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Ruediger Singer

Photo of Ruediger Singer

Contact Me

singerr@umn.edu
612-625-4898

327C FolH
German, Scandinavian & Dutch
9 Pleasant St SE

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"To read is also always to destroy– whoever doesn't want to believe that should ask neurologists– to destroy and reconstruct. In this way something new always emerges. A classical author not only endures this, but also demands it. He's not done in by our loving brutality, by our cruel interest." (Hans Magnus Enzensberger)

Educational Background & Specialties

Educational Background

  • Habilitation/venia legendi: German and Comparative Literature, Georg August Universität, Göttingen, 2014.
  • Ph.D. : German Literature, Technische Universität, Berlin, 2004.
  • M.A.: German Literature, European History, Technische Universität, Berlin, 1998.

Curriculum Vitae

Specialties

  • Literature and poetics of the 18th and 19th century with an emphasis on German-French relations around 1700, German-English relations during the “Age of Goethe” (High Enlightenment through Biedermeier) and literature around 1900
  • Oral poetry, lyric in performance
  • European drama and theater with an emphasis on theories and practices of acting since the 17th century
  • Rhetorical analysis of literature
  • Word and image relations (esp. ekphrasis, caricature, graphic novels and “funnies”)
  • Verbal and visual humor
Courses Taught
  • 8220 Graduate course “Enlightenment and Passion: The Age of Goethe (in German)
  • 3431 Undergraduate/8220 graduate course “Irony and Wanderlust: German Romanticism” (in German)
  • 3642 Undergraduate course "The Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Then and Now" (in English)
  • 4040 Undergraduate course/workshop "German Play: Poetry in Motion” (in German)
  • 3501 Undergraduate course "German Comics and Graphic Novels" (in German)
  • 3501 Undergraduate course “Cultural Encounters in Comics” (in German)
  • 3501 Undergraduate course “German Humor” (in German)
  • 3510 Undergraduate course "'Typisch deutsch?' How Germans Perceive Themselves and (Think They) are Perceived by Others" (in German)
  • 3431 Undergraduate/5410 Advanced undergraduate course “More than Decadence: Literature around 1900” (in German)
  • 8230 Graduate course “Biedermeier and Revolution: German Literature 1818-1848”
  • 8230 Graduate course “Observation and Irony: German Realism” (in German)
Research & Professional Activities

Research

  • "Migration in Comics and Graphic Narratives", co-organized with the Center for German and European Studies, sponsored by Imagine Funds, the Department for German Scandinavian & Dutch, Center for German and European Studies, Immigration History Research Center, Center for Austrian Studies, Center for Jewish Studies (all University of Minnesota-Twin Cities), and the Goethe Institute Chicago: Scholarly Conference/Roundtable with Artists/A“THE U OF M igration PROJECT”, by Minnesotan artist Wing Young Huie, Oct. 5th, 2018 - Oct. 7th, 2018
Publications
  • Habilitation thesis/second book: Mimen-Ekphrasis: Schauspielkunst in der Literatur um 1800 und um 1900 (Ekphrasis of Acting: Dramatic Art in Literature around 1800 and 1900). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Palaestra series 342), 2018. https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/themen-entdecken/literatur-sprach-und-kulturwissenschaften/germanistik/neuere-deutsche-literaturwissenschaft/28500/mimen-ekphrasis?c=1776
  • Editor with Tilmann Koeppe: "Show, don’t tell": Konzepte und Strategien anschaulichen Erzählens (Concepts and Strategies of Vivid Narration). Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2018. http://www.aisthesis.de/Koeppe-Singer-Show-dont-tell
  • Editor with Ruth Florack: Die Kunst der Galanterie. Ein Verhaltenskonzept in der Literatur der Frühen Neuzeit (Galante counduite: An Ideal of Conduct in Early Modern Literature). Berlin/Tübingen: Max Niemeyer/De Gruyter, 2012. Reviewed by Christophe Losfeld in Monatshefte 106 (2014): 304-306.
  • Dissertation: "Nachgesang": Ein Konzept Herders, entwickelt an 'Ossian', der 'popular ballad' und der frühen Kunstballade (Writing Oral Poetry: A Concept by Herder Inspired by the Poems of Ossian, English Popular Ballads, and Early German Literary Ballads). Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2006. Reviewed by Wulf Koepke in Herder Yearbook 9 (2008): 209-2012.
  • "O hätt’ ich seine Stimme: Lyrik und der implizite Rezitator" (O That I Had His Voice: Poetry and the Implicit Reciter). Phänomene des Performativen in der Lyrik. Systematische Entwürfe und his-torische Fallbeispiele, ed. by Anna Bers and Peer Trilcke, Wallstein, 2017, 215-243.
  • "Intermediale Anschaulichkeit. 'Enargeia' als rhetorisches Wirkungsideal von Bild, Text und actio" (Intermedial Vividness. 'Energeia' as Rhetorical Ideal for the Impact of Word, Image and Oratorical Actio). Anschauen, Anschauung, Anschaulichkeit. Spielarten der Visualisierung im Lesen, Wahr-nehmen und Denken, ed. by Hans Adler and Sabine Gross. Paderborn: Finck, 2016, 157-178.
  • "Charakter - Viech - Clown: Jüdische Politikverweigerer als Bühnenhelden in Arthur Schnitzlers Professor Bernhardi und Thomas Bernhards Heldenplatz." Felix Austria: Dekonstruktion eines Mythos? Das österreichische Drama und Theater seit Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Mal-gorzata Leyko, Artur Pelka and Karolina Prykowska-Michalak. Fernwald: Litblockin, 2009, 62-79.
Awards
  • Feodor Lynen Fellowship (Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, September 2009 - September 2011