I am glad to work with students on any topic in Literary and Cultural Studies from 1770 to 1980. My expertise lies in Goethe, Kant, German Idealism, Science & Culture 1770 – 1870, Literature & Engineering, German Classicism and classical studies, Philology & Hermeneutics, History and Philosophy of the Novel, but it is not hard to impress me with projects that explore the margins of one or more disciplines. Though housed in a national literature department, I believe that neither nation nor literature should be limiting categories for an interesting thesis or dissertation. I am also prepared to accept other work than a monograph as final projects – creative non-fiction, film scripts, and all manners of digital projects – so long as they demonstrate commitment and enrich our understanding of a topic.
Students I have advised have been very successful on the academic job market, but I am equally interested in advising students who plan to work outside of academia. Coming from Germany, where the relationship between advisor and student is quite hierarchical, I appreciate the transparency and collegiality that characterizes the graduate student – advisor relationship, and I equally appreciate that graduate students are integral members of our department’s academic mission.
My current interests concern the relation between radical/transcendental empiricism and literature, both as a theoretical problem and as a pedagogical task. If you like to know more about this topic, here is a lecture I gave recently that ends up discussing this perspective: