Daniel Ortiz is a doctoral researcher at the University of Basel and an assistant at the chair for North American and General Literature. His dissertation is entitled “Utopia Decomposed: Narrative Rivalry, Novelistic Critique, and the Literary Remains of the Oneida Community, 1848–1937.” It focuses on the Oneida Community, a 19^th-century Christian communist and free-love group centered in upstate New York which broke up in 1880 and then reincorporated to become one of the leading American silverware producers of the 20^th century. His research investigates the Community’s legacy across newspaper and other journalistic accounts, fictional representations, Community writings—including manifestos, memoirs, and private diaries as well as work from Community descendants—and the abundant archival record left behind after its dissolution. His other research interests outside the Community itself include the literature surrounding reform and utopian movements in the United States, the relationship between Romanticism and Realism in 19^th-century authors like Hawthorne and James, religion and literature, and combining archival and formalist methodologies. Prior to coming to Basel, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago (2018) and his master’s degree from the University of Oxford (2021), both in English Literature.