Picture of Martin Wagner

Martin Wagner

PhD

Positions

Professor, German

Faculty of Arts, School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures and Cultures

Contact information

Email

martin.wagner@ucalgary.ca

Background

Educational Background

Doctor of Philosophy Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University, 2014

Mag.phil. German philology, University of Vienna, 2009

Biography

I received my Ph.D. in Germanic languages and literatures from Yale University in 2014 and subsequently taught comparative literature at Yonsei University, Underwood International College. In 2016, I joined the University of Calgary. In my research, I focus on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European literature as well as on German intellectual history. 

In my first book, The Narratology of Observation: Studies in a Technique of European Literary Realism (2018), I analyze the ways in which writers from Alain-René Lesage to Arthur Conan Doyle extend the visuality of description into narrative sequences. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110594348/html?lang=en 

My second book, A Stage for Debate: The Political Significance of Vienna’s Burgtheater, 1814-1867 (2023), presents a case study of the most important German-language theater of the nineteenth-century to develop a new metric for the political significance of cultural institutions. https://utorontopress.com/9781487509552/a-stage-for-debate/ A recorded talk about that book can be accessed here: https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubclecturesseminarssymposia/63300/items/1.0438176

My third book, a history of obedience in Germany is scheduled to appear in summer 2025. For centuries, Germans have been associated with the vice or virtue of obedience. Aside from the question of whether this stereotype is—or ever has been—useful to describe the Germans, there is the at least equally important question of how Germans actually understood obedience at various points in history. This latter question is at the heart of my forthcoming book on the shifting meaning of obedience from the Enlightenment to the present. As I argue, the changing valuation of obedience went hand in hand with a reinterpretation of the term itself. You can read the full announcement (in German) here: https://www.campus.de/buecher-campus-verlag/wissenschaft/geschichte/die_deutschen_und_der_gehorsam-18445.html 

I am the book review editor of Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies. https://www.utpjournals.press/journals/seminar/scope  

 

Research

Areas of Research

German studies, Comparative literature, Literary history, Intellectual history

Courses

Course number Course title Semester
GERM 31711 LEC 02 02 Topics in German Cultural Hist 2020
GERM 35704 LEC 01 01 Topics in Film 2020
GERM 36913 LEC 01 01 Exploring German Literature 2020
GERM 415 LEC 01 01 Inter German: Read & Write 2020
GERM 69913 LEC 01 01 Conference Course 2020
GERM 69914 LEC 01 01 Conference Course 2020

Projects

Obedience and the Germans: A Cultural History, 1773–1982

I am currently collaborating with Elystan Griffiths on the project "Obedience and the Germans: A Cultural History, 1773–1982," funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant (2021–2025).

Some of the results of my research for this project will be published in my forthcoming book Die Deutschen und der Gehorsam. Von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart (Campus Verlag, 2025). https://www.campus.de/buecher-campus-verlag/wissenschaft/geschichte/die_deutschen_und_der_gehorsam-18445.html 

 

The History of the Idea that Illustrations in Literature Limit the Imagination

I am currently working on the project "The History of the Idea that Illustrations in Literature Limit the Imagination," funded by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2023–2025).

This project builds on an article recently published in "Word and Image" (and co-authored with Dante Prado): "Against Illustration: Towards a New Field of Inquiry in Illustration Studies."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02666286.2023.2236921?src=exp-la 

Publications

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