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Faculty Member

Michaela Giesenkirchen Sawyer

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Office: 211F
Phone: 801-863-6304
Mail Stop: 173
Curriculum Vitae: Michaela Giesenkirchen Sawyer CV

Biography

Michaela Giesenkirchen Sawyer is an associate professor of Humanities at Utah Valley University. She received her Ph.D. in English from Washington University in St. Louis. She is a former fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service, The German National Merit Foundation, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale. Before joining the Utah Valley University faculty in 2006, she taught writing, literature, and humanities at Washington University, Boston University, and Kenyon College. At UVU, she directed and developed the Humanities Program during its formative phase from 2008–2012. Her field of specialty is American Modernist Literature and Philosophy; she has published on Gertrude Stein, Herman Melville, and Ezra Pound. In her scholarship as well as in her teaching, she is interested in the intersections of literature, film, music, and the visual arts with science and philosophy.

Education

PhD, Washington University in St. Louis, 2002

Major: English

MA, Heinrich- Heine University (HHU), Düsseldorf, Germany, 1994

Major: American Studies

MA, Washington University in St. Louis, 1991

Major: English

BA, Annette-von-Droste-Hülshoff Gymnasium, Düsseldorf, 1987

Major: Mathematics, English

Teaching

HONR 2000

Ancient Legacies HH, Spring 2025

HONR 2000

Ancient Legacies HH, Spring 2025

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2025

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2025

Presentations

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela (Presenter & Author), International Conference of Three Societies on Literature and Science, "Consilience in Stephen Jay Gould", University of Birmingham, UK, Birmingham, UK. (April 12, 2024)

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela (Presenter & Author), UVU Humanities Symposium, "Environmental Humanities", "A World of Punctuated Equilibria", Utah Valley University, Humanities Program, Utah Valley University. (March 19, 2024)

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , Literature and Science, "Gertrude Stein's Posthumanist Science", Sapienza University, Rome, Italy. (March 31, 2023)

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , Intermountain Philosophy Conference, UVU, "Koyaanisqatsi: Experimentalism, Film, and Posthuman Experience". ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Koyaanisqatsi: Experimentalism, Film, and Posthuman Experience". ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSAeu, "‘By the time that it is there’: Spacetime in Gertrude Stein’s Work". ()

Scholarly/Creative Works

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2024) "Gertrude Stein's Posthumanist Science" . Rome: Lithos Editrice.

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2019) "Power Lines_ Electricity in American Life and Letters, 1882–1952, by Jennifer L. Lieberman (Review)." .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2015) "International Scholarship_ German Contributions" .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2011) "Summing up William and Henry_ the Psychodynamic Geometry of Q.E.D" .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2007) "Radikalempiristischer Volksgeist_ Gertrude Steins Emersonsche Völkerpsychologie" .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2006) "Gertrude Stein’s ‘First Flame’: Q.E.D. and Helen Butterfield" .

Awards

Honors Faculty Award

UVU Honors Program - April 27, 2023

Honors students elect Honors Professor of the Year.

Spot Award

CHSS - November 2, 2022

Received for development of asynchronous Humanities courses.

Flexible Teaching Award

OTL

My synchronous Humanities 1010 ODS won third place for the academic year 2020/21

HUM 2100

Adventures of Ideas Through 1500, Fall 2024

HUM 3800

Aesthetics, Fall 2024

PHIL 3800

Aesthetics, Fall 2024

HONR 2000

Ancient Legacies, Fall 2024

HONR 2000

Ancient Legacies, Fall 2024

HUM 2100

Adventures of Ideas Through 1500 HH, Spring 2024

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2024

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2024

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2024

HUM 2100

Adventures of Ideas Through 1500 HH, Spring 2023

HONR 2000

Ancient Legacies HH, Spring 2023

HONR 2000

Ancient Legacies HH, Spring 2023

HUM 2100

Adventures of Ideas Through 1500 HH, Fall 2022

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2022

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2022

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2022

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2022

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2022

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2022

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2022

HUM 2100

Adventures of Ideas Through 1500 HH, Fall 2021

HUM 3800

Aesthetics, Fall 2021

PHIL 3800

Aesthetics, Fall 2021

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2021

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2021

HUM 2100

Adventures of Ideas Through 1500 HH, Spring 2020

HUM 210H

Adventures of Ideas Through 1500 HH, Spring 2020

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2020

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2020

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2020

HUM 101H

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2020

HUM 481R

Internship, Spring 2020

PHIL 492R

Advanced Topics in Philosophy, Fall 2019

HUM 400R

Humanism and Posthumanism, Fall 2019

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2019

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2019

ENGL 486R

Topics in Literature, Fall 2019

HUM 2020

World History Through the Arts II HH, Fall 2019

HUM 202H

World History Through the Arts II HH, Fall 2019

PHIL 492R

Advanced Topics in Philosophy, Spring 2019

HUM 400R

Humanism and Posthumanism, Spring 2019

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2019

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2019

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2019

HUM 101H

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2019

IS 350R

Topics in Integrated Studies, Spring 2019

ENGL 486R

Topics in Literature, Spring 2019

HUM 3500

Approaches to Humanities WE, Spring 2018

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2018

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2018

HUM 101H

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2018

HUM 2020

World History Through the Arts II HH, Spring 2018

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2017

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2017

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2017

PHIL 3470

Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Fall 2017

HUM 320R

Topics in Humanities, Fall 2017

HUM 2020

World History Through the Arts II HH, Fall 2017

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2017

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2017

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2017

HUM 2200

Adventures of Ideas After 1500 HH, Fall 2016

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2016

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2016

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2016

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2016

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2016

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2016

PHIL 3470

Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Spring 2016

HUM 320R

Topics in Humanities, Spring 2016

HUM 3500

Approaches to Humanities WE, Fall 2015

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2015

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2015

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2015

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2015

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2015

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2015

PHIL 3470

Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Spring 2015

HUM 320R

Topics in Humanities, Spring 2015

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2014

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2014

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2014

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2013

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2013

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2013

PHIL 3470

Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Spring 2013

HUM 3800

Aesthetics, Fall 2012

PHIL 3800

Aesthetics, Fall 2012

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2012

HUM 101G

Humanities Through the Arts HH GI, Fall 2012

ENGL 373R

Literature of Cultures and Places, Fall 2012

HUM 320R

Topics in Humanities, Fall 2012

HUM 101G

Humanities Through the Arts HH GI, Spring 2012

HUM 101G

Humanities Through the Arts HH GI, Spring 2012

HUM 2020

World History Through the Arts II HH, Spring 2012

HUM 3800

Aesthetics, Fall 2011

PHIL 3800

Aesthetics, Fall 2011

HUM 3500

Approaches to Humanities, Fall 2011

ENGL 373R

Literature of Cultures and Places, Spring 2011

ENGL 373R

Literature of Cultures and Places, Spring 2011

PHIL 3470

Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Spring 2011

HUM 320R

Topics in Humanities, Spring 2011

HUM 320R

Topics in Humanities, Spring 2011

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Summer 2010

HUM 330R

Period Studies in Humanities, Summer 2010

HUM 320R

Topics in Humanities, Summer 2010

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2010

HUM 101H

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2010

ENGL 373R

Literature of Cultures and Places, Spring 2010

PHIL 3470

Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Spring 2010

HUM 320R

Topics in Humanities, Spring 2010

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2009

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2009

HUM 320R

Topics in Humanities, Spring 2009

HUM 2020

World History Through the Arts II HH, Spring 2009

HUM 3500

Approaches to Humanities, Fall 2008

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2008

HUM 2020

World History Through the Arts II HH, Fall 2008

HUM 3800

Aesthetics, Spring 2008

PHIL 3800

Aesthetics, Spring 2008

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2008

HUM 2010

World History Through the Arts I HH, Spring 2008

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2007

IS 3000

Introductory Topics in Integrated Studies HH, Fall 2007

HUM 330R

Period Studies in Humanities, Fall 2007

HUM 2010

World History Through the Arts I HH, Fall 2007

HUM 2020

World History Through the Arts II HH, Fall 2007

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2007

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2007

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2007

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Spring 2007

PHIL 490R

Independent Study, Spring 2007

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2006

HUM 1010

Humanities Through the Arts HH, Fall 2006

IS 3500

Topics in Integrated Studies, Fall 2006

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , UVU Humanities Symposium, "Memes, Emblems, Icons", "Posthuman Memes", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSAeu, "Modernism with a Green Stripe_ Ecological Aesthetics in Gertrude Stein, Matisse, and Picasso", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , UVU Humanities Symposium "Literature, Art, and American Lives", "American Life Writing in Gertrude Stein", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "The Good Anna’: Literature and Science Translated.", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , UVU Humanities Symposium, "The Humanities and the Natural Sciences", "A Pluralistic Universe of Processes", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Female Watsons", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , UVU Humanities Symposium, "Migrants/Borders/Refuge", "Focal Point_ The Refugee Crisis in Germany—An Interview with Kerstin Griese, Member of the German Parliament", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , DGfA, "Gertrude Stein’s Posthumanism", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Does fluidity exist?: Gertrude Stein and the Stream of Consciousness", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Gertrude Stein and the Posthumanist Threshold of Modernist Art", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Steampunk Nostalgia_ Repurposed Mechanicism in Hugo and Sherlock Holmes_ A Game of Shadows", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , HERA, "Mad Science and Urban Dystopia_ Transformations from Metropolis to Blade Runner", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , Humanities Symposium, "Degrees to Anywhere_ The Social Value of the Humanities", "Loving the World You Are In", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , ALS, "Voice and Ethnicity in Gertrude Stein’s Three Lives.", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , Animal Ethics Conference, "Animals in Art", , UVU. ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Emergent Narrative in Stephen Jay Gould’s The Structure of Evolutionary Theory", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , UVU Ethics Awareness Week, "The Ethics of Gertrude Stein’s Radical Empiricism", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Mechanism and Organism in Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Mormon Science Fiction in Plan 10 from Out of Space", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Gertrude Stein and Hugo Münsterberg", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , UVU Philosophy Department Faculty Symposium, "Mingling Airplanes With Emerson_ Gertrude Stein’s Radical Empiricism", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Punctuated Equilibria_ Stephen Jay Gould’s Philosophy of Nature", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Stephen Jay Gould and the Jamesian Tradition", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , DGfA, "Grounding Post-Cultural Criticism_ Radical Empiricism and Aesthetic Theory", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , SLSA, "Literature and the Science of Space and Time_ Gertrude Stein’s Radical Empiricist Philosophy", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , 2001 Moby-Dick Conference, Hofstra University, "‘Still half blending with the blue of the sea’: Goethe’s Theory of Color in Moby-Dick.", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , ALS, "‘Anybody is what their air and land is’: Gertrude Stein’s Emersonian Revisions of Ethnopsychology", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , DGfA, "Mingling Automobiles and Emerson_ What Gertrude Stein Teaches American Studies at the Millennium", . ()

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , 20th Century Literature Conference, "Character as Composition in Gertrude Stein.", . ()

De Lancre, Pierre , Scholz Williams, Gerhild , Stone, Harriet , Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , Morris, John Peter, (2006) "Pierre de Lancre. On The Fickleness of Demons." .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2005) "Ethnic Types and Problems of Characterization in Gertrude Stein’s Radcliffe Themes (1894–95)" .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2005) "Gertrude Stein" .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2005) "Still half blending with the blue of the sea’: Goethe’s Theory of Color in Moby-Dick" .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2005) "Toward a Postcultural Criticism_ Radical Empiricism, Science, and Aesthetic Theory in Gertrude Stein and Alfred North Whitehead." .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2003) "Out of Character_ Ethnopsychology and the Gradual Making of Gertrude Stein’s Radical Empiricism" .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2003) "Where English Speaks More than One Language_ Accents in Gertrude Stein’s Accents in Alsace" .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (2001) "‘But Sordello, and my Sordello?’: Pound and Browning’s Epic." .

Giesenkirchen Sawyer, Michaela , (1991) "Where English Speaks More than One Language_ The Multilingual Dimension of Gertrude Stein’s Work" .