Chair

Prof. Dr. Christoph Houswitschka †

(* 8.06.1961 - † 10.02.2022)

Chair of English Literature: 2002-2022

Research Focus:

• Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur and English late medieval literature and culture
• Medieval reception in film and literature
• Law and literature of the late 18th century (e.g. John Thelwall, High Treason Trials of 1794)
• English literature and culture of the 20th century (e.g. cultural transfer and migration, Europeanisation)
• Kindertransport and Holocaust literature
• Contemporary Jewish-British literature
• Rewriting War: The Paradigms of Contemporary War Fiction in English (with Departament de Filologia Anglesa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona).
• Literature and bio-technology

Prof. em. Dr. Klaus Peter Jochum †

(* 19.01.1937 – † 7.04.2022)

Chair of English Literature: 1978-2002

Research Focus:

• William Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama (Habilitation: Discrepant Awareness: Studies in English Renaissance Drama)
• Narratives from the 18th to 20th century
• William Butler Yeats (Dissertation: Die dramatische Struktur der Spiele von W.B. Yeats)

Dr. Nora Pleßke

Interim Chair of Department: April 2023 - February 2024

Research Focus:

• Anglophone Kulturen, Medien und Literaturen (18. - 21. Jahrhundert)
• Urban Studies, Material Culture Studies, Economic Criticism
• Transkulturelle und Postkoloniale Theorie
• Mentalitätsgeschichte und -theorie
• Materiale, mediale und kulturelle Geschichte des britischen Empires
• London- und Stadtliteratur; Stadt- und Raumtheorie

Dr. Katrin Röder

Interim Chair of Department: April 2022 - February 2023

Research Focus:

• Early Modern Literature and Culture: works of Fulke Greville, Sir Philip Sidney and Samuel Daniel, censorship, conceptions of authorship and subjectivity, Protestantism / Calvinism, representations of the Ottoman Empire and Islam in English drama, historiography and travel literature between 1580 und 1620, history of emotions and epic
• Narrative Literature, Ethical Literary Criticism and Hermeneutics of Existence: conceptions of happiness and the British novel (18th - 20th century)
• Disability, Gender and Affect Studies, Autobiography Studies: “Shame as a Performative Narrative Affect in Automedial Art by Female British Authors with ‘Disabilities’ and ‘Mental Distress’ (Research Project funded by DFG)