Gernot Müller (Germanist)

Gernot Müller (* 1941 in Heidelberg ) is a German specialist in German studies and literary studies and a professor working in Sweden .

Life

After attending the elementary school in Neckargemünd (1947–1951) and the Helmholtz -Gymnasium Heidelberg (1951–1960), Gernot Müller studied German and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg , where in 1968 he wrote a thesis on "Symbolics in the Nibelungenlied. Observations on symbolic representation of the high medieval heroic epic "from Bert Nagel to Dr. phil. PhD. From 1969 to 1978 he worked as a language teacher in Sundsvall and as a lecturer at Uppsala and Örebro Universities.

His scientific career began as a research assistant at the University of Uppsala (1978–1985), with the status of a [private] lectureship in 1982 based on the assessment by the well-known Polish Germanist Marian Szyrocki , and sat as the rector (1985–1990) and as a deputy Prefect (1995–2002) continued at the German Institute of Uppsala. In 1990 he became a university lecturer and in 2000 professor of German literature at Uppsala University. In 2008 Gernot Müller retired. He is a member of several scientific societies and received the Thuréus Prize of the Royal Scientific Society in Uppsala in 2004 in the historical-archaeological class. Since 2001 he has been the editor of the Studia Neophilologica .

Research priorities

Gernot Müller's scientific interests are particularly documented in four central fields, (1) in the Nibelungenlied and its literary environment with a focus on "symbolic speaking" for symbol and allegory, (2) forms and problems of literary historiography, (3) in the role rhetoric for literary production and literary interpretation, and finally (4) in the work of Heinrich von Kleist with the focus on the interrelation of literature and visual art. He is currently working on a study on the phenomenon of unreliable narration in German literature.

Works (selection)

• Symbolic in the Nibelungenlied. Observations on the symbolic representation of the high medieval heroic epic. Phil. Diss. University of Heidelberg 1968
• For the symbolic representation of the Siegfried figure in the Nibelungenlied. In: Studia Neophilologica Vol. 47/1 (1975), 88-119
• Commentary on Heinrich von Kleist's The Broken Jug. Lund: Walter Ekstrands Bokförlag, 1975
• Grillparzer, Rudolf II. And rhetoric. In: Studia Neophilologica 53/2 (1981), 127-147
• On the subject of German in Sweden using Uppsala as an example. In collaboration with Fritz Joachim Sauer. In: Bielefelder Contributions to Language Teaching Research 1984/2, 200–223
• Kleist's rhetoric of inwardness. In: Studia Neophilologica 58/2 (1986), 231-242
• The very latest Nibelung heresies. In: Studia Neophilologica 57/1 (1986), 105-116
• "Seizing the opportunity by the fore" - "Chatter, not cut and not stung". To anchor two phraseologisms in Heinrich von Kleist's work. In: "Europhras 90". Files from the international conference on German phraseology research, Aske / Sweden. Edited by Christine Palm. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Germanistica 32, Uppsala 1991, 139-153
• Heinrich von Kleist and the invention of panorama painting. In: Files of the VIII. International Congress of Germanists Tokyo 1990. Vol. 7: Encounters with the foreign. Eijiro Iwasaki (ed.), Munich 1991, 239-249
• Heinrich von Kleist: Finding Happiness - Finding Thoughts While Talking. In: What remains, the poets create . Festschrift for Bert Nagel on his 85th birthday. Gernot Müller (ed.), Göppingen 1993, 147-155
• “You would have to stand on the painting itself”. Kleist and the fine arts . Tübingen - Basel: Francke 1995
• Heinrich von Kleist's aesthetics of distortions and the reinterpretation of the puppet metaphor. In: Old Worlds - New Worlds. Edited by Michael S. Batts, Vol. 3 (Abstracts). Files of the IX. Congress for the International Association for Germanic Linguistics and Literature Vancouver. Tübingen: Niemeyer 1996
• "Dirt and shine at the same time". On a presumed painting allusion by Kleist and her reflex in 'Michael Kohlhaas'. In: Small contributions to German studies. Commemorative publication for John Evert Härd. Edited by Bo Andersson and Gernot Müller, Studia Germanistica Upsaliensia , 37. Uppsala 1997, 179-192
• "Added from my own invention". To Kleist's concept of intertextuality avant la lettre. In: Studia Neophilologica 74/1 (2002), 98-112
• The “Penthesilea” as a poetic panorama. In: Anton Philipp Knittel and Inka Kording (eds.), Heinrich von Kleist. New ways of research, Darmstadt: WBG 2003, 89–110
• Prolegomena for the conceptualization of unreliable narration in the work of Heinrich von Kleist. In: Studia Neophilologica 77/1 (2005), 41-70
• Misery and splendor of the history of impact. Schiller in the 2005 commemorative year. In: Studia Neophilologica 78/1 (2006), 88-102
• On a romantic ground, classic in intention? To Heinrich von Kleist's reception in Sweden. Article in: Mattias Pirholt (ed.), Constructions of German Romanticism. Six Studies. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Historia litterarum 29, Uppsala 2011, pp. 93-125

Web link

• Uppsala University's chair page