Teaching speaking skills
  • Accents and attitudes
  • Action research projects

Mag. Dr. Alexandra SCHURZ*

  • Language learning in the digital age & Extramural English
  • Innovative methods in grammar teaching
  • Implicit and explicit learning conditions, processes, and types of (grammar) knowledge
  • Cross-country comparisons of language teaching & learning

Master's exam/Defensio

Depending on your master's programme, different rules about the final exam apply. Please read the information relevant to your programme below carefully. 

Ian Ehm

Formal Steps:

  1. You need to find a 2nd examiner. You can choose anyone who is allowed to supervise theses in literary and/or cultural studies.
  2. Agree on a date and time for your defence with your supervisor and 2nd examiner.
  3. Find a chair with the help of our Chairing List.
  4. Register for your defence at the SSC (StudiesServiceCentre) Phil.-Kult. with the form "Anmeldung zur Masterprüfung".

Watch out for the following requirements and plan accordingly:

  • You need to have completed all courses and submitted your documents for the final check
  • Your thesis grade has to be submitted on u:space
  • You have to register at least 2 weeks before the defence takes place.

How is the exam structured: 

Defensio duration: 1 hour, three parts 20 minutes each.

  • Part 1: presenting and defending MA thesis,
  • Part 2: 1st examiner ( = thesis supervisor): questions on reading list,  
  • Part 3: 2nd examiner (chosen by student): reading list.

Formal Steps:

  1. You need to find a 2nd examiner. You can choose anyone who is allowed to supervise theses in the field of Linguistics.
  2. Agree on a date and time for your defence with your supervisor and 2nd examiner.
  3. Find a chair with the help of our Chairing List.
  4. Register for your defence at the SSC (StudiesServiceCentre) Phil.-Kult. with the form "Anmeldung zur Masterprüfung".

Watch out for the following requirements and plan accordingly:

  • You need to have completed all courses and submitted your documents for the final check
  • Your thesis grade has to be submitted on u:space
  • You have to register at least 2 weeks before the defence takes place.

How is the exam structured: 

Defensio duration: 1 hour, three parts 20 minutes each.

  • Part 1: presenting and defending MA thesis,
  • Part 2: 1st examiner ( = thesis supervisor): questions on reading list,  
  • Part 3: 2nd examiner (chosen by student): reading list.

If the thesis is written in UF Englisch:

Formal Steps:

  1. You need to find a second examiner in the same field, in which you are writing your thesis.
  2. You need to agree on a date and time for your defence with your supervisor and 2nd examiner.
  3. Find a chair with the help of our Chairing List.
  4. Register for your defence at the SSC (StudiesServiceCentre) Phil.-Kult. with the form "Anmeldung zur Masterprüfung".

Watch out for the following requirements and plan accordingly:

  • You need to have completed all courses and submitted your documents for the final check in all three service units, responsible for your study programme (SSC LehrerInnenbildung, SSS Anglistik, and SSS/SSC of your second subject)
  • Your thesis grade has to be submitted on u:space
  • You have to register at least 2 weeks before the defence takes place.

How is the exam structured: 

Defensio duration: up to 45 minutes 

  • Part 1: presenting and defending the MEd thesis (ca. 15 minutes) + questions from the 1st examiner = supervisor
  • Part 2: 2nd examiner (chosen by student): answering questions from a related field to the master thesis

The final exam in this MEd degree only covers one teaching subject, the one in which the thesis was written. 

If you are writing the master's thesis in your other subject, please check the information on registering for the final exam on that other subject's webpage. 

Students in the MEd Erweiterungsstudium UF Englisch (Version 2026) do not need to complete a final master's exam. 

If the thesis is written in UF Englisch:

Formal Steps:

  1. You need to find a second examiner in your other teaching subject.
  2. You need to agree on a date and time for your defence with your supervisor and 2nd examiner.
  3. Find a chair with the help of our Chairing List.
  4. Register for your defence at the SSC (StudiesServiceCentre) Phil.-Kult. with the form "Anmeldung zur Masterprüfung".

Watch out for the following requirements and plan accordingly:

  • You need to have completed all courses and submitted your documents for the final check in all three service units, responsible for your study programme (SSC LehrerInnenbildung, SSS Anglistik, and SSS/SSC of your second subject)
  • Your thesis grade has to be submitted on u:space
  • You have to register at least 2 weeks before the defence takes place.

How is the exam structured: 

Defensio duration: 1 hour, three parts 20 minutes each.

  • Part 1: presenting and defending MA thesis (defensio);
  • Part 2: 1st examiner ( = thesis supervisor): questions on reading list, topic 1; 
  • Part 3: 2nd examiner (chosen by student): reading list, topic 2.

If you are writing the master's thesis in your other subject, please check the information on registering for the final exam on your other subject's webpage. 

Students in the MEd Erweiterungsstudium UF Englisch: There will be a short oral exam (2 ECTS, 20-30 minutes), choose an examiner from this list.

Graduation Deadlines

Students who wish to finalise their studies within the winter semester need to complete their final exam by March 31st at the latest. 

Students who wish to finalise their studies within the summer semester need to complete their final exam by October 31st at the latest. 

If you wish to complete your final master's exam after the corresponding date, you have to enrol for the subsequent semester. 

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