My areas of teaching and research lie mainly in the twentieth century. The options I teach are, in second year, Franz Kafka and Thomas Mann, and, in final year, German Literature around 1900 (or, occasionally, a course on Bertolt Brecht). Kafka and Mann are the two best known novelists writing in German and, in their very different ways, both demanding and very rewarding to study. The course on literature around 1900 studies the emergence of modernism in German culture against the background of the modernisation of German society. I also teach the German language, both in classes on translation and grammar and as the basis of literary-historical understanding. Everything we do in our subject is designed to promote the students’ acquisition of the German language.

My research has always been quite closely linked to my teaching interests, mainly because I believe that the prime purpose of doing research in our area is to contribute to students’ understanding of their subject. I have written or edited three books on Brecht, one on Kafka and one on Thomas Mann, co-edited a volume on Fascism and European Literature, and edited and translated the writings of the social and political theorist, Max Weber, and the philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. I am currently working on a study of writers’ responses to the first unification of Germany. I am also one of the editors of German Life and Letters.

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