Heike Hartung (Edited by) Heike Hartung is an independent scholar who has earned her PhD in English studies at Freie Universität Berlin and her PhD habil. at Universität Potsdam, Germany. She is affiliated as senior researcher at the Center for Inter-American Studies at Universität Graz, Austria. In her publications she applies the methods of literary theory and cultural studies to the interdisciplinary fields of ageing, disability and gender studies. She is a founding member of the European Network in Aging Studies (ENAS). Roberta Maierhofer (Edited by) Roberta Maierhofer is a professor of American studies and Director of the Center for Inter-American Studies (C.IAS) at Universität Graz, Austria. She is a founding member of the European Network in Aging Studies (ENAS), supported the establishment of the North American Network in Aging Studies (NANAS), and has been a member of the Humanities and Arts Committee of the Gerontological Society of America.

Her research focuses on American literature and cultural studies, gender studies, Transatlantic cooperation in education, and age/aging studies. Christian Schmitt-Kilb (Edited by) Christian Schmitt-Kilb is a professor of English literature at Universität Rostock. He received his MA from the University of Keele (UK), PhD from the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main on early modern rhetoric and poetics and habilitated at Universität Rostock with a thesis that resulted in a monograph on the theme of absent fathers in the contemporary novel. His current research interests, editorships and essay publications are in the field of ecocriticism, ecopoetry and New Nature Writing.