Current research projects

Rhine-Main cooperation project: The Irreconcilability of the Enlightenment (together with Dr. Oliver Völker, JGU Mainz); Duration: 07/2025 - 07/2027; RMU-funding line ECR

The project examines constellations of irreconcilability, antagonism and rivalry in German-language drama of the 18th century, in particular the Enlightenment and the Sturm und Drang, taking into account contemporary debates in philosophy, poetics and rhetoric as well as social and cultural-historical contexts. Based on questions of historical emotion research and the Affect Studies that have emerged in recent years, the second half of the 18th century will be examined as a historical epoch in which social forms of dispute and conflict, for example between divergent political-social interests or gender roles, become the main subject of literary observation, especially in the genre of drama. The project thus takes an innovative look at the period from 1750 to 1800, which is of decisive importance for the modern understanding of the public sphere as a space for the negotiation of interests and conflicts.

Upcoming event: Conflict and Contradiction: Constellations of Irreconcilability in the Age of Enlightenment. Workshop at the Technical University of Darmstadt, February 26-27, 2026.

Research project: Continuities of Americanization: Literary Consumer Culture from the Weimar Republic to the Postwar Period

The project examines 'consumer literature' from the Weimar Republic to the post-war period with a special focus on print media entertainment magazines. Of interest is how a literary consumer culture emerged through the overlapping of consumption and literature, which commodified literature into a mass product. Literature is examined in two ways: on the one hand, as a consumer product that is marketed, distributed and received on a mass scale; on the other hand, as a medium in which consumption itself becomes an object, in that fictional texts negotiate the practices, values and lifestyles of the German consumer society - characterized by US-American influence - in literary terms.