PhD students 1st cohort

Mareike Timm (born 1987) studied a Bachelor of Arts in German, geography, and pedagogy at the University of Göttingen from 2007 to 2010. Funded by a Max Kade scholarship (together with the German National Academic Foundation), she studied at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, from August 2010 to June 2011. She then completed a Master of German Language Studies from 2011 to 2015 at the University of Göttingen. During her studies Mareike worked as a student assistant to Professor Claudia Stockinger and during her international study period to Professor Paul Michael Lützeler. She was employed as an academic assistant in the Göttinger Seminar for German Philology (Professor Claudia Stockinger/Professor Heinrich Detering) after completing her studies. Mareike received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation from 2007 to 2014. She was a PhD student at the ‘Romanticism as a Model’ research training group from October 2015 through December 2018 and works for Graduate Academy at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena since April 2019.

The Aesthetics of Craftsmanship: On a Romantic Denkfigur in the Prose of the Long 19th Century

The originally premodern unity between art and craftsmanship became a widely circulated Denkfigur in literature around 1800 and, from this time on, has shaped narratives surrounding craftsmanship. The period-specific differentiation of the unity of art and craftsmanship can be observed, along with its polemic development, in the connection of craftsmanship with the artist motif, which has proven to be influential well into the 20th century (e.g. in the works of Hermann Hesse). A discursive overlap between two areas is visible here: the conversation about art draws on discourse about craftsmanship, and key ideas about conceptions of art are illustrated with reference to the practices of the craftsman. Drawing on novellas, stories and novels from the long 19th century (e.g. from E.T.A. Hoffmann, Ludwig Tieck, Theodor Storm and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach), this study will reconstruct self-referential aesthetic or poetological questions that are addressed in programmatic or literary reflections on craftsmanship as a branch of industry, on the artisan as a figure and on artisanal products. In the tense relationship between the Romantic idea and its literary transformation, every new literary work leverages and reinterprets the Denkfigur which has its roots in historical Romanticism. The aim of the research project is not only to identify the origin of this Romantic Denkfigur but also to trace how discursive borders are drawn between epochs (particularly between Romanticism and Realism). Beyond this, the research intends to review the extent to which advancing industrialisation and the mechanisation of work – in the form of a ‘de-Romanticising’, for instance – had literary consequences. For although this Denkfigur had declined in importance by the start of the 20th century, the lost and at the same continually evoked unity of art and craftsmanship as a remnant of this Romantic notion continues to exert influence beyond literature into the present – for example, in the form of open museum workshops and craft markets.

Kleinere Beiträge

Rezension zu: Lu Mingjun, Wahnsinn der Medea. Eine Studie zu Grillparzers Trilogie ‚Das goldene Vließ‘ und Jahnns Drama ‚Medea‘. Heidelberg 2013, in: Arbitrium 32, H. 3 (2014), S. 347-348.

Rezension zu: Kristin Eichhorn, Die Kunst des moralischen Dichtens. Positionen der aufklärerischen Fabelpoetik im 18. Jahrhundert, Würzburg 2013, in: Zeitschrift für Germanistik N.F. XXIV, H. 3 (2014), S. 658-660.

Art. „Ein stiller Musikant“, in: Christian Demandt/Philipp Theisohn (Hg.), Storm-Handbuch. Leben – Werk – Wirkung, Stuttgart/Weimar 2017, S. 193-195.

Art. „Posthuma“, in: Christian Demandt/Philipp Theisohn (Hg.), Storm-Handbuch. Leben – Werk – Wirkung, Stuttgart/Weimar 2017, S. 137-139.

„Aufbruch ins romantische Universum“: Über August Wilhelm Schlegel, das Sympoetisieren und das Symkuratieren, in Blog Modell Romantik, 07.11.2017

(Zs. mit Annika Bartsch/Daniel Grummt/Raphael Stübe): Von Ritterreisen, einem Schelmenroman und romantischen Dystopien: Eine Veranstaltungsreihe zu „Romantik & Gegenwart“ mit Felicitas Hoppe, Hendrik Otremba, Ingo Schulze und Andreas Spechtl (20./21.11.2017), in: Blog Modell Romantik, 20.12.2017

Exponatsbeschreibungen in: Claudia Bamberg/Cornelia Ilbrig (Hg.), Aufbruch ins romantische Universum. August Wilhelm Schlegel (Ausstellung im Freien Deutschen Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum, 6. September bis 12. November 2017). Göttingen 2017.
•    A.W. und F. Schlegel: Athenaeum. Ersten Bandes Erstes Stück, S. 83 (Kat. Nr. 23).
•    A.W. und F. Schlegel: Athenaeum. Ersten Bandes Zweytes Stück, S. 83 (Kat. Nr. 24).
•    C., F. und A.W. Schlegel: Brief an F. von Hardenberg, 1. Juli 1798, S. 84-85 (Kat. Nr. 27).
•    F. Schlegel: Lucinde. Ein Roman. Erster Theil, S. 85 (Kat. Nr. 28).
•    F. Schiller: Brief an A.W. Schlegel, 1. Juni 1797, S. 85 (Kat. Nr. 29).
•    C. und A.W. Schlegel: Brief an J.C.F. und J. Schlegel, Juli 1796, S. 86 (Kat. Nr. 31).
•    J.G. Schadow: Versuch auf den Parnass zu gelangen, S. 86-87 (Kat. Nr. 34).
•    A.W. Schlegel: Doktordiplom von der Jenaer Universität […], d. d. Jena, 24. Oktober 1798, S. 90-91 (Kat. Nr. 49).
•    C.G. Schütz: Gutachten zur Ernennung A.W. Schlegels zum Honorarprofessor der Universität Jena, Juni 1798, S. 91 (Kat. Nr. 50).

• Violent Acts in a Male-Dominated Society: Seduction and Recovery of Honor in Fontane’s Effi Briest [18th German Graduate Student Conference „Textual Violence in German Contexts“, University of Virginia (Charlottesville/USA), 18.-19. März 2011]
• „daß aus reiner Spekulation alle Poesie verschwinden soll“. Max Kretzers Meister Timpe im Widerstreit zwischen Handwerk und Fabrikwesen [Workshop: TextTechniken, Universität Erfurt, 13.-14. Januar 2016]