Current
Prof. Dr. Lothar Müller
Müller has worked as an editor for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and lectured at the Institute for Comparative Literature at the Free University. Since 2010, he has served as Honorary Professor in the Institute for German Literature at the Humboldt University Berlin. He is the author of numerous publications, including Adrien Proust und sein Sohn Marcel. Beobachter der erkrankten Welt (2021) and Weiße Magie. Die Epoche des Papiers (2012). He was awarded the Berlin Prize for Literary Criticism in 2013.
Dr. Hendrik Blumentrath
Blumentrath is a co-organizer of the Mosse Lectures. His expertise encompasses the literary history of the 18th-21st centuries, as well as the relationship between literature, politics, and culture. He is the author of Friedlose Figuren. Zur Feindschaftsgeschichte des Terroristen (2014).
Michael Kämper-van den Boogaart
Van der Boogaart studied German and history, and taught at several schools before earning his PhD in 1990 from the University of Hamburg. In 2002, he was named professor of education and modern German literature at Humboldt University, Berlin, where, in 2011, he was elected vice president for Education and Teaching. He retired in 2023. He specializes in German language pedagogy, the history of education, and the history of 20th-century German literature. His many publications include Ästhetik des Scheiterns. Studien zu Erzähltexten von Botho Strauß, Jürgen Theobaldy, Uwe Timm u.a. (1992) and Thomas Mann für die Schule. Volk und Wissen (2001).
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Vedder
Professor of modern German literature at Humboldt University, Berlin, since 2009, Vedder studies contemporary literature, gender studies, generations, and near-death experiences. Among other works, she is the author of Geschickte Liebe. Zur Mediengeschichte des Liebesdiskurses im Briefroman „Les Liaisons dangereuses“ und in der Gegenwartsliteratur (2002) and editor of Gender und Genre. Essayistik deutschsprachiger Autorinnen (2025). She also serves on the editorial board of Zeitschrift für Germanistik.
Prof. Dr. Ethel Matala de Mazza
De Mazza has been professor of modern German literature at Humboldt University since 2010. She is the author of three monographs, including Der populäre Pakt. Verhandlungen der Moderne zwischen Operette und Feuilleton (Fischer, 2018) and Der verfaßte Körper. Zum Projekt einer organischen Gemeinschaft in der Politischen Romantik (Rombach, 1999). She has served as a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Indiana, Bloomington, and the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago. She received her terminal degree in German literature at the University of Munich in 2007.
Prof. Dr. Joseph Vogl
Joseph Vogl is professor of modern German literature at the Humboldt University, Berlin, a post he has held since 2006. His specialties include knowledge and literature, philosophy, media, and literary history. He was formerly a professor of history at Bauhaus University, Weimar, and of German literature at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich. He also serves as Permanent Visiting Professor at Princeton University. He has authored, co-authored, and edited more than one hundred articles, books, chapters, and edited volumes, including Ort der Gewalt. Kafkas literarische Ethik (1990) and Das Gespenst des Kapitals (2010).
Prof. Dr. Stefan Willer
Willer has occupied the position of Professor for modern German literature at Humboldt University, Berlin, since 2018. From 2014-2018 he was Professor for Cultural Research at Humboldt. His specialties include literary history, cultural history, and the intersection between music and literature. He has served as visiting professor or lecturer at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the Technische Universität Berlin, Stanford University, Columbia University, and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, among others. He is the author of Poetik der Etymologie. Texturen sprachlichen Wissens in der Romantik (2003) and Erbfälle. Theorie und Praxis kultureller Übertragung in der Moderne 2014), as well as editor of several volumes.
Dr. Denise Reimann
Reimann holds a PhD from Humboldt University in Cultural Studies. She is a research assistant in the Institute for German Literature and serves as the Program Coordinator for the Mosse Lectures. She is the author of Auftakte der Bioakustic: Zur Wissensgeschichte nichtmenschlicher Stimmen um 1800 und 1900 (De Gruyter, 2022).
Prof. Dr. Martina Wernli
Professor of modern German literature at Humboldt University, Berlin, since 2025, Wernli is the author of a book on the literary history of the goose quill (Federn lesen. Eine Literaturgeschichte des Gänsekiels von den Anfängen bis ins 19. Jahrhundert, 2021) and one on writing in a psychiatric clinic around 1900 (Schreiben am Rand. Die Bernische kantonale Irrenanstalt Waldau und ihre Narrative 1895-1936, 2014). She studies and publishes on female authors of German romanticism (as Varnhagen, Schlegel or Günderrode) and her research links material culture (as in fashion, writing implements or poisons) with literary studies. She is the co-editor of the series “Neue Romantikforschung” (Metzler/Springer). In 2020 she founded the open network #breiterkanon https://breiterkanon.hypotheses.org/ which now connects around 70 international members and their research on canonization.
Former
Dr. Elisabeth Wagner
Wagner completed her PhD in Art History at the Free University of Berlin in 1997, the same year she co-founded the Mosse Lectures at Humboldt University. She is the author of Die Mosse-Frauen: Deutsch-Jüdische Lebensgeschichten (2024) and is active as a research associate at Humboldt University.
Prof. Dr. Klaus Scherpe
Scherpe served as professor of modern German literature at Humboldt University Berlin starting in 1993, where he also directed the Institute for German Literature between 1996 and 1998 and co-founded the Mosse Lectures in 1997. He is the author of How German Is It, and How American? Ironic Replays in Literature (2005) and Die rekonstruierte Moderne. Studien zur deutschen Literatur nach 1945 (1992), among numerous other works. From 1973-1993 he served as professor of modern German literature at the Free University of Berlin. He has been active as a guest professor at numerous universities around the world, including in the US, Japan, Australia, and Argentina.
Prof. Dr. Burkhardt Wolf
Burkhardt Wolf is professor of modern German literature at the University of Vienna. Wolf received his terminal degree in 2001 at Humboldt University Berlin, where he subsequently served as a research associate. From 2012-2019 he occupied the role of visiting professor at several universities in Germany, the United States, and the Czech Republic, before assuming his current professorship at the University of Vienna in 2019. Among his numerous publications are the monographs Die Sorge des Souveräns. Eine Diskursgeschichte des Opfers (2004) and Sea Fortune. Literature and Navigation (2020). He co-edited several published volumes of the Mosse Lectures.
Prof. Dr. Erhard Schütz
Schütz served as professor of modern German literature at Humboldt University, Berlin from 1996 until his retirement in 2011. Before that, he was a professor at the Free University, Berlin in journalism and modern German literature. An expert in literature, journalism, and the history of media, he has written for several newspapers and edited the Zeitschrift für Germanistik. Among his numerous publications are Romane der Weimarer Republik (1986) and Mediendiktatur Nationalsozialismus (2019).