Research Interests
Research interests of staff and postgraduate students in German, Russian and Swedish are broad, spanning several disciplines as well as various language and area specialisations. The following general areas are representative of the areas in which staff have research expertise.
Sociolinguistics and Applied Linguistics
Staff members in the German, Swedish and Russian sections of the department have research interests in socio-linguistics, discourse analysis, intercultural communication, academic communication, and various aspects of applied linguistics. Two are involved in a comparative European project that investigates the ways in which recent sociopolitical developments have impacted on forms of address (how people address each other in formal and informal settings, in spoken and written communication). A number of staff are also working on topics in second language acquisition, Russian and Slavonic linguistics, language pedagogy and German as a foreign language. Staff with expertise in this area are Catrin Norrby, Leo Kretzenbacher and Robert Lagerberg.
Modern German Literature
Several staff have research interests in the area of 18th, 19th and 20th century German literature. The main research strengths in this area are in Enlightenment studies, contemporary literature and the literature of the GDR. Staff have interests in literary theory, sociology of literature, postcolonial approaches to literature, fantasy, medieval literature, aesopic writing and fairy-tales, post-Holocaust literature, the role of literary intellectuals and literary debates, psychoanalysis and trauma theory. Writers staff have researched and published on include Heinrich von Kleist, Johann von Goethe, Franz Kafka, Martin Walser, Irmtraud Morgner, Christa Wolf, Monika Maron, Brigitte Burmeister, Birgit Vanderbeke, Bernhard Schlink and Sascha Anderson. Staff with interests in this area are Heather Benbow and Alison Lewis.
Gender Studies
A number of staff members have interests in questions of gender in both literature and linguistics. Staff in literary studies incorporate a range of feminist and gender studies perspectives in their research, and in linguistics staff in the Swedish section have broad interests in language and gender. In the German section staff have researched issues relating to East German women and the double burden, gender and German unification, masculinity in postwar and post-communist Germany, gender and the body, as well as issues concerning power, gender and the body in contemporary fiction. Much of their work focuses on feminist critiques of the German literary canon (e.g. Goethe, Kleist and Kafka) and the writing of postwar feminist writers from both East and West Germany (Irmtraud Morgner, Christa Wolf, Monika Maron etc.). Staff with interests in this area are Heather Benbow, Catrin Norrby and Alison Lewis.
German Cultural Studies
Several staff are researching in the broad area of German Cultural Studies. Research strengths include New German cinema (Wenders and Herzog), contemporary film , the East German Secret Police and the Prenzlauer Berg poets, German unification, German intellectuals in the postwar era, multiculturalism, memory and testimonial writing, particularly in relation to the Stasi. Staff also have interests in film adaptations of German literature, everyday life in the GDR and German rock music. Staff with interests in this area are Heather Benbow and Alison Lewis.
In addition to the full-time members of staff the section has a number of associates, fellows and sessional lecturers with specialist research expertise. Their areas of research interest range from German romanticism, Heinrich von Kleist (Gerhard Schulz), Theodor Fontane, Thomas Mann and theatre of the Age of Goethe (Christian Grawe), Dutch, Afrikaans and historical linguistics (Bruce Donaldson), Old Norse and Viking history, culture and mythology (John Martin, Katrina Burge).