Contact info
christine.lehleiter@utoronto.ca
Office
University of Toronto
Odette Hall 318
50 St. Joseph Street
Toronto, ON M5S 1J4
Phone 416-926-2322
Fax: 416-926-2329
Secretary: 416-926-2324
Office Hours
Wed 2:30 - 4:30 p.m.
Classes 2015 – 2016
GER 1550H S Origins: Myths of Beginning in German Literature and Thought
GER 270H F Money and Economy
CCR 199H S Technology and the Human
Background
Ph.D. Indiana University 2007
In my research, I focus on the intersection between literature and the life sciences. My book Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity (Bucknell University Press, 2014) examines biological, legal, and literary discourses on heredity from 1770-1830 and their impact on the concept of modern subjectivity. In a second project, "Original Sin: the Quest for the Origin of Evil," I study the idea of original sin and its reinterpretation in the context of new assumptions in anthropology around 1800. The project is funded by an Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I also maintain an ongoing interest in Gender Studies and in German-Orient cross-cultural relations.
In spring 2011, I organized the 4th Annual Toronto German Studies Symposium "Fact and Fiction: Literature and Science in the German and European Context." The symposium assembled an international and interdisciplinary group of specialists working on the intersection between literature and the sciences and was generously sponsored and supported by Germanic Languages and Literatures, The Faculty of Arts and Science, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Munk School of Global Affairs, Joint Initiative in German and European Studies (JIGES), Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (CERES).
For the symposium program see:
http://german.utoronto.ca/downloads/FactandFictionPoster2011Updated.pdf
Together with my colleague Marga Vicedo from the Institute for History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, I organized in 2010-11 “Science and Culture” (SciCult), a working group at the University of Toronto initiated by Cannon Schmitt (English) and funded by the Jackman Humanities Insitute.
For more information on SciCult see:
http://www.humanities.utoronto.ca/ScienceAndCulture
Recently, I have started to consider eco-critical approaches for my research and I am a member of the "Working Group on Environment," which is led by Alice Kuzniar (German, University of Waterloo) and takes place under the umbrella of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies (WCGS).
Professional Appointments
Assistant Professor of German, University of Toronto, 2008 - present
Assistant Professor of German, Florida State University, 2007 - 2008
Research and Teaching Interests
- German Literature and Culture from the 18th to the 21st century
- Literature and the Life Sciences
- Aesthetic Theory
- Gender Studies
- Weimar and Nazi Cinema
- Cross-cultural Relations, in particular German-Oriental Connections
- Idea of Original Sin
Recent Courses
- Money and Economy in German Literature and Culture
- Technology and the Human
- Weimar Culture and Beyond: Mensch, Masse, Maschine
- 19th Century German Literature: Zwischen Volk und Nation, Philister und Prolet, Kutsche und Eisenbahn
- Talking Animals, Loving Dolls, and Blood-Sucking Men: Uncanny Romanticism and Its Legacy
- Revolution and War in German Literature and Thought
- Gender and Identity
- Introduction to German Literature
- German Cinema
Books
Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity (Bucknell University Press, 2014)
Fact and Fiction: Literary and Scientific Cultures in Germany and Britain. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (edited volume, forthcoming).
Articles
"New Attention to Incest and Inbreeding as Ways of Reproduction around 1800: A Case Study of the Mignon Episode in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister." In: The Secrets of Generation: Reproduction in the Long Eighteenth Century. Ed. Raymond Stephanson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (under review).
"Literature and Science: Typology of a Field." In: Fact and Fiction: Literary and Scientific Cultures in Germany and Britain. Ed. Christine Lehleiter. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (under contract, forthcoming).
"Sophie von La Roche’s ‘Die Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim‘ (1771): Conceptualizing Female Selfhood around 1800." Women in German Yearbook 29 (2013): 21-40.
"On Genealogy: Biology, Religion, and Aesthetics in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Elixiere des Teufels (1815/16) and Erasmus Darwin’s Zoonomia (1794-96)," The German Quarterly, 84.1 (Winter 2011): 41-60.
"How German is the Indian Tiger? The Uncanny as the Repressed Familiar in Der Tiger von Eschnapur (Thea von Harbou, Fritz Lang, Joe May)," in: Mapping Channels between Ganges and Rhine: German-Indian Cross-Cultural Relations, eds. Jörg Esleben, Christina Kränzle, and Sukanya Kulkarni, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008, pp. 188-209.
Translations
William Rasch, "Schuld als Religion," in: Kapitalismus als Religion, ed. Dirk Baecker, Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2003, pp. 249-64.
William Rasch, "Der Primat des Politischen und die notwendige Voraussetzung des Bösen," in: Konflikt als Berufung: Die Grenzen des Politischen. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2005, pp. 7-38.
Reviews
Review: "Wolfgang Albrecht and Richard E. Schade (eds.). Mit Lessing zur Moderne: Soziokulturelle Wirkungen des Aufklärers um 1900. Kamenz: Lessing-Museum Kamenz (2004)." The Lessing Yearbook XXXVIII, 2008/2009 (Summer 2010).
Review: "Sigrid Weigel. ‘Genea-Logik: Generation, Tradition und Evolution zwischen Kultur- und Naturwissenschaften‘." The German Quarterly , 81.2 (Spring 2008): 245-246.
Recent Talks and Conference Papers
"On the Monstrosity of Flowers: Eighteenth-Century Experiments on Plant Hybridization and their Echo in German Literature," NeMLA, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 4 April 2014.
"Human and Animal in Light of Eighteenth-Century Breeding Experiments," Defining the Human and the Animal, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, 2 May 2013.
"'Spiritual Development from Corporeal Forces': the Question of Dualism in Light of Evolution," The Immaterial Eighteenth Century, Joint Meeting CSECS/NEASECS/Aphra Behn Society, Hamilton, ON, 28 October 2011.
"'Like the Evolving World': Character Formation in Times of Evolution," Romanticism and Evolution, London, ON, 12-14 May 2011.
"'Innate Repulsion': Jean Paul Richter and Evolution," Romantic EcologySymposium, Waterloo, 19 March 2011.
"Heredity: Determinism and Creativity in German Romanticism," InauguralGerman Research Today Lecture, University of Waterloo, 16 February 2011.
"Spurzheim versus Rousseau: Education in the Age of Phrenology," Northeastern American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (NEASECS), Buffalo, NY, 21-23 October 2010 (forthcoming).
"Pressure on the Self: Competing Concepts of Selfhood in Literature and the Life Sciences around 1800," German Studies Association (GSA), Oakland, CA, 7-10 October 2010 (forthcoming).
"Searching for the Nature of Language: Comparative Anatomy, Genealogy, and Early Nineteenth-Century Philology," Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies/Northeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference, Ottawa, Ontario, 5-8 November 2009.
"On the Significance of Deceit: Therapy of Mental Illness in the Long 18th Century," German Studies Association (GSA), Washington, D.C., 8-11 October 2009.
"From Climate to Blood: the Function of Sanskrit Studies for the Redefinition of Race and Nation in Nineteenth-Century Germany," German Studies Association (GSA), St. Paul, Minnesota, October 2008.
"'Krise der Männlichkeit'? Notes on the reemergence and redefinition of the father figure at the turn from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century," Midwest German History Workshop, Toronto, September 2008.
"Reflections in the Mirror – Projections of the Self: Character Formation in Jean Paul’s Komet," Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (ASECS), Portland, March/April 2008.
Exhibition
"Signs of the Self in the Eighteenth Century"
Exhibition curated for the First Annual Bloomington Eighteenth-Century Studies Workshop, in cooperation with the Lilly Rare Book Library, Indiana University-Bloomington, May 2002.
Five Showcases on Physiognomy: From Lavater to Phrenology, Games: from Proverb to Peepshow, Confessions: from Marie-Antoinette to De Quincey, Correspondences: From Richardson to Sophie von La Roche, and Fashion: From the Pacific to London.
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