DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Program Area(s):  Political Theory

Dissertation Title:

Stories of a Border: Christa Wolf in the Archives of Political Thought

Dissertation Committee:  Mary G. Dietz (Co-Chair); Demetra Kasimis (University of Cambridge, Co-Chair); S. Sara Monoson

Research Interest(s): History of political thought, contemporary political theory, politics and literature, feminist theory, ancient Greek political thought and its receptions, GDR literature, Hannah Arendt

Conference Presentations: 

• "Immanent Catastrophe: Cassandra on Nuclear Futures." Journal of the History of Ideas Graduate Symposium “Prophecy, Prediction, and the Politics of Futurity,” October 2026; German Studies Association Annual Conference, September 2026; American Political Science Association Annual Conference, September 2026
• "Eros, Gossip, and Philosophy in Plato's Symposium." Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference, April 2024; UCLA Classics Graduate Conference, October 2023; American Political Science Association Annual Conference, August 2023
• "Wondering, Wandering, and Socrates – Hannah Arendt on Thinking Politics." Canadian Political Science Association Annual Conference, May 2023; American Political Science Association Annual Conference, September 2022
• "To Kill the Sons of Brutus – Foundings, Filicides, and Biblical Reference in Machiavelli's Discourses." Association for Political Theory Annual Conference, October 2022

Publications:

• Charlotte Mencke, "Epistemic Borderwork Beyond the State: Reading Christa Wolf" Theory Now: Journal of Literature, Critique, and Thought, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2026), pp. 9-32 https://doi.org/10.30827/tn.v9i2.35149
• Charlotte Mencke, "On Christa Wolf’s 'Cassandra.'" Cartography of the Political Novel in Europe https://www.caponeu.eu/cdp/novels/kassandra

Honors & Awards: 

• German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Research Grant
• Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs Dissertation Research Travel Grant
• Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Grant
• Fulbright Foreign Student Scholarship