Therese Steffen is professor of gender studies in the anglophone context
 at the University of Basel since 1996. Steffen was a Fellow (1995-96), and now is non-resident Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Since 1998 she is also Privatdozentin at the University of Zürich. She focuses on issues of ethnicity, ethics, gender, and literary space, particularly African American, South African and Southasian literature and culture. Since 2001, the Carl Schlettwein Foundation supported her teaching South African/Namibian literature. Since 2002, Steffen is Head of the Doctoral Programme “Gender Studies” at the University of Zürich. In 2009 she initiated the SWISS SOUTH AFRICAN JOINT RESEARCH PROJECT (SSAJRP) “City in Flux” at the University of Basel together with her doctoral students Christine Giustizieri, (Jan Sollberger) and Olivier Moreillon.

Selected Publications

Author:CROSSING COLOR: Transcultural Space and Place in Rita Dove's Poetry, Fiction, Drama (New York, London: Oxford UP, 2001); Gender. Grundwissen Philosophie (Leipzig: Reclam Verlag, 2006). Editor:Crossover: Cultural Hybridity in Ethnicity, Gender, and Ethics (Tübingen, Stauffenburg Verlag, 2000); figurationen: gender—literatur—kultur 2/2011; figurationen: gender—literatur—kultur 1/2008.

Articles: “Marlene van Niekerk, Triomf.(1994) Kindler Lexikon (On-line Version) 2012; “Urbane Topografien in Südafrika.” UniNova,Wissenschaftsmagazin der Universität Basel, 1 (March 2012): 36-38.; „ South African Urban Space. A ‘Mediated Environment’: Ivan Vladislavić’s Portrait with Keys.The City of Johannesburg Unlocked.”  TRANSDISCOURSE Ed. Andrea Gleiniger, Angelika Hillbeck, Jill Scott. “Mediated” Environments. Zürich, ZHdK, Wine/New York: Springer, 2011.117-130.; „Kindersoldaten-Literatur: ein neues Genre?“ Afrika-Bulletin Nov./Dec. 2010. 8-9.