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Maike Oergel

Associate Professor in German Studies, Faculty of Arts

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Biography

I studied English, German and Art History at the University of Hamburg in Germany completing with a Master' s degree before taking a post teaching German and French at the King's School in Ely, Cambs. I did my postgraduate research at University of East Anglia in Norwich, gaining a PhD in Comparative Literature, which led to my appointment in the German Department here at Nottingham. My research focuses on Anglo-German comparative studies, especially 18th and early 19th-century intellectual and cultural history, including the history and theory of translation. I am particularly interested in the relationship between language(s), ideas, and identity.

Expertise Summary

My key area of expertise is 18th and early 19th-century English and German intellectual and cultural history, especially the construction of the concepts of modernity, national identity, and historicity in the context of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. In 2010 I was appointed co-editor of the UK's premier scholarly journal for comparative studies Comparative Critical Studies,which is published by Edinburgh University Press.

I have extensive experience in senior academic administration, having been Head of Department twice, and since January 2011 chairing my School's Teaching Committee, now as Director of Teaching. I am also the Director of the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies.

My first book The Return of King Arthur and the Nibelungen: National Myth in 19thC English and German Literature (1998) was the first study to investigate the similarities between notions of the Germanic/Teutonic in 19th-century German and English thinking, and their importance for the construction of national identities in both national contexts, filling a gap in the understanding of Anglo-German intellectual relations. I have published widely on the use of the Germanic as well as the importance of the mythic in 19th-century German and English literature and thought since. My interest in the idea of the national as revolutionary around 1800 led to co-hosting an international conference on German counter-cultures from the 18th to the 20th century, which produced a volume of essays entitled Counter-Cultures in Germany and Central Europe: From Sturm und Drang to Baader-Meinhof (2003), co-edited with Steve Giles. Studying the paradigm shift from Enlightenment to Romanticism I became interested in the idea of historicity as a defining category of modern thought, which I have argued in my second monograph leads to the emergence of the modern Denkmodell of dialectics: Culture and Identity: Historicity in German Literature and Thought 1770-1815 (2006). This study explores how the emergence of the modern historical awareness defines German thought on cultural and national identity and is constitutive of the work of one of the most significant German writers of that time, Johann Wolfgang Goethe. The research for this project was funded by the AHRB. Following my interest in the intellectual history of aesthetics, I co-organised an international conference in 2009 on the aesthetic tradition in German thought, from Friedrich Schiller to the Frankfurt School. The resulting volume of essays (2012), co-edited with two Nottingham colleagues, places "classical" German aesthetics in the tradition of critical theory and modifies the tendency in Anglophone research into modern German aesthetics that a critical understanding of aesthetics and modernity does not begin in Germany until the late 19th-century.

Teaching Summary

Currently my main area of teaching is translation studies and comparative literature, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. In the past I taught extensively in the area of Enlightenment… read more

Research Summary

My principal area of research is 18th and early 19th-century English and German intellectual and cultural history, especially the constructions of the concepts of modernity, national identity, and… read more

Recent Publications

  • JEROME CARROLL, STEVE GILES and MAIKE OERGEL, eds., 2012. Aesthetics and Modernity: From Schiller to the Frankfurt School Peter Lang.
  • MAIKE OERGEL, 2012. The Aesthetics of Historicity: Friedrich Schiller's and Friedrich Schlegel's Concepts of the Art of Modernity. In: JEROME CARROLL, STEVE GILES and MAIKE OERGEL, eds., Aesthetics and Modenity: From Schiller to the Frankfurt School Peter Lang.
  • MAIKE OERGEL, 2010. “The Bard as Modern Ancient: The Dialectic of Modernisation around 1800”. In: RUEDIGER GOERNER and ANGUS NICHOLLS, eds., In the Embrace of the Swan: Anglo-German Intellectual Mythologies de Gruyter. 260-280
  • MAIKE OERGEL, 2010. The Faustian Gretchen. Overlooked Aspects of a Male Fantasy German Life and Letters. 64(1), 45-61

Currently my main area of teaching is translation studies and comparative literature, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. In the past I taught extensively in the area of Enlightenment studies and Romantic literature and thought. I supervise numerous PhD projects in the area of cultural transfer and translation studies.

As the Director of Teaching for the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies I am keenly interested in developing effective teaching methods and innovative ways of assessment. I chair the School's Language Teaching Forum and have for a number of years been involved in the Undergraduate Ambassadors for Modern Foreign Languages- module, which is credit-bearing and supports the School's community engagement activities by sending final year students into local schools to deliver a teaching project to stimulate interest in their language.

Current Research

My principal area of research is 18th and early 19th-century English and German intellectual and cultural history, especially the constructions of the concepts of modernity, national identity, and historicity in the context of the intellectual frameworks of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, and intellectual and cultural exchange between Britain and Germany. In the past two years I have embarked on a larger study of cultural transfer between Britain and Germany around 1800, focusing on the impact of the French Revolution on transfer activities and the crucial role periodicals played in these activities. First results of this investigation into the impact of the French Revolution on cultural transfer will be published shortly in a volume of essays I have edited entitled Treating the Radical: Enlightenment, Revolution, and Cultural Transfer in 1790s Germany, Britain and France (forthcoming 2012). I am also working on articles in the area of literary and screen translation, work which was triggered by my teaching. In order to stimulate research into translation and comparative studies at Nottingham I founded in 2011, together with two colleagues, the research Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies, which supports postgraduate and staff research in these areas and provides a platform for local, national and international research events.

Past Research

Constructions of national myths in 19thC English and German literature, the cultural significance of the figure of the national hero (especially King Arthur and Siegfried the Nibelung), the historical novel, history of German counter-cultures 18thc-20thc

  • MAIKE OERGEL, 2012. The Aesthetics of Historicity: Friedrich Schiller's and Friedrich Schlegel's Concepts of the Art of Modernity. In: JEROME CARROLL, STEVE GILES and MAIKE OERGEL, eds., Aesthetics and Modenity: From Schiller to the Frankfurt School Peter Lang.
  • JEROME CARROLL, STEVE GILES and MAIKE OERGEL, eds., 2012. Aesthetics and Modernity: From Schiller to the Frankfurt School Peter Lang.
  • MAIKE OERGEL, 2010. The Faustian Gretchen. Overlooked Aspects of a Male Fantasy German Life and Letters. 64(1), 45-61
  • MAIKE OERGEL, 2010. “The Bard as Modern Ancient: The Dialectic of Modernisation around 1800”. In: RUEDIGER GOERNER and ANGUS NICHOLLS, eds., In the Embrace of the Swan: Anglo-German Intellectual Mythologies de Gruyter. 260-280
  • MAIKE OERGEL, 2009. The Amazon State in Kleist’s Penthesilea: Revolutionary Republic of Female Liberation or Anti-Individualistic Totalitarianism?” Publications of the English Goethe Society. 78 (NS)(1-2), 70-80
  • OERGEL, M., 2007. Antiquity, Christianity and "die Germanen": Forging an Identity in the Modern World. In: PERKINS, M.A and LIEBSCHER, M., eds., Nationalism versus Cosmopolitanism in German Thought and Culture 1789-1914 1. 1. Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press. 49-69
  • OERGEL, M., 2006. Culture and identity: historicity in German literature and thought 1770-1815 1. Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • OERGEL, M., 2006. The German identity, the German <i>Querelle</i>, and the ideal state: a fresh look at Schiller's fragment "Deutsche Größe". In: MARTIN, N., ed., Schiller: national poet - poet of nations : a Birmingham symposium Amsterdam: Rodopi. 241-256
  • MAIKE OERGEL, 2003. “Revolutionaries, Traditionalists, Terrorists? The Burschenschaften and the German. In: STEVE GILES and MAIKE OERGEL, eds., Counter-Cultures in Germany and Central Europe 1770-1980: From Sturm und Drang to Baader-Meinhof Peter Lang. 61-86
  • GILES, S. and OERGEL, M., eds., 2003. Counter-cultures in Germany and central Europe: from Sturm und Drang to Baader-Meinhof Oxford: Peter Lang.
  • OERGEL, M., 2002. "Apocalypse Now or Never: 19th Century Visions of the End in Tennyson and Wagner" in New Comparison 30. Autumn 2000, 41-58
  • OERGEL, M., 2001. Wie es wirklich wurde. The modern need for historical fiction.. In: DURRANI, O. and PREECE, J., eds., Travellers in Space and Time. Novel durch Zeit und Raum. Der deutschsprachige historische Roman. Amsterdam : Rodopi. 435-439
  • OERGEL, M., 2001. <i>Klassische Romantik</i> or <i>Romantische Klassik</i>? The influence of the Enlightenment and historicism on the intellectual conditions of the <i>Goethezeit</i> Publications of the English Goethe Society. new ser. 70, 74-86
  • OERGEL, M., 2000. Ende der Querelle? Deutsche und britische Definitionen der modernen Identitaet im Kulturschatten der Antike 1750-1870. In: VON ESSEN, G. and TURK, H., eds., Unerledigte Geschichten. Der literarische Umgang mit Nationalit?t und Internationalität Göttingen : Wallstein. 72-99
  • OERGEL, M., 2000. Klassische Romantik or Romantische Klassik? The Influence of the Enlightenment and Historicism on the Intellectual Conditions of the Goethezeit Publications of the English Goethe Society.
  • OERGEL, M., 1999. Entry on Romantic Irony. In: KONZETT, M., ed., Encyclopaedia of German Literature Chicago : Fitzroy Dearborn. ?-?
  • OERGEL, M., 1999. Overshadowed by Antiquity? British and German Thoughts on the Formation of a Modern Identity 1750-1850.. In: GILES, S. and GRAVES, P., eds., From classical shades to Vickers victorious : shifting perspectives in British German studies: papers delivered at the Conference of University Teachers of German, University of Leicester, 6-8 April 1998 Bern : Peter Lang. 9-27
  • OERGEL, M., 1999. Entry on Mythology. In: KONZETT, M., ed., Encyclopaedia of German Literature Chicago : Fitzroy Dearborn. ?-?
  • OERGEL, M., 1998. The return of King Arthur and the Nibelungen : national myth in nineteenth century English and German literature Berlin : Walter de Gruyter.
  • OERGEL, M., 1998. The Redeeming Teuton. 19th-Century Notions of the Germanic in England and Germany. In: CUBITT, G., ed., Imagining Nations Manchester : Manchester University Press. 75-91
  • OERGEL, M., 1998. Tennyson's Idylls and Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen: Myth in the 19th Century. In: BELL, M. and POELLNER, P., eds., Myth and the Making of Modernity: The Problem of Grounding in early 20th century literature 1. Amsterdam : Rodopi. 35-59

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