.png)
Publications
Below you will find an overview of my publications, conference papers, and public outreach activities. The list includes peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, talks at international conferences, and contributions to research blogs and other public venues.
Monographs
In an age where science and technology hold sway and the humanities face a crisis, this book explores the evolving role of literature. It delves into how American self-help culture shapes contemporary ideals of success, mindfulness, and happiness, with a particular focus on its influence in science communication, notably in TED talks. Moreover, it underscores the enduring relevance of literature in the digital era by analyzing speculative novels that challenge established norms, including those propagated by TED. These novels include Richard Powers’ Generosity: An Enhancement, Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy and Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story. They question the Western preference for visual perception, which perpetuates a human-centric worldview. By focusing on literary synesthesia in the readings, this book emphasizes sensory experiences and human-nonhuman interactions. It adopts the concept of research as assemblage and uses a diverse range of theories and approaches, while it foregrounds critical posthumanism and new materialism. Ultimately, it advocates for a less anthropocentric approach to reading and presents literature as a "transdisciplinary life science" capable of fostering a "kinship of posthumanity."
​
Published with: De Gruyter, 2024.
Ebook available Open Access
Journal Articles
Forthcoming. Filip, Loredana. “Dust, Air, and Resistance: Multisensory Aesthetics Against Surveillance in Zia Haider Rahman’s In The Light of What We Know.” Surveillance & Society, 2026.
​​​​​
Filip, Loredana. “Life beyond Humanity: Exploring the ‘Greater Good’ and Synesthetic Aesthetics in Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin.” Miranda: Crises of the Universal in Anglophone Literatures and Criticism (19th-21st centuries), vol. 32, Winter 2025.
​
Filip, Loredana. “Towards Multisensory Aesthetics: Mundane Materiality in Richard Powers’ Plowing the Dark and The Overstory.” AmLit - American Literatures: Living and Dying in the Anthropocene, Responses in Contemporary Literature from the Western Hemisphere, vol. 5, no. 2, 2025.
​​
Filip, Loredana. “Multisensory Imagery and Post-Anthropocentrism in Margaret Atwood’s Old Babes in the Wood.” Margaret Atwood Studies, vol. 17, 2024, pp. 81–100.
​​
Filip, Loredana. “Genetic Enhancement, TED Talks and the Sense of Wonder.” Medical Humanities, vol. 47, no. 2, 2021, pp. 210–218.
​​
Filip, Loredana. “The Future of the Enhanced Self and Contemporary Science Fiction: TED Talks and Dave Eggers’ The Circle.” Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies (COPAS), vol. 20, no. 1, 2019, pp. 24–39.
​​
​​​
Book contributions
Filip, Loredana. “Ecological Affects in Literature: The Role of Aliveness in American Fiction.” Reconnections: The Humanities in a Time of Climate Change, edited by Thomas Mantzaris, Hellenic Association for American Studies Digital Publications (Ηelaasdp), Thessaloniki, 2025, pp. 19–35.
​
Filip, Loredana. “Be-Longing in TED Talks on ‘What Is Home?’ and Contemporary Postcolonial Fiction.” Perspectives on Homelessness, edited by Anna Flügge and Giorgia Tommasi, Winter, 2022, pp. 273–299.
Filip, Loredana. “Vigilance to Wonder: Human Enhancement in TED Talks.” Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty-First Century Narrative, edited by Sonia Baelo–Allué and Mónica Calvo-Pascual, Routledge, New York, 2021, pp. 71–84.
Conference papers & talks (selection)
Forthcoming: “Quiet Feelings in the Dust: Ordinary Affects, Ecological Grief, and the Politics of Emotion in Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds.” Historical Fictions Research Network Conference, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, 19–20 Feb. 2026.
​​
“Critical Empathy: Towards a New Theory of Reading.” Radical Thought in the Anthropocene – Theories and Concepts of Critical Theory, University of Graz, 26–28 June, 2025.
​​
“Magical Realism as Environmental Discourse in Literature from the 19th Century to the Present.” Fantastic Climates, 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for Fantasy Research, University of Kassel, 5–7 Sept. 2024.
​​
“Silicon Bodies: Multisensory Exploration of AI in Literature.” From Body Hacking to Body Activism: Redefining Bodies in Digital Media, International Symposium, Marie Jahoda Center, Ruhr-University of Bochum, 6 June 2024.
​​
“Beyond Transparency: Body Agency and Synesthetic Resistance in Speculative Novels.” Surveillance in an Age of Crisis, 10th Biennial Surveillance Studies Network Conference, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, 28–31 May 2024.
​
“Narrating Nature: The Intimate Relationship between Literature and Ordinary Science.” International Conference of Three Societies on Literature and Science, BSLS, CoSciLit and SLSAeu. University of Birmingham, UK, April 10–13, 2024.
​
“Beyond Anthropocentrism: The Nonhuman and the Synesthetic Aesthetic in Literature.” Relationality and More-Than-Human Storytelling. University of Augsburg, American Studies Department, July 13–15, 2023.
​
“Academia, Capitalism, and the Intimate Outsider.” Bridging the Ivory Tower and the Streets: Academia and Activism in Times of Crisis Ordinariness. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, June 8–10, 2023.
​
“Approaching the Nonhuman through the Senses: Literary Synesthesia in Contemporary Novels and Virginia Woolf’s ‘The Mark on the Wall’.” Literature and Science: 1922–2022, Sapienza University of Rome, March 31, 2023.
​
“Life as a Universalist Principle? From the ‘Greater Good’ to Ordinary Life in Contemporary North American Science Novels.” Crises of the Universal in Anglophone Literatures and Criticism (19th–21st centuries), Sorbonne Nouvelle University of Paris, March 30, 2023.
​
Further conference papers were presented at international and national venues including the University of Bonn, University of Warsaw, the National Hellenic Research Foundation (Athens), the University of Zaragoza, and others (2017–2022).
​
Further invited talks at research colloquia and seminars were held at FAU Erlangen–Nürnberg and LMU Munich (2019–2025).
​
Public outreach
Filip, Loredana. “Ecological Vigilance on the Rise: Exploring the Role of Academia, the Streets, and Social Media.” Vigilanzkulturen, 06/06/2023.
​​
“Ich glaube, ich bin ein wachsamer Mensch. 10 Fragen an Loredana Filip.” Vigilanzkulturen, 24/05/2022.
​​
Lecture for high school students on “Wissenschaft trifft Selbsthilfe: Selbst-Bekenntnisse in TED Talks.” Online History Club, Vigilanzkulturen: Private Aufmerksamkeit in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Gymnasium Ismaning, 16 June 2021.
​
Filip, Loredana. “Genetic Enhancement, TED Talks and the Sense of Wonder.” Medical Humanities Blog, 21/01/2021.
​
Further short contributions and interviews appeared on Vigilanzkulturen (2020–2022)
