Laura Penning, M.A. (she/her)

Hello, I'm Anne Laura Penning, Laura for short, and a member of the Equal Opportunity Office staff at Osnabrück University.  As a passionate reader from a young age, I've always been a big fan of heroines who stand up against injustice and oppression and confront all kinds of tyrants. No wonder, then, that I wanted to get actively involved in the fight against structural discrimination and for equality.

Although I initially chose to study linguistics and translation studies to pursue a career as an interpreter, I quickly realised that I was better off in the cultural and social sciences. Especially in my strongly intersectional master's programme and in the course of acquiring my Gender Certificate, I have repeatedly and intensively engaged with relevant topics of gender studies and queer theory and subsequently sought (and found!) a position in this field.

I am happy that I get to play a very hands-on role in issues regarding gender equality at Osnabrück University and hopefully push for many positive changes! Our empowHer programme is therefore particularly close to my heart, as we are working specifically on breaking down hierarchical structures through a diverse range of events and supporting and empowering our participants in their different life and career phases.

However, my research work has not completely let go of me. Current publications and talks can be found here:

Talks

Penning, Anne Laura. “Sense8 – Transgressing Minds and Borders”. 13th Annual Conference of the Association for Research in the Fantastic (GfF). TU Dortmund University, Germany. September 22-24, 2022.  https://fantastikforschung.de/jahrestagung/jahrestagung-dortmund-2022/

Penning, Anne Laura. “’One More Good Day’ – Queering Pocket Utopias in ‘The Last of Us.’” Joint Conference of the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) and the German Association for Research in the Fantastic (GfF). TU Dresden, Germany. August 15-19, 2023.  https://disruptiveimaginations.com/ 

Articles

Penning, Anne Laura. #wegmit219a: Governmental Restrictions and the Importance of Online Hashtags in Feminist Movements. Satura, 2, 70–78, 2020.  https://doi.org/10.17879/satura-2019-3094    

Book chapters

Upcoming: “Sense8 – Transgressing Minds and Borders.” Conference Proceedings of Fantastic Geographies, edited by XX. Cambridge Public Scholars, 2025, pp XX.

Book reviews

Penning, Anne Laura. “Netflix Recommends: Algorithms, Film Choice, and the History of Taste, by Mattias Frey.” Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, no. 24, 2022, pp. 202–05. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.24.18