Ilka Brasch studied "Advanced Anglophone Studies“ at the University Hanover. She completed her studies in 2011 with a Master's thesis on "Instrument-Mediation and the Melodramatic Experience in Stella Dallas and Letter from an Unknown Woman.“ She works as a research fellow at the Leibniz Universität Hannover, where she is writing her dissertation „Operational Detection: Crime Serials and the American Cinema, 1910-1940“ (working title).