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Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics

 

Dr Erica Wickerson

Dr Erica Wickerson
Position(s): 
Research Fellow St John's College
Affiliated Lecturer in German
British Academy Rising Star
Department/Section: 
German
Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages & Linguistics
Contact details: 
Telephone number: 
+44 (0)1223 332091
Location: 

St John's College
Cambridge
CB2 1TP
United Kingdom

 

About: 

Erica’s first book, The Architecture of Narrative Time: Thomas Mann and the Problems of Modern Narrative, was published by Oxford University Press in 2017 and shortlisted for the Waterloo Centre for German Studies Book Prize. She holds a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award for her work on ‘Borders and Crossings: The Arts and Society’. With this, she is organising a series of workshops, an art exhibition, and public engagement talks. Erica is currently writing her second monograph, Why We Care About Culture, which compares canonical works of literature with works of contemporary, popular culture. She is also working on a study of time and space in the works of Kafka and other writers, graphic artists, and filmmakers. She has published numerous journal and newspaper articles on comparative literature, film, and graphic narratives. 

 

Teaching interests: 

Literature, film, and visual culture from the nineteenth century to the present, particularly modernism and post-war culture.

 

Research interests: 
  • Comparative literature
  • Film
  • Graphic narratives and sequential art
  • Memoir
  • Memory culture
  • Time, space, subjectivity
  • Migration
  • Marginality 

 

Recent research projects: 
  • The Architecture of Narrative Time: Thomas Mann and the Problems of Modern Narrative
  • Why We Care About Culture
  • Kafka’s Kaleidoscope: Space and Time in Word and Image

 

Published works: 

 

Monograph
The Architecture of Narrative Time: Thomas Mann and the Problems of Modern Narrative (Oxford University Press, 2017)

 

Monograph in progress

Why We Care About Culture

 

Journal articles

  • ‘Beyond vision: myth, catharsis and the narration of absence in Art Spiegelman’s Maus and W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz’ in Comparative Critical Studies (forthcoming, 2020)
  • ‘On the tram: the perspective, power, and, performance of space and time in Franz Kafka’s Der Fahrgast and Ruth Klüger’s weiter leben’ in The Modern Language Review (forthcoming, 2019)
  • ‘The transformation of the lives of others: space, sensuality, and spectator complicity in Franz Kafka's Die Verwandlung and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Das Leben der Anderen’ in Forum for Modern Language Studies, vol. 54, part 4, pp. 481–508 (Oct. 2018)
  • ‘Refracting time: symbolism and symbiosis in Theodor Storm's Immensee and Thomas Mann's Tonio Kröger’ in Modern Language Review, vol. 111, part 2, pp. 434–453 (Apr. 2016)
  • ‘The Judgement of Felix: Mythologising History in Thomas Mann’s Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull’ in The German Quarterly, vol. 88, part 1, pp. 43–59 (Feb. 2015)
  • ‘Debunking the myth: Günter Grass’s Die Blechtrommel as an answer to Thomas Mann’s mythologisation of history in Doktor Faustus and Felix Krull’, Runner-Up in the Women in German Studies Postgraduate Essay Prize (2014)
  • ‘Love at First Sight: The Voyeur on the Verge in E.T.A. Hoffmann's Das öde Haus and Gérard de Nerval's Sylvie’ in Orbis Litterarum, vol. 69, part 4, pp. 269–289 (Jul. 2014)
  • ‘Demonising Gretchen through gossip in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus’, highly commended in the Forum Prize 2013, and published in a Special Issue on ‘Literature and Gossip’ in Forum for Modern Language Studies, pp. 212–226 (Apr. 2014)
  • ‘Seeing the sites: the topography of memory and identity in Ruth Klüger's weiter leben’ in The Modern Language Review, vol. 108, part 1, pp. 202–220 (Jan. 2013)

 

Newspaper articles

  • ‘Brexit in fiction: How literature latches on to the theme of political divisions’ in The Independent, April 2019
  • ‘What sex tells us about society: Sally Rooney’s Normal People and DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover' in The Independent, March 2019
  • ‘Too little has changed since Thomas Hardy wrote about sexual assault’ in The Independent, November 2018
  • ‘Detective fiction: Why do we care whodunnit?’ in The Independent, October 2018
  • ‘From 'Bodyguard' to 'The Count of Monte Cristo', these are the key ingredients of a perfect thriller’ in The Independent, October 2018​

 

Book reviews for Journal for European Studies and Modern Language Review