Karin Bauer
Professor
Professor
karin.bauer [at] mcgill.ca
Karin Bauer is Professor of German Studies. Her areas of specialization include memory studies, critical theory of the Frankfurt School, exile and migration, gender studies, the New Berlin, literary publics, art and literature, and contemporary German-language literature and thought.
She has published extensively on the work of Herta MĂŒller and on authors such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Theodor W. Adorno, Richard Wagner, JĂŒrgen Habermas, Edgar Hilsenrath, Ingeborg Bachmann, Botho Strauss, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, Elfriede Jelinek, WG Sebald, Christian Kracht, Unica ZĂŒrn, and Ulrike Meinhof.
She was co-editor and editor of Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies (2011-17) and chair of the Department of German Studies (2000-11) and the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (2011-14). She is a member of several editorial boards, including the boards of Kritike: An Online Journal of Philosophy and Journal of Literary Theory. Professor Bauer served as president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers of German (now German Studies Canada) from 2002-04.
Her research has been supported by a Royal Bank Teaching Development Grant and several Social Sciences and Humanities Research grants. Her current SSHRC-funded project is on Literary Publics Today: Performance, Interaction, Participation.
Professor Bauer is the 2021 recipient of Hermann Boeschenstein Medal for Exceptional Contributions to German Studies in Canada, the most prestigious prize awarded by the German Studies Canada.
Ìę
Dissertation Research Supervision (selected)
Award-winning Dissertations
Peter Schweppe, âLiterary Traffic: The Movement and Materiality of Literature in 1968.â (Co-supervising with Andrew Piper), ten-months research fellowship awarded by DAAD, 2013-14. Defended 2016. Winner of Best Dissertation Prize in German Studies in Canada, 2016-18.
Katrina Sark, âDocumenting the New Berlin: Cultural Constructions of German Identity.â Defended 2015. Winner of Best Dissertation Prize in German Studies in Canada, 2014-16.
Nathalie Lachance, âNietzscheâs Ethics of Reading.â Defended 2009. Winner of Best Dissertation Prize in German Studies in Canada, 2008-09.
Ìę
Ongoing
Tim KlĂ€hn: "At Khlebnikovâs Grave: Recollections of the Russian Avant-Garde in Post-1950 Russian and German Literature." ABD; in progress.
Olesya Ivantsova, âImprovised Metropolis: Moscow and St. Petersburg in the German Imagination.â ABD; ten-months research fellowship awarded by DAAD, 2014-15. In progress.
Ìę
Completed
Ăzlem Orhan, âNovalis' Orient: Eine geistesgeschichtliche und philologische Untersuchung.â Defended 2018.
Michel Mallet, ââLandscapes of the Dispossessedâ: Notions of Estrangement and Belonging in the Work of Herta MĂŒller.â Defended 2014.
Thomas KrĂŒger, âThe Entwinement of Nostalgia and Utopia in Texts of the 1970s.â Defended 2008. Ten-months research fellowship awarded by DAAD, 2006-07.
Cathrin Winkelmann, "The Expression and Repression of Homo-Erotic Desire in German Literature." Defended 2002. Ten-months research fellowship awarded by DAAD, 2004-05.
Irena FĂŒrhoff, âMyth and Memory in Botho StrauĂ.â Defended 2001.
Books:
Cultural Topographies of the New Berlin. Ed. and Introduction by Karin Bauer and Jennifer Ruth Hosek. New York: Berghahn Publisher, 2018. 411 pp. Paperback edition, 2019.
Tout le monde parle de la pluie et du beau temps: pas nous. Ed. and Introduction by Karin Bauer. Translation by Isabelle Totikaev and Luise von Flotow. Montreal: les éditions du remue-ménage, 2018. 245pp.
Everybody Talks About the Weather... We donât: The Writings of Ulrike Meinhof. Edited and Introduction by Karin Bauer. Foreword by Nobel-Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek. Afterword by Bettina Röhl. Translation by Luise von Flotow. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2008. 268pp.
Adorno's Nietzschean Narratives: Critiques of Ideology; Readings of Wagner. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. 286pp.
Ìę
Special Journal Editions:
Herta MĂŒller and the Currents of European History. Ed. with Brigid Haines, Michel Mallet, and Jennifer Watson. Special issue of German Life and Letters 73:1 (January 2020).
Surveillance. Ed. with Andrea Gogröf. Special issue of Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies Studies 52.4 (2016). 149pp.
The New Berlin. Special Issue of Seminar 51: 4 (November 2015). 132 pp.
Questioning the RAF: The Politics of Culture. Special issue of Seminar 47:1 (2011). 122pp.
Ethik und Poetik im Werke Herta MĂŒllers. Special issue of literatur fĂŒr leser 34:2 (2011). 148pp.
Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters:
ââJede Schicht ein Kunstwerkâ: Postmemoriale Autofiktion und Autorschaft in Herta MĂŒllers
Atemschaukel." Ed. Brigitte Prutti. literatur fĂŒr leser 2:19 (2022). 107-22.
âVon Pop zu New Sincerity? Christian Krachts Autorinszenierungen und die Frankfurter Poetikvorlesungen.â Vexierbilder. Autorinszenierung von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart. Ed. Vanessa Höving, Alina Boy, and Katja Holweck. Paderborn: Fink Verlag, 2021. 277-301.
âHerta MĂŒllerâs Reshaping of German Cultural Memory.â German Life and Letters 73:1 (2020). 10-33.
âConstructing Christian Kracht: From Faserland to #metoo.â Pacific Coast Philology 54:2 (November 2019) 203-19.
âKörper und Geschlecht im Werk Herta MĂŒllers.â Herta MĂŒller-Handbuch: LebenâWerk-- Wirkung. Ed. Norbert Otto Eke. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2017. 205-13.
âCritical Perspectives on Surveillance in Contemporary German Literature and Film.â Co- authored with Andrea Gogrof. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies Studies 52.4 (2016). 353- 363.
âLost in Isolation: Ulrike Meinhofâs Body in Poetry.â Presence of the Body. Ed. Gert Hofmann and SnjeĆŸana ZoriÄ. Amsterdam: Brill, 2016. 92-106.
âStaging Utopian Insularity: The End of Empire in Christian Krachtâs Imperium.â Insularity. Representations and Constructions of Small Worlds. Eld Katrin Dautel and Kathrin Schödel. WĂŒrzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2016. 281-96.
âNarrating the New Berlin: Site, Sound, Image, Word.â Co-authored with Jennifer R. Hosek.
Seminar: A Journal for Germanic Studies 51:4 (2015): 293-300.
âRethinking Graduate Studies.â Co-authored with Andrew Piper. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 50:2 (2014): 139-41.
âThe Politics of Gender in Herta MĂŒllerâs Prose.â Herta MĂŒller. Ed. Brigid Haines and Lyn Marven. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 153-71.
âUlrike Meinhof, Orphelia, and the Problem of Female Agency.â Journal of Korea Womenâs Research Institute, Sungshin University (2013): 5-28.
âThe End of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of the RAF: Elfriede Jelinekâs Ulrike Maria Stuart.â Zeitenwende: Ăsterreichische Literatur seit dem Millennium. Ed. Michael Böhringer and Susanne Hochreiter. Vienna: Praesens Verlag, 2012. 157-172.
âCollage and Non-Identity in the Work of Herta MĂŒller.â Ethik und Poetik im Werke Herta MĂŒllers. Special issue of literatur fĂŒr leser 34:2 (2011): 131-44.
âFrom Protest to Resistance: Ulrike Meinhof and the Transatlantic Movement of Ideas.â Changing the World, Changing Oneself: Political Protest and Collective Identities in the 1960s/70s West Germany and U.S. Ed. Belinda Davis and Wilfried Mausbach. Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, 2010. 171-190.
âAdornoâs Intellectual Praxis.â New Essays on the Frankfurt School of Critical Thinking. Ed. Alfred Drake. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009. 124-140.
âThe Challenges of Domestication: Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche in Paraguay.â German Diaspora Experiences. Ed. Mat Schulze and David John. Waterloo: Wilfried Laurier University Press, 2008. 345-56.
â'Der Kapitalismus finanziert seinen eigenen Untergang': Parodie und Subversion in Erin Cosgroves 'Die Baader-Meinhof-AffĂ€re'." Geschichte(n) erzĂ€hlen: Nachbilder der RAF. Ed. Inge Stephan. Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2008. 287-98.
âArea Studies and the Unfulfilled Promise of Interdisciplinary Exchangeâ Lendemains: Etudes comparĂ©es sur la France. Ed. Lawrence McFalls and Hans-JĂŒrgen. LĂŒsebrink. TĂŒbingen: Narr, 2006. 14-22.
âThe Dystopian Entwinement of History and Identity in W.G. Sebaldâs Austerlitz.â W.G. Sebald: HistoryâMemory--Trauma. Ed. S. Denham and M. McCulloh. Berlin: deGruyter, 2006. 233-50. âAdornoâs Wagner: History and the Potential of the Artwork.â Critical Inquiry 60 (2005): 68-91. âDie EntfĂŒhrung und Ermordung Hanns Martin Schleyers.â Politische Morde von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Ed. Michael Sommer. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftl. Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2005. 223-30.
âNietzsche, Enlightenment, and the Incomplete Project of Modernity.â Habermas, Nietzsche, and Critical Theory. Ed. Babette Babich. New York: Prometheus Books, 2004. 105-23.
ââManchmal wird es mir peinlich, meinen eigenen Atem zu hören:â Gescheiterte Performanzen des ver-rĂŒckten Körpers in Unica ZĂŒrns Prosa,â Körper und Diskurse in der deutschen Kultur. Ed. Sabine Wilke and Brigitte Prutti. Berlin: Synchronverlag 2003. 253-73.
âDomesticating Nietzsche: Toward a Genealogy of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzscheâs âNovellen- Eierchenâ.â Orbis Litterarum 57.5 (2002): 343-69.
âNarrative Strategies of Identity/Image Construction in Nietzsche's Critique of Wagner.â Seminar
35:4 (November 1999) 295-307.
âErzĂ€hlen im Augenblick höchster Gefahr: Zu Benjamins Begriff der Geschichte in Edgar Hilsenraths Jossel Wassermanns Heimkehr.â The German Quarterly 72. 4 (Fall 1998): 343-52. "That Obscure Object of Desire: Homoeroticism and Disaster in Ingeborg Bachmann's 'A Step toward Gomorrah'." Queering the Canon: Defying Sights in German Literature and Culture. Ed.
Chris Lorey and John Plews. New York: Camden House, 1998. 222-33
"Patterns of Consciousness and Cycles of Self-Destruction: Nation and Gender in Herta MĂŒller's Prose." Gender and Germanness: Cultural Productions of Nation. Ed. Patricia Herminghouse and Magda MĂŒller. New York: Berghahn Books, 1998. 263-75.
"Tabus der Wahrnehmung: Reflexion und Geschichte in Herta MĂŒllers Prosa." German Studies Review 19:2 (May 1996): 257-78.
"Gegenwartskritik und nostalgische RĂŒckgriffe: Die Abdankung der Frau als Objekt mĂ€nnlichen Begehrens und die Erotisierung der Kindfrau in Botho StrauĂ' Paare Passanten." German Quarterly 62.2 (Spring 1996): 181-95.