Last week my postdoctoral dissertation, the Habilitationsschrift, was accepted by the Faculty of Languages and Literatures at LMU Munich and I was awarded the degree of Dr. phil. habil.! This qualifies me to teach English Literature as an associate or full professor in German-language academia (the so-called venia legendi, or right to teach).

The manuscript deals with In/Visible Subjects: Literary Character and Modern Narratives of Invisibility, ranging from the eighteenth-century novel through Romantic poetry, Victorian Gothic fiction, and the modernist text to contemporary literary responses to surveillance capitalism. I am now working on turning the manuscript into a book and will next present some of its eighteenth-century readings at an invited lecture at the University of Siegen on 8 July, 2024.

Mit dem Verhältnis von Literatur, Philosophie und Rhetorik im Zeichen der Unsichtbarkeit setzt sich ein neuer Aufsatz auseinander: “Compound Invisible Objects”: Moralischer Charakter, literarische Figur und die Gyges-Problematik bei Adam Smith und Eliza Haywood. Herausgegeben ist er von Wolfgang G. Müller und Rainer Thiel als Teil von Band 5 (2022) der Internationalen Zeitschrift Kulturkomparatistik mit dem Themenschwerpunkt „Literatur – Philosophie – Ästhetik“. Der Volltext ist verfügbar unter: https://izfk.uni-trier.de/index.php/izfk/article/view/IZFK-5-08-Compound-Invisible-Objects/66

The chapter is on Poe’s “The Devil in the Belfry” and “William Wilson” in particular, and it’s part of a great handbook of The American Short Story, edited by Erik Redling and Oliver Scheiding: please click here for the abstract

As part of the international lecture series on „Invisible Lives, Silent Voices“, I’m very happy to be speaking about „The Invisible Author, Then and Now“ in the session on „Invisible Writers“ this Thursday on 9 December, 6pm. In the same session, Christine Reynier will be speaking about „Invisible Novels of the Interwar Period: The Case of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes (1926)“. For access to the Zoom meeting, please contact the organizers at invisibilitysilence@gmail.com or drop me a line.

The international seminar „Invisible Lives, Silent Voices“ is organised by Alice Borrego, Guillaume Le Blanc, and Héloïse Lecomte. You can find out about the other sessions here: https://invisibilitysilence.wordpress.com/programme/

My article on „Unseeing People: Towards a Clear View of Invisible Characters in Narrative Fiction“ has just come out in Études britanniques contemporaines: https://doi.org/10.4000/ebc.11098.

The article is connected to an ongoing conversation about invisibility and silence: check out the programme for the international seminar „Invisible Lives, Silent Voices“, organised by Alice Borrego, Guillaume Le Blanc, and Héloïse Lecomte: https://invisibilitysilence.wordpress.com/programme/

As part of this seminar, I’m very happy to be speaking about „The Invisible Author, Then and Now“ in the session on „Invisible Writers“ on 9 December, 6pm. For access to the online meeting, please contact the organizers at invisibilitysilence@gmail.com