The Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

Barbara Becker-Cantarino, Research Professor

Edit Barbara Becker-Cantarino

Barbara Becker-Cantarino, MA, PhD (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill). Research Professor. Visiting appointments: Free University of Berlin; University of Maryland; University of Graz, Austria; University of Wroclav, Poland

Major Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship; Forschungspreis, Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung; Distinguished Scholar Award, Ohio State University; University Distinguished Lecturer, Ohio State University; Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship, Dresden/Berlin; Research Fellowship, Oxford University; Director's Invitation, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbuettel; NEH Research Fellowship; NEH Summer Stipend; DAAD Research Fellowship.

Specializations: Early modern German literature and culture, Enlightenment, Classicism/Romanticism; gender studies, literature by women and women in German literature; contemporary Germany (post-1945 culture); literary theory.

Publications (selections): Daniel Heinsius and the Age of the Baroque (1978); Der lange Weg zur Mündigkeit. Frauen und Literatur 1500-1800 (1987; 1989); Die Frau von der Reformation zur Romantik (1980, 1985, 1987); Satire in der Frühen Neuzeit (1986); Anna O. Hoyers, Geistliche und Weltliche Poemata 1650 (1986); Sophie von La Roche, Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim 1771 (1983); Martin Opitz und seine Welt (with J.-U. Fechner, 1990); The Enlightenment and Its Legacy (with Sara Friedrichsmeyer, 1991); Frauenfreundschaft - Männerfreundschaft. Literarische Diskurse im 18. Jahrhundert (with W. Mauser, 1992); Berlin in Focus: Cultural Transformations in Germany (1996); Anna Louisa Karsch, Gedichte 1792 (1996); Schriftstellerinnen der Romantik. Epoche-Werke-Wirkung (2000); The Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment and Sensibility (2005); "Von der Unzerstoerbarkeit des Menschen": Ingeborg Drewitz im literarischen und politischen Umfeld der 50er bis 80er Jahre (with I. Stephan, 2005) articles on emblem books; cultural and literary aspects of the Baroque; Elightenment discourse; gender issues in Classical and Romantic texts; theorizing gender in early modern Germany; images of women in Grimmelshausen, Lessing, Lenz, Goethe, Schiller, F. Schlegel; women as letter writers; Sophie von La Roche; Anna Louisa Karsch; Dorothea Schlegel; Therese Huber; Caroline Pichler; Bettina von Arnim; friendship, love, and patriarchy; the discourse of violence; infanticide as a literary topic; feminist issues in modern Germany; cultural transformations in contemporary Germany and Berlin.

Teaching: The Culture of Modern Germany; The Witch in Early Modern Germany; Enlightenment and sentimentality; The Sexual Underworld of German classicism; Young Goethe; Faust; Gender and German Romanticism; Berlin: Society and Literature 1900 to the Present; Concepts of Masculinity and Femininity in German Literature; The German Experience in America

Recent Publications:

The Camden House History of German Literature. Vol. 5: THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: ENLIGHTENMENT AND SENSIBILITY edited by Barbara Becker-Cantarino. This work provides fresh analyses of the complex literary and cultural topography from around 1700 to 1790. With 12 essays, 368 pp. Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2005.

The Life of Lady Johanna Eleonora Petersen, Written by Herself. Pietism and Autobiography. Translation, with Notes and Introduction by Barbara Becker-Cantarino. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.

"Von der Unzerstoerbarkeit des Menschen." Ingeborg Drewitz im literarichen und politischen Umfeld der 50er bis 80er Jahre. Ed. Barbara Becker-Cantarino and Inge Stephan. Bern, Berlin 2005. Publikationen zur Zeitschrift Germanistik, 10. 442 pp.

Meine Liebe zu Buechern: Sophie von La Roche als professionelle Schriftstellerin. Heidelberg: Winter, 2008.