Tobias Schank is a research assistant in the BMBF project Linking Borderlands: Dynamics of Cross-Border Peripheries (sub-project Hybrid Borderlands) at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, and a PhD student at the Trier Center for American Studies at Trier University. His PhD project (supervised by Prof. Gerd Hurm and JProf. Franziska Bergmann) explores gender representations in American Western films produced between 1903 and 1969.

Currently, Tobias investigates processes of border construction and cultural hybridization in regional and industrial films depicting peripheral German borderlands. Hybrid Borderlands is a sub-project of the Linking Borderlands cooperation, in which Saarland University, the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), and the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg jointly examine European border regions as sights of cultural contact that transcend national borders.

• American Western films
• Classic Hollywood Cinema
• Punk and Heavy Metal studies
• Queer studies
• Border Studies

“Heterosexual Obligations and Homosexual Attractions: Sexuality and Gender in THE WESTERNER and THE OUTLAW.” Sex in the States: Media, Literature, and Discourse. Ed. Christian Lewandowski. Opole: U of Opole P. Accepted. Forthcoming 2021.

Dusartz de Vigneulle, Nina Christine, and Tobias Schank. “Vom Buch zum Film: James Fenimore Coopers Lederstrumpf in intermedialer Sichtweise: Die Graphischen Illustrationen Max Slevogts und der Beginn der Verfilmten Abenteuergeschichte.” Impressionismus Ohne Farbe: Lovis Corinth – Max Slevogt. Ed. Stephan Brakensiek. Trier/Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2016. 22-35.

• Graduate Center of Trier University Publication Award (Faculty II; 2^nd Place) (June 2021)
• Jesus College, Oxford, UK: Doctoral exchange scholarship (September 2018 – July 2019)
• Trier University Travel Grant for Conference presentations at University of Opole, Poland (April 2019)