Assoc Prof Alison Lewis
Associate Professor and Reader
Languages Discipline Chair
Deputy Director of CERC
Building: Babel Building
Room: 720
Phone:
03 - 83445103
Email: lewisa@unimelb.edu.au
Alison completed her undergraduate studies and her PhD at the University of Adelaide and obtained an MA degree (Magister Artium) from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. She has worked at various universities in Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane before coming to Melbourne in 1995. Alison is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Research interests and areas of supervision
Modern German literature, especially 20th century, Gender Studies, German Cultural Studies, East German Secret Police (Stasi), Literature since German Reunification, German cinema, European Studies.
Publications
Monographs
Lewis, A. (forthcoming): Eine schwierige Ehe: Liebe, Geschlecht und die Geschichte der deutschen Wiecervereinigung im Spiegel der Literatur (Freiburg: Rombach)
Lewis, A. M. (2003) Die Kunst des Verrats: Der Prenzlauer Berg und die Staatssicherheit. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. pp. 287.
Lewis, A. M. (1995) Subverting Patriarchy: Feminism and Fantasy in the Works of Irmtraud Morgner. Oxford: Berg Publishers. pp. 315.
Edited Books
Lewis, A., F.-J. Deiters, A. Fliethmann, B. Lang, C. Weller (Eds.) (2009): Limbus 2: Narrative der Arbeit in der deutschen Literatur und Kultur von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart / Narratives of Work in German Literature and Culture from 1800 to the Present (Freiburg: Rombach) (forthcoming) (Australisches Jahrbuch für germanistische Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft / Australian Yearbook for German Literary and Cultural Studies)
Lewis, A., F.-J. Deiters, A. Fliethmann, B. Lang, C. Weller (Eds.) (2008): Limbus 1: Erinnerungskrisen/Memory Crises (Freiburg: Rombach) (in press)
Journal Articles and Chapters in Books
Lewis, A.M. (2009): “Work, family and passion and the aporias of socialist women’s lives in Sigrid Damm’s Ich bin nicht Ottilie (1992).” In: Limbus 2: Narrative der Arbeit in der deutschen Literatur und Kultur von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart. Ed. F.-J. Deiters, A. Fliethmann, B. Lang, C. Weller (Freiburg: Rombach) (forthcoming)
Lewis, A.M. (2008): “Contingent Memories: The Crisis of Memory in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Das Leben der Anderen.” In: Limbus 1: Erinnerungskrisen/Memory Crises. Ed. F.-J. Deiters, A. Fliethmann, B. Lang, C. Weller (Freiburg: Rombach), (in press)
Lewis, A.M. (2008): “Vom Traum zum Trauma: Die Liebe und die “Ehe” zwischen Ost und West in Monika Marons Animal Triste”. In: Intrakulturelle Fremdheit: Deutsch-Deutsche Beziehungen in Literatur und Film nach der Wende. Ed. Ortrud Gutjahr and Amir Muhić (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann) (forthcoming)
Lewis, A.M. (2008): “A Difficult Marriage: Marriage and Marital Breakdown in Post-Unification Fiction.” “Ossis and Wessis.” Ed. Donald Backman and Aida Sakalauskaite (Cambridge Scholar’s Press) (Accepted 11/10/2006)
Lewis, A.M. (2008): “Love, survival and the Cold War: Imagining Masculinity in Ingo Schramm’s Entzweigesperrt (1998) and Michael Kumpfmüller’s Hampels Fluchten (2000).” Seminar Vol. 1, pp. 137-153.
Lewis, A.M. (2008): “German Reunification and the Postwar Alliance between German Politics and Culture,” in: Where Culture and Politics Meet: German Theatre since 1990. Ed. Denise Varney (New York, Bern, Paris: Peter Lang), pp. 31-53.
Lewis, A. M. (2007): “Das Paradox der freien Partnerwahl in der sozialistischen Liebe: Zum Aufstieg und Fall einer Liebessemantik in Christa Wolfs Der geteilte Himmel und Volker Brauns Unvollendete Geschichte”. In: Moderne Begreifen: Zur Paradoxie eines sozio-ästhetischen Deutungsmusters. Ed. Christine Magerski, Robert Savage, Christiane Weller (Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag), pp. 289-309.
Lewis,A. M. (2006):“Das Phantasma des Masochisten und die Liebe zu Hanna: Schuldige Liebe und intergenerationelle Schuld in Bernhard Schlinks Der Vorleser.“ Weimarer Beiträge 4 (2006), pp. 554-573.
Lewis, A. M. (March 2006): “’Are the Towers Still Standing?’: The Fall and Rise of the Literary Intellectual”. In: Transformations of the New German. Ed. Ruth A. Starkman (London: Palgrave/Macmillan), pp. 69-88.
Lewis, A.M. (2005): “Die Verkörper(lich)ung der Freiheit: Geschlecht, Körper und Macht in den Romanen Monika Marons.” In: Monika Maron: Begleitheft zur Ausstellung. Ed. Winfried Giesen (Frankfurt: Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg), pp. 41-58.
Lewis, A.M. (2005): “Erinnerung, Zeugenschaft und die Staatssicherheit: Die Schriftstellerin Monika Maron“. Der Deutschunterricht no. 6, pp. 22-34.
Lewis, A.M. (2005): “A Happy Marriage: Gender and German Studies in Australia,” in: New Directions in German Studies: A Context of Interdisciplinarity. Ed. Andrea Bandhauer, Bettina Boss, Kerry Dunne, Tim Mehigan, Martina Möllering and Maria Veber (Otago: University of Otago Press), pp. 67-87.
Lewis, A.M. (2004): “The Agonies of Choice: Gender, the Family and Choice Biography in Birgit Vanderbeke's Das Muschelessen,” Seminar , Vol. XL, No. 3, pp. 221-235.
Lewis, A. M. (2004): “The Twilight of the Public Intellectual: Germany’s Literary Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War,” Portal, Vol. 1, No. 2.
http://espress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/portal/index.php
Lewis, A.M. (2003): “The Stasi, the Confession and Performing Difference: Brigitte Burmeister's Unter dem Namen Norma,” in German Writers and the Politics of Culture: Dealing with the Stasi, ed. Paul Cooke and Andrew Plowman (London: Palgrave/Macmillan), pp. 155-172.
Lewis, A.M. (2003): “Germany’s Metamorphosis: Memory and the Holocaust in the Berlin Republic,” Cultural Studies Review Vol. 9, No. 2, pp.102-122.
Lewis, A.M. (2003): “Reading and Writing the Stasi File: On the Uses and Abuses of the File as (Auto)biography.” German Life and Letters, Vol. 61, No. 4, pp. 377-397.
Lewis, A. (2002): “‘Die Sehnsucht nach einer Tat‘: Engagement und weibliche Identitätsstiftung in Monika Marons Romanen“. In: Monika Maron in Perspective: Dialogische Einblicke in das Werk Monika Marons, ed. Elke Gilson (Amsterdam: Rodopi), pp. 75-91.
Lewis, A. (2002): “Engendering Remembrance: Gender, Memory and Stasi Informers”. New German Critique, pp. 1-32.
Lewis, A. (2001): “Der Prenzlauer Berg zwischen autonomem Untergrund und Stasisimulation: Zur Rolle und Wirkung der inoffiziellen Mitarbeiter im literarischen Untergrund.” Internationales Archiv für die Sozialgeschichte der Literatur No.1, pp. 58-87.
Lewis, A. (2001): “Die imaginäre Gemeinschaft deutscher Nation: Geschichten einer gescheiterten Ost-West-Begegnung in Monika Maron und Christa Wolf.” In: Schreiben nach der Wende: Ein Jahrzehnt deutscher Literatur, 1989 – 1999, ed. Gerhard Fischer and David Roberts (Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag), pp. 181-192.
Lewis, A. (2000): “The Return of the Barbarians: Narratives of Failed Reconciliation in Recent German Fiction by Christa Wolf and Monika Maron.” Novel Turns Towards 2000: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Narrative Writing from Western Europe, ed. J. Gatt-Rutter (Melbourne, Madrid: Voz Hispanica), pp. 63-78.
Lewis, A. (2000): “Die neue Unübersichtlichkeit: Der Prenzlauer Berg zwischen Moderne, Avantgarde und Postmoderne.” In: Postmoderne in der zeitgenössischen Literatur: Eine Ästhetik des Widerstands, ed. Henk Harpers Vol. 49 (Amsterdam: Rodopi) (Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Germanistik), pp. 257-286.
Lewis, A. (2000): “Die Verkörper(lich)ung der Freiheit: Geschlecht, Körper und Macht in den Romanen Monika Marons.” Zeitschrift für Germanistik No. 3, pp. 579-595.
Lewis, A.(2000): “Der Zwang zum Genießen: Männliche Gewalt und der weibliche Körper in drei Prosatexten Kleists.” Kleist-Jahrbuch 2000, pp. 198-222.
Lewis, A. and S. Atzert (2000): “Dealing with Computer-Related Anxiety in the Project-Oriented Classroom,” CALL Vol. 13, No. 4-5, pp. 377-396.
Lewis, A. (1999): “The Berlin Republic: A Haunted House?” Eureka Street (April), pp. 47-50.
Lewis, A. (1999): “Literarischer Untergrund keine "Stasi-Züchtigung" sondern "hybrides Gebilde," Kölner Universitäts-Journal 1, pp. 46-49.
Lewis, A. (1998): “Remembering the Barbarian: Memory in Monika Maron’s Animal Triste.” The German Quarterly 71 (1998), pp. 30-46.
Lewis, A. (1998): “Oppositional Culture in the Prenzlauer Berg, East Berlin: Subversion or Stasi Simulation?” In: Modern Europa: Histories and Identities, ed. Peter Monteath and Fredric S. Zuckerman (Adelaide: Australian Humanities Press, 1998) (Proceedings of the Eleventh Biennial Conference of the Australasian Association of European Historians), pp. 311-20.
Lewis, A. (1997): “Power, Opposition and Subcultures: The Prenzlauer Berg ‘Scene’ in East Berlin and the Stasi.” UTS Review, Vol. 3, No. 2. pp. 122-41.
Lewis, A. (1996): “The Phantom-Pain of Germany: Fetishism and Mourning in Martin Walser’s Die Verteidigung einer Kindheit.” In: Streitkultur - Kulturstreit, ed. Peter Monteath and Reinhard Alter (Amsterdam: Rodopi). (German Monitor No. 38), pp. 126-44.
Lewis, A. (1995): “The Art of Ventriloquism: Feminism and the Divided Self in the Works of Irmtraud Morgner.” Australian Feminist Studies, pp. 31-58.
Lewis, A. (1995): “Dreamtime in Germany: Images of Australia and Australian Indigenous Peoples in New German Cinema.” In: German-Australian Cultural Relations Since 1945, ed. Jurgensen, Manfred (Bern: Peter Lang), (Volume 9 in German-Australian Studies Series), pp. 257-72.
Lewis, A. (1995): "’Unity Begins Together’: Analyzing the Trauma of German Unification.” New German Critique 64, pp. 135-59.
Atherton B., Bourke, B., Hanna, B. and Lewis, A. (1994): “Interactive Multimedia for Teaching French, German and Japanese.” Proceedings of Asia Pacific Information Technology in Training and Education Conference (APITITE 94), Brisbane, pp. 773-79.
Lewis, A. (1993): “'Foiling the Censor': Reading and Transference as Feminist Strategies in the Works of Christa Wolf, Irmtraud Morgner, and Christa Moog.” The German Quarterly Vol. 66, No.3, pp. 372-86.
Lewis, A. (1993): “The 'Woman Question' as the 'Gretchenfrage' of a Unified Germany: Non-synchronicity and other problems of a unified German women's movement.” European Studies Journal Vol. 10, No. 1-2, pp. 257-73.
Lewis, A. (1993): “Subversive Fantasies and Feminist Narratives: East German writers and the End of the GDR.” Imago 5.3, pp. 70-78.
Lewis, A. (1992): “The Writers and their Socialism, the People and their Bad Table-Manners: 1989 and the Crisis of East German Intellectuals post 1989.” German Studies Review 15.2, pp. 243-66.
Lewis, A. (1989): “Fantasy and Romance: A Feminist Poetics of Subversion and the Case of Irmtraud Morgner.” Southern Review 22.3, pp. 244-55.