Research

Literary Mediterranean Studies

Many urgent issues of our time are connected with the Mediterranean region: migration from the Mediterranean countries, the North-South divide in Europe, Europe's relations with its southern neighbors and relations with the Islamic world. Mediterranean research, which is dedicated to these current and other historical questions, thus makes an important contribution to the analysis of our present. In my research I am particularly interested in the discourses associated with the Mediterranean, the writing of migration and travel, the common but also heterogeneous memory of the Mediterranean, memory theories and myths as well as inter- and transcultural relations and the underlying cultural theories. Concrete research topics are mythopoetics, francophone literatures of North Africa, Italian and French literature, and the region of Sicily. I am also interested in the theoretical and methodological reflection of the concept of "Mediterranean literature".

French and Italian Renaissance
The Renaissance period (ca. 1350-1600) is sometimes seen as a kind of 'first' Enlightenment or the beginning of 'modern times', i.e. it is emphasized that a first step towards modernity is already being taken at this time. This is based on a teleological understanding of history, which necessarily also includes a devaluation of earlier epochs, especially the Middle Age. In contrast, my research emphasizes the independence and alterity of the Renaissance epoch and focuses in particular on the specific performativity of texts of that period, cosmologies and anthropologies, which form an important point of reference in Renaissance aesthetics and poetry. In the next few years, I will also focus my research on the relationship between literature and diplomacy of the Renaissance/Early Modern Period.

Further research focuses are: Myth reception/myth theory, drama poetry, Francophonie of Africa, literature and history of science, reception of Romanic literature in German literature.