Thomas Kniesche
Associate Professor of German Studies:
German Studies
Phone: +1 401 863 2475
Phone 2: +1 401 863 2596
Thomas_Kniesche@Brown.EDU
Professor Kniesche's areas of expertise include modern German literature, intellectual history, literary theory, and psychoanalysis.
Biography
EDUCATION
1969-78 Abitur Städtisches Gymnasium Köln-Mülheim, Cologne, Germany
1979-85 Staatsexamen Universität Köln, German Language and Literature, Philosophy, Pedagogy
1985-86 M.A. Washington University in St.Louis, German Literature
1986-90 Ph.D. University of California, Santa Barbara, German Language & Literature
PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS
1990 Lehrbeauftragter, Universität Köln
1990, 91 Instructor, Georgetown Summer Program, Trier
1990-91 Visiting Assistant Professor, Brown University
1991 Visiting Assistant Professor, Franklin & Marshall College
1992-1996 Assistant Professor, Brown University
1996- Associate Professor, Brown University
Interests
I am currently at work on a book project about the image of "America" in 20th-century German-Jewish Literature. Of particular interest for this project is America's role as the third party in a dialogue between German and Jewish culture. "America" is a metaphor for discourses that mediate, negotiate, or manipulate cultural exchanges in the German-Jewish tradition. Emphasis will be put on America as a place of cultural otherness and utopian hope, and as a place of origin for Holocaust discourses that challenge the prevalent culture of memory and remembrance in Germany.
I am also working on a series of articles on contemporary mystery fiction in German.
Degrees
Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
Awards
N/A
Affiliations
N/A
Teaching
Introduction to German Literature: Literary Forms
Graduate Seminar: Introduction to Literary Theory
Introduction to German Studies
Undergraduate Seminar: The Modern Period (1900-present)
Graduate Seminar: Narrative Prose (Günter Grass)
Undergraduate Seminar: The Modern Period II (1945-present)
Undergraduate Seminar: Modernism in German Literature ca. 1890-1940
Graduate Seminar: Studies in Literary Theory (The German Connection: Literary Theory after the Frankfurt School)
Lecture Course: Vampirism
Graduate Seminar: Thinking after Heidegger
Undergraduate Seminar: German Literature after Reunification
Graduate Seminar: German Literature 1945-1990
Undergraduate Seminar: Contemporary German-Jewish Culture
Undergraduate Seminar: Goethe and Modernity
Undergraduate Seminar: Mystery fiction
Funded Research
N/A
Curriculum Vitae
