Previous research

My previous book project Hervorbringungen. Das Wissen der Literatur vom Anfangen um 1900 focuses on European Modernism and examines central figures of creation, fabrication and generation in selected novels from the turn of the twentieth century. The study shows how a number of canonical modern texts offer aesthetic variations on the narrative of creation and thus recount the story of how text, language and the creative subject itself come into being. Of particular importance are post-religious (Kant, Nietzsche, Blumenberg) and scientific (Linné, Darwin, Mendel, Lamarck) notions and the paradox of the antecedent ›created creature‹.

Current research

My current book project, entitled Prekäre Nachbarschaft in Prosatexten nach 1920, examines figures of ›neighbourship‹ (Nachbarschaft) and proximity in a number of novels and prose narratives after 1920. The study seeks to explore the question of intimacy and distance as presented in a number of modernist and contemporary texts, with a particular focus on Franz Kafka (Der Nachbar and Das Schloss), Elias Canetti (Die Blendung), Amélie Nothombe (Les Catilinaires), Hanne Ørstaviks 48 rue Defacqz, but also Thomas Bernhard and other German-writing (Post)modernists.

Categories

European modernism, World literature, Literary theory