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 Müller and on authors such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Theodor W. Adorno, Richard Wagner, Jürgen Habermas, Edgar Hilsenrath, Ingeborg Bachmann, Botho Strauss, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, Elfriede Jelinek, WG Sebald, Christian Kracht, Unica Zürn, 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.
Dissertation Research Supervision (selected)
Award-winning Dissertations
Peter Schweppe, “Literary Traffic: The Movement and Materiality of Literature in 1968.” (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, “Documenting the New Berlin: Cultural Constructions of German Identity.” Defended 2015. Winner of Best Dissertation Prize in German Studies in Canada, 2014-16.
Nathalie Lachance, “Nietzsche’s Ethics of Reading.” Defended 2009. Winner of Best Dissertation Prize in German Studies in Canada, 2008-09.
Ongoing
Tim Klähn: "At Khlebnikov’s Grave: Recollections of the Russian Avant-Garde in Post-1950 Russian and German Literature." ABD; in progress.
Olesya Ivantsova, “Improvised Metropolis: Moscow and St. Petersburg in the German Imagination.” ABD; ten-months research fellowship awarded by DAAD, 2014-15. In progress.
Completed
Özlem Orhan, “Novalis' Orient: Eine geistesgeschichtliche und philologische Untersuchung.“ Defended 2018.
Michel Mallet, “‘Landscapes of the Dispossessed’: Notions of Estrangement and Belonging in the Work of Herta Müller.” Defended 2014.
Thomas Krüger, “The Entwinement of Nostalgia and Utopia in Texts of the 1970s.” 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 Fürhoff, “Myth and Memory in Botho Strauß.” 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 don’t: 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.
Special Journal Editions:
Herta Müller 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 Müllers. Special issue of literatur für leser 34:2 (2011). 148pp.
Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters:
„‚Jede Schicht ein Kunstwerk‘: Postmemoriale Autofiktion und Autorschaft in Herta Müllers
Atemschaukel." Ed. Brigitte Prutti. literatur für leser 2:19 (2022). 107-22.
“Von Pop zu New Sincerity? Christian Krachts Autorinszenierungen und die Frankfurter Poetikvorlesungen.“ Vexierbilder. Autorinszenierung von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart. Ed. Vanessa Höving, Alina Boy, and Katja Holweck. Paderborn: Fink Verlag, 2021. 277-301.
“Herta Müller’s Reshaping of German Cultural Memory.” German Life and Letters 73:1 (2020). 10-33.
“Constructing Christian Kracht: From Faserland to #metoo.” Pacific Coast Philology 54:2 (November 2019) 203-19.
“Körper und Geschlecht im Werk Herta Müllers.” Herta Müller-Handbuch: Leben—Werk-- Wirkung. Ed. Norbert Otto Eke. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2017. 205-13.
“Critical Perspectives on Surveillance in Contemporary German Literature and Film.” Co- authored with Andrea Gogrof. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies Studies 52.4 (2016). 353- 363.
“Lost in Isolation: Ulrike Meinhof’s Body in Poetry.” Presence of the Body. Ed. Gert Hofmann and Snježana Zorić. Amsterdam: Brill, 2016. 92-106.
“Staging Utopian Insularity: The End of Empire in Christian Kracht’s Imperium.” Insularity. Representations and Constructions of Small Worlds. Eld Katrin Dautel and Kathrin Schödel. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2016. 281-96.
“Narrating the New Berlin: Site, Sound, Image, Word.” Co-authored with Jennifer R. Hosek.
Seminar: A Journal for Germanic Studies 51:4 (2015): 293-300.
“Rethinking Graduate Studies.” Co-authored with Andrew Piper. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 50:2 (2014): 139-41.
“The Politics of Gender in Herta Müller’s Prose.” Herta Müller. Ed. Brigid Haines and Lyn Marven. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 153-71.
“Ulrike Meinhof, Orphelia, and the Problem of Female Agency.” Journal of Korea Women’s Research Institute, Sungshin University (2013): 5-28.
“The End of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of the RAF: Elfriede Jelinek’s Ulrike Maria Stuart.” Zeitenwende: Österreichische Literatur seit dem Millennium. Ed. Michael Böhringer and Susanne Hochreiter. Vienna: Praesens Verlag, 2012. 157-172.
“Collage and Non-Identity in the Work of Herta Müller.” Ethik und Poetik im Werke Herta Müllers. Special issue of literatur für leser 34:2 (2011): 131-44.
“From Protest to Resistance: Ulrike Meinhof and the Transatlantic Movement of Ideas.” 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.
“Adorno’s Intellectual Praxis.” New Essays on the Frankfurt School of Critical Thinking. Ed. Alfred Drake. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009. 124-140.
“The Challenges of Domestication: Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche in Paraguay.” German Diaspora Experiences. Ed. Mat Schulze and David John. Waterloo: Wilfried Laurier University Press, 2008. 345-56.
“'Der Kapitalismus finanziert seinen eigenen Untergang': Parodie und Subversion in Erin Cosgroves 'Die Baader-Meinhof-Affäre'." Geschichte(n) erzählen: Nachbilder der RAF. Ed. Inge Stephan. Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2008. 287-98.
“Area Studies and the Unfulfilled Promise of Interdisciplinary Exchange” Lendemains: Etudes comparées sur la France. Ed. Lawrence McFalls and Hans-Jürgen. Lüsebrink. Tübingen: Narr, 2006. 14-22.
“The Dystopian Entwinement of History and Identity in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz.” W.G. Sebald: History—Memory--Trauma. Ed. S. Denham and M. McCulloh. Berlin: deGruyter, 2006. 233-50. “Adorno’s Wagner: History and the Potential of the Artwork.” Critical Inquiry 60 (2005): 68-91. “Die Entführung und Ermordung Hanns Martin Schleyers.” Politische Morde von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Ed. Michael Sommer. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftl. Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2005. 223-30.
“Nietzsche, Enlightenment, and the Incomplete Project of Modernity.” Habermas, Nietzsche, and Critical Theory. Ed. Babette Babich. New York: Prometheus Books, 2004. 105-23.
“‘Manchmal wird es mir peinlich, meinen eigenen Atem zu hören:’ Gescheiterte Performanzen des ver-rückten Körpers in Unica Zürns Prosa,” Körper und Diskurse in der deutschen Kultur. Ed. Sabine Wilke and Brigitte Prutti. Berlin: Synchronverlag 2003. 253-73.
“Domesticating Nietzsche: Toward a Genealogy of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche’s ‘Novellen- Eierchen’.” Orbis Litterarum 57.5 (2002): 343-69.
“Narrative Strategies of Identity/Image Construction in Nietzsche's Critique of Wagner.” Seminar
35:4 (November 1999) 295-307.
“Erzählen im Augenblick höchster Gefahr: Zu Benjamins Begriff der Geschichte in Edgar Hilsenraths Jossel Wassermanns Heimkehr.” 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 Müller's Prose." Gender and Germanness: Cultural Productions of Nation. Ed. Patricia Herminghouse and Magda Müller. New York: Berghahn Books, 1998. 263-75.
"Tabus der Wahrnehmung: Reflexion und Geschichte in Herta Müllers Prosa." German Studies Review 19:2 (May 1996): 257-78.
"Gegenwartskritik und nostalgische Rückgriffe: Die Abdankung der Frau als Objekt männlichen Begehrens und die Erotisierung der Kindfrau in Botho Strauß' Paare Passanten." German Quarterly 62.2 (Spring 1996): 181-95.