Katharina Gerstenberger
Professor and
Department Head
732 Old Chemistry Building
513-556-2751
katharina.gerstenberger@uc.edu
Professional Summary
Katharina Gerstenberger (Ph.D., Cornell University, 1993) is professor of German and department head at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of Truth to Tell: German Women’s Autobiographies and Turn-of-the-Century Culture (2000) and Writing the New Berlin: The German Capital in Post-Wall Literature (2008). She co-edited German Literature in a New Century: Trends, Traditions, Transformations, Transitions (2008). Her articles have appeared in Monatshefte, Women in German Yearbook, German Politics and Society, German Quarterly and in several anthologies, including Recasting German Identity (2002) and German Literature in the Age of Globalization (2004). She is also co-editor of Women in German Yearbook. Her current project deals with historical novels. Gerstenberger’s work has been funded by the Taft Memorial Fund, the University Research Council, NEH, and Fulbright. She regularly teaches courses on aspects of contemporary German literature and culture, European Studies, and city literature.
Education
PhD, Cornell University,
1993.
Research Interests
Katharina Gerstenberger's research interests span the field of contemporary literature, urban studies, autobiography studies, women's literature, German-Jewish literature as well as cultural studies. She is the author of "Truth to Tell: German Women’s Autobiographies and Turn-of-the-Century Culture." (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.) Her most recent publications include articles on the Austrian writer Ilse Aichinger, the German-Turkish writer Zafer ªenocak, and contemporary Berlin literature. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Monatshefte, Women in German Yearbook, and German Quarterly and in several anthologies, including the "Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture" (1997) and "Recasting German Identity" (2002). She just completed her book-length study "Writing the New Berlin: The German Capital in Post-Wall Literature." (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2008). Her new project involves historical novels and the relationship between fact and fiction in literary texts.
Research Support
"The Fall of the Berlin Wall, Twenty Years After," (with Jana Braziel), University Research Council. Funded 2008
“The Fall of the Berlin Wall, Twenty Years After” (with J. Braziel), Faculty Development Council . Funded 2008
“The Fall of the Berlin Wall, Twenty Years After” (with J. Braziel). , Taft Memorial Fund. Funded 2008
Faculty Release Fellowship, Taft Memorial Fund. Funded 2008
Taft Travel Grants, University of Cincinnati. Funded 2007
Fellow at Taft Research Center, University of Cincinnati. Funded 2005 to 2006.
Participant Fulbright German Studies Seminar, Funded 2005
Teachers Institute “The New Europe” , Ohio Humanities Council. Funded 2004
Taft Cost-Sharing Grant, Teachers Institute “The New Europe”. Funded 2004
Taft Summer Research Grant, University of Cincinnati. Funded 2003
Taft Travel for Research Grant, University of Cincinnati. Funded 2002
Participant NEH Summer Seminar, Berlin, Germany, Funded 2000
Competitive Taft Faculty Fellowship, University of Cincinnati. Funded 2000
Research Associate at Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, Mount Holyoke College. Funded 1996 to 1997.
Center for Women’s Studies Faculty Travel Grant, University of Cincinnati. Funded 1996 to 1998.
Summer Faculty Research Fellowship, University of Cincinnati. Funded 1995
University Friends of Women’s Studies Mini-Grant, University of Cincinnati. Funded 1995
Peer Reviewed Publications
"Reading the Writings on the Walls—Remembering East Berlin." German Politics and Society 23 (2005): 65-82.
"Only the Wall Put a Stop to the Inflow of Monsters: Bodies and Borders in Post-Wall Berlin." Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature 28 (2004): 126-151.
"Play Zones: The Erotics of the New Berlin." German Quarterly 76 (2003): 259-272.
"Her (Per)version: Wanda von Sacher-Masoch’s Autobiography ‘Meine Lebensbeichte’." Women in German Yearbook (1997): 81-100.
Books
Truth to Tell: German Women’s Autobiographies and Turn-of-the-Century Culture (Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
Writing the New Berlin: The German Capital in Post-Wall Literature. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2008.
Katharina Gerstenberger and Patricia Herminghouse, eds. German Literature in a New Century: Trends, Traditions, Transformations, Transitions. New York: Berghahn Books. 2008.
Book Chapters
"Writing by Ethnic Minorities in the Age of Globalization." German Literature in the Age of Globalisation. Ed. Stuart Taberner. Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press, 2004. 209-228.
"Difficult Stories: Generation, Genealogy, Gender in Zafer Senocak’s ‘Gefährliche Verwandtschaft’ and Monika Maron’s ‚Pawels Briefe’." Recasting Identity in Contemporary Germany. Ed. Stuart Taberner. Camden House, 2002. 263-279.
"Frauenliteratur oder jüdische Literatur oder schwierige Literatur? Zur Rezeption Ilse Aichingers." Erfahrung nach dem Krieg. Autorinnen im Literaturbetrieb 1945-1950. BRD, DDR, Österreich, Schweiz. Ed. Christiane Caemmerer et.al. Frankfurt: Lang, 2002. 243-256.
"Das Mysterium der Liebe: Geschlechterkämpfe und Begehren bei Wanda von Sacher-Masoch." Frauen-K—rper-Kunst: Literarische Inszenierungen weiblicher Sexualität. Ed. Karin Tebben. G—ttingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 2000. 103-119.
"Multiple Crossings: Cross-Dressing, Cross-Gender Identification, and the Passion of Collecting in Charlotte von Mahlsdorf’s Autobiography ‘I Am My Own Woman: A Life’." True Relations: Essays on Autobiography and the Postmodern. Ed. C. Thomas Couser and J. Fichtelberg. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998. 109-124.
“Small Stories: The Novels of Martina Hefter.” In: German Literature in the Twenty-first Century: Trends, Traditions, Transitions, Transformations. Ed. Katharina Gerstenberger and Patricia Herminghouse. New York: Berghahn Books, 253-267.
Reviews
Paul Cooke. "Representing East Germany Since Unification: From Colonization to Nostalgia." German Quarterly 79.4. (2006): 545-546.
Jay Julian Rosellini. "Literary Skinheads? Writing from the Right in Reunified Germany." (2004).
"Dialogische’ Einblicke in zeitgeschichtliche, intertextuelle und rezeptionsbezogene Aspekte ihres Werkes."Rev. of Monika Maron in Perspective Monatshefte 96.2. (2004): 317-318.
Fredrick Kempe. "Father/Land. A personal search for the New Germany." (2003).
Monika Shafi. "Balancing Acts: Intercultural Encounters in Contemporary German and Austrian Literature." Women in German Newsletter 89. (2002): 31-32.
Ute Lischke. "Lily Braun, 1865-1916: German Writer, Feminist, Socialist." German Quarterly 75.4. (2002): 455-456.
Peter Blickle. "Heimat: A Critical Theory of the German Idea of Homeland." Trans-lit (SCALG XI 1&2). (2002): 89.
David Pan. "Primitive Renaissance: Rethinking German Expressionism." Journal of English and Germanic Philology 102:3. (2003): 415-417.
Christl Grießhaber-Weninger. "Rasse und Geschlecht: Hybride Frauenfiguren in der Literatur um 1900." Journal of English and Germanic Philology 101:2. (2002): 293-295.
Andrew Plowman. "The Radical Subject: Social Change and the Self in Recent German Autobiography." German Quarterly 75.3. (2002): 344-345.
"Wende des Erinnerns? Geschichtskonstruktionen in der deutschen Literatur nach 1989." German Studies Review XXX. (2007): 481-482.
Owen Evans. "Mapping the Contours of Oppression: Subjectivity, Truth and Fiction in Recent German Autobiographical Treatments of Totalitarianism." (2007).
Review of Timm, Am Beispiel meines Bruders, Dückers, Himmelsk—rper, Hein, Landnahme, and Franck, Lagerfeuer.Rev. of German Guilt, German Victims: The Return of the Past in Recent Literature (2005).
Elizabeth Loentz. Let Me Continue to Speak the Truth: Bertha Pappenheim as Author and Activist. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2007. H-Net Reviews http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=23963. April 2009
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Lectures
(11-2005). Hier Neu—Hier Anders: Writing the New Berlin. Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Cornell University.
(05-2004). Zeiten-Wende and Spatial Turn: Remembering East Berlin. Inter/Disciplinary Approaches to Memory: Transformations of the Past in Contemporary German , Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
(02-2004). Berlin in Literature and Film. Out of the Shadows: Berlin in German Cinema after the Wall, Miami University, Oxford, OH.
Paper Presentations
Know a Lot about History: Daniel Kehlmann’s ‘Vermessung der Welt’ as a Historical Novel for the Twenty-First Century. GSA, San Diego. 09-2007.
Coming and Going: The Politics of Home in Martina Hefter’s Zurück auf Los. GSA, Pittsburgh. 09-2006.
Writing the New Berlin: The German Capital in the Literature of the 1990s. Taft Symposium, University of Cincinnati. 05-2006.
From Nazi-Fathers to “Good Germans”: Recent Texts about the Nazi Period by Uwe Timm and Peter Schneider. GSA, Milwaukee. 11-2005.
Memory, History, Place: Goodbye to East Berlin. MLA Convention, Philadelphia. 12-2004.
Tales of One City: The Many Texts of the New Berlin. Cityscapes: Perspectives from Modern and Contemporary Culture, The National Library of Wales and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. 07-2004.
Constructing Sites: Writing the New Berlin. German Studies Faculty Colloquium, University of Cincinnati. 04-2004.
Goodbye to Berlin (East). ACLA,, Ann Arbor. 04-2004.
Constructing Sites—Writing the New Berlin. ACLA, San Diego. 04-2003.
Constructing Sites—Writing the New Berlin. ACLA, San Diego. 04-2003.
Events Organized
Aesthetics and Politics (12-2006),
MLA in Washington.
Current Trends in German Literature (09-2006),
GSA in Pittsburgh.
Roundtable on Contemporary Trends in German Literature (09-2006),
GSA in Pittsburgh.
Writing after the Wall: GDR Literature of the 1990s (12-2004),
MLA Convention in Philadelphia.
WiG-sponsored session: “Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Literature and Film (12-2004),
MLA Convention in Philadelphia.
