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Dr Peter Damrau

Positions held:
  • Lecturer, School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
Address

Room 201, 39-47 Gordon Square

Email
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  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    Before working for Birkbeck, I was employed as Head of German at Collingham College in Kensington and taught and assessed PGCE candidates at Bromley College in Kent. I then completed my PhD at Birkbeck and my dissertation was published for the MHRA Bithell Series. It questions the previously-accepted origins of the reception of English literature in Germany. Since then, I have been lecturing for our department on a wide variety of topics, including German language, business German, literature, history, philosophy, translation, film studies, and literary theory at undergraduate and post-graduate levels.

    Office hours

    To arrange an appointment, please contact me via email (p.damrau@bbk.ac.uk)

    Qualifications

    • MA German and Sociology, Universität Oldenburg , 1998
    • PhD Philosophy, University of London, 2003

    Administrative responsibilities

    • Chair of the Languages Committee
    • Language Coordinator for all German language modules
    • Program Director for BA Language and/with Management
    • Study Abroad Coordinator for Spain, Germany, and Italy
    • Program Director for BA Language Teaching and Languages
    • Academic Misconduct Panel Chair

    Honours and awards

    • Max Kade Award for best article of the year in German Quarterly, American Association of Teachers of German, February 2009
  • Research

    Research

    Research overview

    My interests are in multidisciplinary research and analysis of the literary development of German language and literature. Some of the main areas include women’s writing of the 18th century, devotional literature, and Anglo-German cultural relations, and I have published related articles in international journals including German Life and Letters, German Quarterly, German Studies Review, Euphorion, and Oxford German Studies. I was awarded the Max Kade Award for best article of the year in German Quarterly and have presented papers at universities in Germany and the UK, for example, on religious melancholy (Kings College London) and cultural transfer in the early modern period (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg). 

    Current research projects include: 

    • ‘Mary Astell – die ‚erste englische Feministin‘ in Deutschland’ (accepted for publication in Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift)
    • ‘Johann Martin Miller: Sigevart, a Tale’, in The Cambridge Guide to the English Novel, 1660-1820, ed. by April London, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (accepted for publication)
  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    Supervisions within Birkbeck:
    1

    I have been supervising BA, MA, and PhD students and welcome enquiries from prospective students who are interested in conducting research in similar areas to my own. In addition, I have also been recruiting, supervising, and assessing language teachers in the department.

    Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

    • ANDREW NASH
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor, to
      Title of thesis:
      Friedrich Gundolf's Reading of Seventeenth-Century German Literature: the Scholar-Artist and his Context
      Description:

      My research will examine the writings of Friedrich Gundolf, a literary critic and member of the circle surrounding the poet Stefan George, on German seventeenth century literature. In addition to a handful of short books, there is a great deal of unpublished material in the form of notes for lectures that Gundolf gave at Heidelberg in the 1920s. Besides placing all this in the context of German literary criticism, I will be looking at wider issues of poetics, philosophy and aesthetics in the pre- and post- Great War years. The  discussion will be extended beyond Germany; in England, critics such as TS Eliot and FR Leavis were also turning to the seventeenth century and it is hoped that illuminating comparisons can be made.

      Awarded:
      2024

    Teaching

    Teaching modules

    • Interrogating the Self (ARCL066S7)
    • Culture and Crisis (Level 5) (ARCL125S5)
    • German 5 (AREL079S6)
    • Doing Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics (ARLL004S4)
    • Culture and Image (ARLL009S4)
    • Culture and Text (ARLL010S4)
    • Wirtschaftsdeutsch (Level 5) (ARLL013S5)
  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    Book

    Book Section

  • Business and community

    Business and community

    Services

    • Other

      As Knowledge Transfer Coordinator, I have facilitated and/or taught Birkbeck’s tailor-made language courses for cultural organizations including the Royal Opera House and Wigmore Hall and international companies such as Ricoh Europe and Chapman Black.

      I also participated as a speaker in public events for Keynote Educational.