Teresa Hiergeist works at the Department of Romance Studies at the Universität Wien, where she is responsible for French and Spanish literature and culture. She has done research about representations of societies, alternative and parallel communities, human-animal studies as well as queer and gender studies.Stefanie Schäfer is a scholar of North American studies, gender studies and popular culture and currently professor of American cultural studies at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her ongoing research focuses on Cowgirls and First Ladies.