Edward Timms

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Edward Timms (born July 3, 1937 in Windlesham , England ; † November 21, 2018 in Brighton ) was Professor of German Studies at the University of Sussex and founding director of the Center for German-Jewish Studies . As a literary scholar and cultural historian with a focus on Karl Kraus and Viennese Modernism around 1900, he was one of the most important Germanists in the Anglo-Saxon region.

Biography and main research areas

A relationship with Judaism already developed in Timm's earliest childhood when his parents, a pastor couple from the Anglican Church, took in a Jewish refugee girl from Germany named Hilde in 1939. Growing up in the shadow of the Second World War with a rather negative image of Germany, it was a big surprise for the student Timms when he was told in the boarding school that he would study German as one of his main subjects. At the beginning he was only able to make friends with this language with great difficulty, only later did he understand that his feeling for the language was probably due to Hilde, who had sung him to sleep with German lullabies.

Edward Timms then studied German and Romance languages ​​at the University of Cambridge from 1956 to 1962 and did his doctorate on Karl Kraus under the Czech-English German studies specialist Joseph Peter Stern .

As a lecturer in German and a fellow at Gonville and Caius College, he taught for 25 years in the German Department of Cambridge University, where he was particularly committed to Austrian studies. In 1990 he founded the yearbook “Austrian Study” together with his co-editor Ritchie Robertson, of which 25 issues have been published so far. The periodical deals with topics ranging from “The Austrian Enlightenment ” (1991) to “ Theodor Herzl and the Origins of Zionism ” (1997) to “Elfriede Jelinek in the Arena” (2014).

The scope of his interests expanded significantly after his appointment to a professorship at the University of Sussex. This was already clear in his inaugural lecture in 1994, the topic of which was "The Wandering Jew : A Leitmotif in German Literature and Politics". Subsequently, the Center for German-Jewish Studies was founded under his leadership, in which he continuously participated.

Timms is best known for his research on the Jews of Vienna in the early 20th century. Another research focus was on the early history of psychoanalysis and the effects of Freud's dream theory. Own dream recordings are part of the basic inventory of Timm's library.

As a professor at the University of Sussex, he primarily oversaw the research of doctoral students and post docs on a wide range of topics, from the “Science of Judaism ” to the experiences of the “ Kindertransport ” children.

His duties also included promoting young academics through collaborative research projects that resulted in a number of publications. These include books on two survivors of the Holocaust, the artist Arnold Daghani and the writer Jakov Lind , studies on "Pictorial Narrative in the Nazi Period" and "Nationalist Myths and Modern Media".

At Yale University Press both his two-volume biography of "Karl Kraus Apocalyptic satirist" have been published and issued by Timms memoirs of Fritz Wittels entitled "Freud and the Child Woman". In addition, Timms wrote the biography "Romantic Communist" by the Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet together with his wife Saime Göksu in 1999 , which has also been published in Turkish.

His autobiography "Taking up the Torch - English Institutions, German Dialectics and Multicultural Commitments", published in 2011, provides an overview of his experiences, which also deals on a personal level with the consequences of a progressive form of multiple sclerosis.

Edward Timms was scientifically active even at an advanced age. In 2013 he published his illustrated representation of Viennese Modernism under the title “Dynamics of Circles, Resonance of Spaces” (Library of the Province). At the book presentation in Vienna, Timms was awarded the Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the State of Vienna.

Three further publications appeared during the 2015/16 academic year. Together with Fred Bridgham, Timms translated the first complete English edition of Karl Kraus, "The Last Days of Mankind" (Yale University Press).

There was also a monograph on “ Anna Haag and her Secret Diary of the Second World War”, which evaluated the original diaries scanned by Jennifer Bligh from the Stuttgart city archive (Peter Lang); and most recently “Karl Kraus - the crisis of the post-war period and the rise of the swastika”, the German edition of the 2nd volume of “Karl Kraus Apocalyptic Satirist”, which was translated by Brigitte Stocker under Timm's guidance (Library of the Province).

On June 10, 2016, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published a comprehensive portrait of Edward Timms, in which his commitment to Karl Kraus was recognized under the title “The secret pattern of Karl Kraus”.

Edward Timms died in November 2018 at the age of 81.

In March 2019, Scoventa Verlag posthumously published the German translation of Timms' Anna Haag monograph: “The secret diaries of Anna Haag”, translated by Michael Pfingstl.

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • Karl Kraus, Apocalyptic Satirist: Culture and Catastrophe in Habsburg Vienna . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986 ISBN 0-300-04483-6
  • with Naomi Segal (ed.): Freud in Exile: psychoanalysis and its vicissitudes . New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1988 ISBN 0-300-04226-4
  • Karl Kraus, Apocalyptic Satirist: The Post-War Crisis and the Rise of the Swastika . 2005
  • with GJ Carr: Karl Kraus and Die Fackel: Essays on Reception History = Reading Karl Kraus Essays on the Reception of Die Fackel .
  • with Richie Robertson (Ed.): Theater and Performance in Austria: From Mozart to Jelinek .
  • with Richie Robertson (Ed.): Vienna 1900: from Altenberg to Wittgenstein . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990
  • Taking up the torch . Sussex University Press, 2011

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Press service: On the death of Edward Timms (1937 - 2018). December 5, 2018, accessed December 6, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Editor, Sheila Frances Stern: Stern, Joseph Peter Maria . In: Christoph König (Ed.): Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . edited and introduced by Christoph König. tape 3 : R - Z. Verlag Walter de Gruyter , Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , p. 1812 .
  3. ↑ The Secret Diaries of Anna Haag: A Feminist in National Socialism / Edward Timms. In: d-nb.info. German National Library, accessed on March 4, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Timms, Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British German studies scholar, university professor and author
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Windlesham , England
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 2018
Place of death Brighton