Cristina FOSSALUZZA

Cristina Fossaluzza is Associate Professor of German Literature at the Department of Comparative Linguistic and Cultural Studies, Ca' Foscari University, Venice. She studied Foreign Languages and Literature at Ca' Foscari University; German Literature and Comparative Literature at Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, graduating in 1999 from Ca' Foscari with a thesis on Georg Trakl and Egon Schiele.

In 2005 she obtained a PhD in Modern Philology and Comparative Literature (Dr. Phil) in the context of an international co-tutorship procedure between the Freie Universität Berlin and Ca' Foscari, discussing a thesis on Karl Philipp Moritz written under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Schings. The thesis was published in 2006 by the publisher Wehrhahn in Hannover under the title Subjektiver Antisubjektivismus. Karl Philipp Moritz als Diagnostiker seiner Zeit.

Between her Master Degree and her PhD she held teaching contracts at the University of Ferrara. She then carried out post-doctoral research at Ca' Foscari (as a research fellow) and at the Freie Universität Berlin (as a DAAD fellow), publishing in 2010 a second monograph entitled Poesia e nuovo ordine. Romanticismo politico nel tardo Hofmannsthal (Cafoscarina, Collana Le Bricole; 18).

From 2009 to 2011 she was a post-doctoral researcher and scientific coordinator of the research project at the University of Kassel sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft "Die Fürstenbibliothek Arolsen als Kultur- und Wissensraum vom 16. bis zum frühen 19. Jahrhundert und ihre Einflüsse auf Genese, Formung und Identität des Fürstenstaats".

In 2011, she was selected among the winners of the "Rita Levi Montalcini" Young Researchers Programme and took up her position as a Researcher in German Literature at the Department of Comparative Linguistic and Cultural Studies at Ca' Foscari.

In January 2014 she was awarded the Italian national scientific qualification for the position of Professor of the second rank in sector 10/M1 (German Literature).

Since July 2015 she has been Associate Professor of German Literature at the Department of Comparative Linguistic and Cultural Studies of Ca' Foscari.

On 31 October 2018 she was awarded the Italian national scientific qualification for the functions of Professor of the first rank in the sector 10/M1 (German Literature).

Research areas and projects

In her studies and teaching activities she has dealt with the links between aesthetics and politics in German-language literature from the seventeenth century to the present day, focusing in particular on the following research areas:

•     Kulturkritik and anti-modernism;
•     The First World War: cultural debates and literary representations;
•     Literature and Philosophy of History;
•     Visions and concepts of 'Europe' from Romanticism to modernity;
•     Representations and Theories of the "Revolution" from 1789 to the present;
•     Literature and the "State of Exception"/Literature and Biopolitics.
•     German Theatre.

In these research areas she has published scientific contributions and given papers at national and international conferences.

She has also coordinated the following international projects:

•     2013: Workshop and working group on the topic: 'Literatur des Ausnahmezustands (1914-1945)';
•     2016: Kooperationsseminar "Lyrik des Symbolismus", organised with Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Braungart (Universität Bielefeld);
•     2017: Workshop and working group on the topic: "Ausnahmezustände in der Gegenwartsliteratur: nach 9/11" (with Prof. Dr. Anne Kraume, Universität Konstanz).
•     2018: Kulturkritik der Wiener Moderne (1890-1938), Internationale Kooperation mit der Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (Prof. Dr. Barbara Beßlich); gefördert von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), dem Forum Austriaco di Cultura und der Università Ca'Foscari. 24.-28. September 2018: Bilateraler Workshop im Rahmen eines von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft geförderten internationalen Kooperationsaufbaus.
•     2019-2022: (Re)thinking liberalism: ideas of Europe 1900-1950 / (Re)penser le libéralisme: les idées d'Europe (1900-1950), with Prof. Dr. Barbara Beßlich (Heidelberg) and Prof. Dr. Oliver Agard (Paris), in cooperation with CIERA (Centre Interdisciplinaire d’études et de Recherches sur l’Allemagne, Paris), , DSLCC Excellence Project, LINE C.
• 2019-2022: International research group "The Bravure of Francesco Andreini's Capitano Spavento in German-speaking Countries. New sources and perspectives on the reception of commedia dell'arte in seventeenth-century Europe (with Prof. Dr. Jürgen Wolf and Robin Kuhn, Philipps-Universität Marburg, in collaboration with the Fürstlich Waldecksche Hofbibliothek Bad Arolsen), DSLCC Excellence Project, LINE C.

She coordinates Erasmus exchanges with the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, the University of Bielefeld, the Philipps-Universität Marburg, the University of Stuttgart and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Within the framework of these agreements (Staff Mobility for Teaching Assignment), she has held lectures and seminars at the partner universities.

Since 2021 she has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the journal Schnittstelle Germanistik (DAAD), Winter Verlag and since 2023 of the Scientific Commitee of the Book Series Sponde renane, Rubbettino Editore.

She is a member of the Ernst Reuter Gesellschaft, the Hugo von Hofmannsthal Gesellschaft, the Associazione Italiana di Germanistica
and the Internationale Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG 2022-2025).

Orcid-ID: 0000-0002-6523-5316

Appointments

Since November 2017 she has been a member of the Ca' Foscari International College as referent for the area of Western Languages and Civilizations and, since November 2018, as delegate for the project Waterlines - Artists and Writers in residence. Since 2021 she is a member of the Board of the Ca' Foscari Theatre.

Past appointments

In 2015 she was a member of the Council of the Linguistic Area Traineeship Courses, in which she represented the disciplinary fields German Language an Literature. From November 2014 to September 2017 she was a member of the Research Committee of the Department of Comparative Linguistic and Cultural Studies at Ca' Foscari and of the Teaching Board of the Master's Degree Course in European, American and Postcolonial Languages and Literatures. From November 2016 to the end of 2018 she was a member of the Editorial Board of the "Annals of Ca' Foscari. Western Series". From October 2017 to October 2019 she was Coordinator of the Teaching Board of the Master's Degree Course in European, American and Postcolonial Languages and Literatures. From October 2019 to September 2022 she was a member of the Ca' Foscari Quality Assurance Board.

Third mission

From A.A. 2018-2019 to date, she has directed the project "WATERLINES. Literary and Artistic Residencies", she designed and curated the public events around the residencies of Albert Ostermaier, Guadalupe Nettel, Frank Westermann, Christina Viragh, Christopher Bollen, Ulla Lenze, Boris Chersonskij and Jonathan Coe in cooperation with the following artists linked to the city of Venice: Michele de Vita Conti, Alvise Bittente, Marco Castelli, Roberto Tiraboschi, Leona Stahlmann. The various residencies took place in cooperation with the following institutions: Teatro Ca' Foscari, Festival Incroci di Civiltà, German Centre for Venetian Studies, Ateneo Veneto, Center for the Humanities and Social Change, Marsilio Editori, Consulate of Switzerland in Venice, M9 - Museo del '900, University of Basel, Archive of Literature in Bern, UNHCR, Exhibition "Rothko in Lampedusa" (Palazzo Querini, Venice 2019).

In January 2020, she took part in the following event on the occasion of Remembrance Day 2020: #StolenMemory - Presentation play: 'Before Retirement or Conspirators' - by Thomas Bernhard (in collaboration with Arolsen Archives, Compagnia Le Belle Bandiere).

She collaborated with the German Centre for Venetian Studies and the Ca' Foscari Theatre, organising the theatre workshops for Remembrance Day 2022 with Max Czollek, Berlin-based author and art-academic curator on the topic 'Inglourious Jews - Vom Gedächtnistheater zur Desintegration / From the theatre of memory to disintegration'.

As part of the 'Crossing of Civilisations' Festival (Ca' Foscari), she led a conversation with the writer Ulla Lenze on 4 November 2021, with the writer Usama Al Shahmani on 27 May 2022 and with the writer Hildegard Keller on 30 March 2023.

She collaborated with the Fondazione Musei Civici on the theme 'Venice and Mitteleuropa' at the Ca' Pesaro venue (September 2018).

She collaborated with the Writers in Conversation cycle (Ca' Foscari)
Conversations with: Christoph Hein, 16 April 2016; Laura Olivi and Andrea Sippel, 16 December 2017; Christina Viragh 20 February 2020.