Geisteswissenschaften/Anglistik/Amerikanistik

Address
Universitätsstr. 12
45141 Essen
Room
R12 S04 H08
Office hours
WS 24/25: Mi. 12:00 Uhr-13:00 Uhr

Functions

  • Universitätsprofessor/in, Anglistik: Britische und Anglophone Kultur- und Literaturwissenschaft - British and Anglophone Literature and Culture

Monographs:

Understanding Public Debates: What Literary Studies Can Do. Routledge, 2024 (open access)

Julia Hoydis, Roman Bartosch, Jens Martin Gurr. Climate Change Literacy. [Cambridge Elements series "Environmental Humanities"]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023 (print and open access). 

Lieven Ameel, Barbara Buchenau, Jens Martin Gurr. Narrative in Planning: A Practical Field Guide. Transcript, 2023. [open access]

Charting Literary Urban Studies: Texts as Models of and for the City. New York/London: Routledge, 2020 [hardcover and open access].
           Recommended in Metroscope:
           Reviewed in Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 33.2 (2022): 279-281.

The Human Soul as Battleground: Variations on Dualism and the Self in English Literature from Chaucer to Joyce. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2003.

Tristram Shandy and the Dialectic of Enlightenment. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 1999.

 

Co-edited collections:

Barbara Buchenau, Jens Martin Gurr, Maria Sulimma, eds. City Scripts: Narratives of Postindustrial Urban Futures. The Ohio State University Press, 2023. [print and open access]

Gurr, Jens Martin, ed. Norman M. Klein's Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles - An Updated Edition 20 Years Later. Transcript, 2023. [open access]

Gurr, Jens Martin, Rolf Parr, Dennis Hardt, eds. Metropolitan Research: Methods and Approaches. transcript, 2022 [print and open access].

Jens Martin Gurr, Ursula Kluwick, eds. “Literature and …: Perspectives on Interdisciplinarity”. Special Issue of Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies. Open Access

Jens Martin Gurr, Rolf Parr, eds. "Media, Memory and the City", special section of andererseits – Yearbook of Transatlantic German Studies 9/10 (2020/21): 183-280.

Christian Walloth, Jens Martin Gurr and J. Alexander Schmidt, eds. Understanding Complex Urban Systems: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Modeling. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2014.

Jens Martin Gurr and Berit Michel, eds. Romantic Cityscapes. Volume 12 of Studies in English Romanticism. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2013.

Stefanie Caeners, Michael Eisinger, Jens Martin Gurr and J. Alexander Schmidt, eds. Healthy and Liveable Cities: Selected Papers from the Essen Conference / Gesunde und lebenswerte Städte: Ausgewählte Beiträge der Essener Tagung. Ludwigsburg: avedition, 2013.

Hajo Neis, Gabriel Brown, Jens Martin Gurr and J. Alexander Schmidt, eds. Generative Process, Patterns, and the Urban Challenge: Fall 2011 International PUARL Conference. Portland, OR: PUARL Press, 2012.

Jens Martin Gurr and Wilfried Raussert, eds. Cityscapes in the Americas and Beyond: Representations of Urban Complexity in Literature and Film.Trier: WVT/ Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press, 2011.

Martin Butler, Jens Martin Gurr and Olaf Kaltmeier, eds. EthniCities: Metropolitan Cultures and Ethnic Identities in the Americas. Trier: WVT/ Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press, 2011.

Claudia Claridge, Jens Martin Gurr and Dirk Vanderbeke, eds. "Language, Literature and Culture in the 17th Century: New Perspectives on an Under-Rated Period", co-edited section in Anglistentag 2010: Proceedings. Ed. Joachim Frenk and Lena Steveker. Trier: WVT, 2011. 219-287.

Michael Gassenmeier, Petra Bridzun, Jens Martin Gurr and Frank Erik Pointner, eds. British Romantics as Readers: Intertextualities, Maps of Misreading, Reinterpretations: Festschrift for Horst Meller. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg, 1998.

Michael Gassenmeier, Katrin Kamolz, Jens Martin Gurr and Frank Erik Pointner, eds. The Reception of British Romanticism on the European Continent, Studies in British Romanticism, vol. 12. Essen: Blaue Eule, 1996.

 

Essays and articles:

Jens Martin Gurr. "Complicating the Culture Wars: Re-Reading The Human Stain". andererseits: Yearbook of Transatlantic German Studies 11/12 (2022/2023): 99-116.

Sulimma, Maria, Barbara Buchenau, Jens Martin Gurr. "City Scripts in Urban Literary and Cultural Studies." Barbara Buchenau, Jens Martin Gurr & Maria Sulimma (eds.): City Scripts: Narratives of Postindustrial Urban Futures. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2023. 1-24.

Elisabeth Haefs, Jens Martin Gurr. "Narrative Path Dependencies in Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Planning: Portland's Albina Neighborhoods." City Scripts: Narratives of Postindustrial Urban Futures. Ed. Barbara Buchenau, Jens Martin Gurr, Maria Sulimma. The Ohio State University Press, 2023. 87-102. [print and open access]

Jens Martin Gurr. "Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–1767)". Handbook of the British Novel in the Long Eighteenth Century. Ed. Katrin Berndt, Alessa Johns. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter. 2022. 311-326.

Jens Martin Gurr, "Palimpsest". The Routledge Companion to Literary Urban Studies. Ed. Lieven Ameel. New York/London: Routledge, 2022. 72-86.

Jens Martin Gurr, Rolf Parr, Dennis Hardt. "Introduction". Metropolitan Research: Methods and Approaches. Ed. Jens Martin Gurr, Rolf Parr, Dennis Hardt, eds. transcript, 2022 [print and open access]. 9-13.

Jochen Gönsch, Jens Martin Gurr. "Urban Modelling: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches". Metropolitan Research: Methods and Approaches. Ed. Jens Martin Gurr, Rolf Parr, Dennis Hardt, eds. transcript, 2022 [print and open access]. 325-342.

Jens Martin Gurr, Ursula Kluwick. "Literature and …? Perspectives on Interdisciplinarity:
Introduction. “Literature and …?: Perspectives on Interdisciplinarity”, Focus Issue of Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 32.3 (2021): 5-18. Open Access: https://doi.org/10.33675/ANGL/2021/3/4

Lena Mattheis, Jens Martin Gurr: "'Routine' versus 'Event': Media, Memory and the City in B. S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates." andererseits – Yearbook of Transatlantic German Studies 9/10 (2020/21): 203-216. (Special Section on "Media, Memory and the City").

Jens Martin Gurr, Rolf Parr. "Introduction: Media, Memory and the City". andererseits – Yearbook of Transatlantic German Studies 9/10 (2020/21): 185-187 (Special Section on "Media, Memory and the City").

Mattheis, Lena, and Jens Martin Gurr. "Superpositions: A Typology of Spatiotemporal Layerings in Buried Cities." Literary Geographies 7.1 (2021): 5-22. Special Issue Buried Cities. Open Access.

"Texte als 'Modelle von' und 'Modelle für' Stadt: Zur narrativen Modellierung von Urbanität und urbaner Komplexität." Zeitschrift für ästhetische Bildung 11:2 (2019) (special issue "Modell"). [zaeb.net]

"Literature, Transparency, Ideology: Functions of Literature in Negotiating Transparency". Contested Transparencies, Social Movements and the Public Sphere: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives. Ed. Stefan Berger and Dimitri Owetschkin. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 69-94.

"Percy Bysshe Shelley und der politische Diskurs um 1820". Politisches Denken in der britischen Romantik. Ed Jürgen Kamm. Series Staatsverständnisse. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2019. 171-185.

"Critical Urban Studies and/in 'Right to the City' Movements: The Politics of Form in Activist Cultural Production". Resistance and the City: Challenging Urban Space. Ed. Christoph Ehland and Pascal Fischer. Leiden/Boston: Brill Rodopi, 2018. 181-198. PDF

with Barbara Buchenau. "On the Textuality of American Cities and their Others: A Disputation". Projecting American Studies: Essays on Theory, Method, and Practice. Ed. Frank Kelleter, Alexander Starre. Heidelberg: Winter, 2018. 135-152. PDF

"Urban Romanticism". Handbook of British Romanticism. Ed. Ralf Haekel. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2017. 88–103. PDF

with Ute Schneider: "Strategien zur Bewältigung urbaner Komplexität: Zum Zusammenwirken visueller, verbaler und quantitativer Modelle". Komplexität und Einfachheit: DFG-Symposion. Ed. Albrecht Koschorke. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2017. 256-275. PDF

"Views on Violence in Shelley's Post-Peterloo Prose and Poetry: Contradiction, Ambivalence, Ambiguity?". Romantic Ambiguities: Abodes of the Modern. Ed. Sebastian Domsch, Christoph Rein­fandt, Katharina Rennhak. [Studies in English Romanticism 20]. Trier: WVT, 2017. 83-93.

"B.S. Johnson, The Unfortunates". Handbook of the English Novel of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Text and Theory. Ed. Christoph Reinfandt. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2017. 323-343.

"'All those who knew the term 'gentrification' are part of the problem": Self-Reflexivity in Urban Activism and Cultural Production". Resistance: Subjects, Representations, Contexts. Ed. Martin Butler, Paul Mecheril, Lea Brenningmeyer. Bielefeld: transcript, 2017. 117-133. PDF

"The Senses and Human Nature in a Political Reading of Paradise Lost". The Five Senses in Medieval and Early Modern England. Ed. Annette Kern-Stähler, Beatrix Busse, Wietse de Boer. Leiden: Brill, 2016. 177-195. PDF

with Barbara Buchenau: "City Scripts: Urban American Studies and the Conjunction of Textual Strategies and Spatial Processes." Urban Transformations in the U.S.A.: Spaces, Communities, Representations. Ed. Julia Sattler. Bielefeld: transcript, 2016. 395-420. PDF

Susanne Moebus, Minh-Chau-Tran, Jens Martin Gurr. "Healthy and Liveable Cities: Gebaute Umwelt, Wahrnehmungsmuster räumlicher Bedingungen und Gesundheit in Metropolregionen - Beispiel Ruhrgebiet". Forschen und Lehren mit der Gesellschaft: Community-Based Research und Service Learning an Hochschulen. Ed. Karsten Altenschmidt und Wolfgang Stark. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2016. 121-137.

"Zur literarischen Modellierung von Urbanität und urbaner Komplexität: Literaturwissenschaft im Kontext disziplinen­über­greifender Stadtforschung". Urbanität. Formen der Inszenierung in Texten, Karten, Bildern. Ed. Martina Stercken/Ute Schneider. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2016. 193-208. PDF

"The Modernist Poetics of Urban Memory and the Structural Analogies between 'City' and 'Text': The Waste Land and Benjamin's Arcades Project." Recovery and Transgression: Memory in American Poetry. Ed. Kornelia Freitag. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. 21-37.

"Fragments as Failed Texts: Conceptual Problems in Thomas More's History of King Richard III and Percy Bysshe Shelley's A Philosophical View of Reform". Fiasko - Scheitern in der Frühen Neuzeit: Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte des Misserfolgs. Ed. Stefan Brakensiek, Claudia Claridge. Bielefeld: transcript 2015. 85-110. PDF

"Das Ruhrgebiet als Herausforderung für Kategorien und Ansätze der Stadtforschung", Dérive: Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung 58 (2015). 23-26. PDF

"Poetic Genres in the Augustan Age II: Jonathan Swift and Verse Satire". A History of British Poetry: Genres – Developments – Model Interpretations . Ed. Sibylle Baumbach, Birgit Neumann, Ansgar Nünning. Trier: WVT, 2014. 167-180.

with Martin Butler. "Urbane Populärkultur als Bewertungspraxis und -ressource: Zum normativen Potential populärkultureller Inszenierung und diskursiver Aneignung urbaner Räume." Place-Making in urbanen Diskursen. Ed. Ingo H. Warnke, Beatrix Busse. Berlin/München/Boston: de Gruyter, 2014. 369-384.

"When China’s trade all Europe overflows: Edward Young’s Naval Lyrics, Critical (Mis)Fortune and the Discourses of Naval Power, Trade, and Globalization". Navigating Cultural Spaces: Maritime Places. Ed. Anna-Margaretha Horatschek, Yvonne Rosenberg, Daniel Schäbler. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2014. 83-101. PDF

with Christian Walloth. "Introduction: Towards a Transdisciplinary Understanding of Complex Urban Systems." Christian Walloth, Jens Martin Gurr, J. Alexander Schmidt, eds. Understanding Complex Urban Systems: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Modeling. Heidelberg, New York: Springer, 2014. 1-12.

"'Urban Complexity' from a Literary and Cultural Studies Perspective: Key Cultural Dimensions and the Challenges of 'Modeling'". Understanding Complex Urban Systems: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Modeling. Ed. Christian Walloth, Jens Martin Gurr, J. Alexander Schmidt. Heidelberg, New York: Springer, 2014. 133-150.

"Conceptualizing the Field of Identity Politics in the Americas: Lessons from the Rigoberta Menchú Controversy." New World Colors: Ethnicity, Belonging, and Difference in the Americas. Ed. Josef Raab. Trier: WVT and Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press, 2014. 385-400.

"Die Komplexität der Stadt erzählen: Die Untersuchung literarischer Modellierung urbaner Komplexität im Kontext disziplinenübergreifender Stadtforschung". Metropolen: Politik - Kultur - Imagination. Ed. Susanna Gaidolfi, Tobias Hirschmüller, Gerhard Wenzl, Julia Wiedemann. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2014. 99-129.

"By Way of Introduction: Towards Urban Romantic Studies." Romantic Cityscapes: Selected Papers from the Essen Conference of the German Society for English Romanticism. Ed. Jens Martin Gurr and Berit Michel. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2013. 7-18.

with Olaf Kaltmeier: "Conflicting Constructions of Cross-Border Regional Identities in the Cascadia Region (Seattle/Vancouver)", in: Transnational Americas: Envisioning Inter-American Area Studies in Globalization Processes, ed. Olaf Kaltmeier. Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press und Trier: WVT, 2013. 35-54. PDF

with Stefanie Caeners, Michael Eisinger and J. Alexander Schmidt. "Introduction / Einleitung." Healthy and Liveable Cities: Selected Papers from the Essen Conference / Gesunde und lebenswerte Städte: Ausgewählte Beiträge der Essener Tagung. Ed. Stefanie Caeners, Michael Eisinger, Jens Martin Gurr, J. Alexander Schmidt. Essen: avedition, 2013. 6-13.

with Martin Butler. "On the 'Cultural Dimension of Sustainability' in Urban Systems: Urban Cultures as Ecological 'Force-Fields' in Processes of Sustainable Development." Healthy and Liveable Cities: Selected Papers from the Essen Conference / Gesunde und lebenswerte Städte: Ausgewählte Beiträge der Essener Tagung. Ed. Stefanie Caeners, Michael Eisinger, Jens Martin Gurr, J. Alexander Schmidt. Essen: avedition, 2013. 138-151. PDF

"Without contraries is no progression": Emplotted Figures of Thought in Negotiating Oppositions, Funktionsgeschichte and Literature as ‘Cultural Diagnosis'". In: Text or Context: Reflections on Literary and Cultural Criticism. Ed. Rüdiger Kunow, Stephan Mussil. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2013. 59-77. PDF

"Sofia Coppola: Lost in Translation". Teaching Contemporary Film. II. Ed. Susanne Peters, Klaus Stierstorfer, Laurenz Volkmann, Dirk Vanderbeke. Trier: WVT, 2013. 463-479.

"'Dung, guts and blood': Stadt- und Aufklärungskritik in Jonathan Swifts London-Dichtung", Hygiene & Kultur. Ed. Sabine Dittrich und H.W. Ingensiep. Essen: Oldib-Verlag, 2012. 123-154.

with Martin Butler. "On the 'Cultural Dimension of Sustainability' in Urban Systems: Urban Cultures as Ecological ‘Force-Fields’ in Processes of Sustainable Development". Generative Process, Patterns, and the Urban Challenge: Fall 2011 International PUARL Conference. Ed. Hajo Neis, Gabriel Brown, Jens Martin Gurr and J. Alexander Schmidt. Portland, OR: PUARL Press, 2012. 77-86.

"The Politics of Representation in Hypertext DocuFiction: Multi-Ethnic Los Angeles as an Emblem of 'America' in Norman M. Klein's Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986", in: Screening the Americas: Narration of Nation in Documentary Film / Proyectando las Américas: Narración de la nación en el cine documental. Ed. Josef Raab, Sebastian
Thies, Daniela Noll-Opitz. Trier and Tempe, AZ: WVT and Bilingual Press, 2011. 153-171.

with Martin Butler und Olaf Kaltmeier: "Introduction: On the Intersection between Urban Environments and Ethnic Identities in the Americas". In: EthniCity: Metropolitan Cultures and Ethnic Identities in the Americas. Trier and Tempe, AZ:WVT and Bilingual Press, 2011. 1-11.

with Wilfried Raussert: "Introduction". In: Cityscapes in the Americas and Beyond: Representations of Urban Complexity in Literature and Film. Trier and Tempe, AZ:WVT and Bilingual Press, 2011. 1-9.

"The Literary Representation of Urban Complexity and the Problem of Simultaneity: A Sketchy Inventory of Strategies". In: Cityscapes in the Americas and Beyond: Representations of Urban Complexity in Literature and Film. Ed. Jens Martin Gurr/Wilfried Raussert. Trier and Tempe, AZ:WVT and Bilingual Press, 2011. 11-36.

with Martin Butler: "Against the 'Erasure of Memory' in Los Angeles City Planning: Strategies of Re-Ethnicizing L.A. in Digital Fiction", in: Selling EthniCity: Urban Cultural Politics in the Americas, ed. Olaf Kaltmeier. London: Ashgate, 2011. 145-163.

with Claudia Claridge and Dirk Vanderbeke. "Language, Literature and Culture in the 17th Century: Introduction". Anglistentag 2010: Proceedings. Ed. Joachim Frenk and Lena Steveker. Trier: WVT, 2011. 221-225.

"Urbanity, Urban Culture and the European Metropolis". Britannien und Europa - Studien zur Literatur-, Geistes- und Kulturgeschichte. Festschrift für Jürgen Klein. Ed. Michael Szczekall. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2010. 241-255. PDF

"'Urbane Systeme', die Geisteswissenschaften und die Metropole Ruhr: Interdisziplinäre Metropolenforschung vor der Haustür und in aller Welt". UNIKATE 38. Essen, 2010. 8-17.

"Bourdieu, Capital and the Postcolonial Marketplace". In: Commodifying (Post)Colonialism: Othering, Reification, Commodification and the New Literatures and Cultures in English. Ed. Rainer Emig and Oliver Lindner. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. 3-19. PDF

"The Enlightening Powers of Night: Nocturnal Conversions in The Prelude". The Enlightenment by Night: Essays on After-Dark Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century. Ed. Serge Soupel, Kevin L. Cope, Alexander Pettit. New York: AMS Press, 2010. 379-399.

"The Taboo of Revolutionary Thought after 1660 and Strategies of Subversion in Milton's Paradise Lost and Bunyan's The Holy War, Taboo and Transgression in British Literature from the Renaissance to the Present, ed. Stefan Horlacher, Stefan Glomb & Lars Heiler. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 99-116. PDF

"Worshipping Cloacina in the Eighteenth Century: Functions of Scatology in Swift, Pope, Gay and Sterne", Taboo and Transgression in British Literature from the Renaissance to the Present, ed. Stefan Horlacher, Stefan Glomb & Lars Heiler. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 117-134. PDF

"Emplotting an Ecosystem: Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide as an Eco-Narrative", Local Natures, Global Responsibilities: Ecocritical Perspectives on the New English Literatures, ed. Laurenz Volkmann, Nancy Grimm, Ines Detmers, Katrin Thomson. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010, 69-80. PDF

"Shakey's 40 Years of Zigzag: Neil Young between Commerce and the Counter-Culture", in: Sound Fabrics: The Intermedial and Institutional Dimensions of Popular Music. Ed. Patrick Burger, Arvi Sepp and Martin Butler. Trier: WVT, 2009. 83-102.

"The Mass-Slaughter of Native Americans in Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man: A Complex Interplay of Word and Image", in: Word & Image in Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures. Ed. Michael Meyer. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. 353-371.

"Charles Percy Snow", Kindlers Literaturlexikon. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 2009.

"Charles Percy Snow: The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution" Kindlers Literaturlexikon. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 2009.

"Charles Percy Snow: Strangers and Brothers", Kindlers Literaturlexikon. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 2009.

"The Multicultural Marketing of Urban Fiction: Temporality, Language, Genre, and Readership(s) in Luis J. Rodriguez’s The Republic of East L.A. and Music of the Mill", in: Hybrid Americas: National and Transnational Identites in the Americas. Ed. Josef Raab. Tempe, Arizona: Bilingual Press, 2008, 263-276

"Philip Roth, The Human Stain", in: Teaching Contemporary Novels, ed. Susanne Peters, Klaus Stierstorfer & Laurenz Volkmann. Trier: WVT, 2008, vol. II, 443-462. PDF

with Martin Butler: "The Poetics and Politics of Metafiction: Reading Paul Auster’s Travels in the Scriptorium", English Studies 89:2 (2008), 195-209.

"The ‘Native’ Cites Back: Post-Colonial Theory and the Politics of Jim Jarmusch's Western Dead Man"; in: Anglistentag 2006, Proceedings; ed. Sabine Volk-Birke & Julia Lippert. Trier: WVT, 2007, 191-202. PDF

"Neue Entwicklungen in der Populärliteratur: Nick Hornby", in: Handbuch Englischer Roman der Gegenwart: Genres, Entwicklungen, Modellinterpretationen. Ed. Vera Nünning. Trier: WVT, 2007. 181-196. PDF

"'Let's Impeach the President': Protest und Ideologie in Neil Youngs Living With War (2006)", in: "Da habt Ihr es, das Argument der Straße": Kulturwissenschaftliche Studien zum politischen Lied. Eds. Martin Butler & Frank Erik Pointner. Trier: WVT, 2007. 207-226.

"Zweierlei Entdeckungen: Verdrängte kanadische Geschichte als Familiengeschichte im Werk von George Elliott Clarke", Flandziu 5 [Halbjahresschrift für Literatur und Kultur der Moderne der Internationalen Wolfgang-Köppen-Gesellschaft]. 2007. 131-143.

"Two 'Romantic' Fragments?: Bürger and Shelley on Revolution", in: British and European Romanticisms: Selected Papers from the Munich Conference of the German Society for English Romanticism. Eds. Christoph Bode & Sebastian Domsch. Trier: WVT, 2007. 239-256.

"Functions of Intertextuality and Metafiction in J.M. Coetzee's Slow Man", Anglistik 18:1 (2007). 95-112. PDF

"Geschichte(n) erzählen: Zeitstrukturen und narrative Sinnstiftung in Laurence Sternes Tristram Shandy zwischen Aufklärungs- und Metahistorie", Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 30:2 (2006). 193-206 [spezial issue: Kulturen der Zeitlichkeit]. PDF

"Mark Ravenhill: Mother Clap's Molly House", in: Teaching Contemporary Drama. Eds. Susanne Peters, Klaus Stierstorfer & Laurenz Volkmann. Trier: WVT, 2006, vol. II. 423-440.

"Postmodernism in the 18th Century?: Enlightenment Intellectual Contexts and the Roots of 20th-Century Concerns in Tristram Shandy", RSÉAA XVII-XVIII: Revue de la Société d'Études Anglo-Américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles 63 (2006). 19-40.

"Morality versus Poetics: Conflicting Evaluations of Sense Perceptions in The Prelude", in: Romantic Voices, Romantic Poetics: Selected Papers from the Regensburg Conference of the German Society for English Romanticism. Eds. Christoph Bode & Katharina Rennhak. Trier: WVT, 2005. 57-68.

"'Let me suppose thee for a Ship a-while': Nautical Metaphors and Contemporary Politics in Eighteenth-Century Translations of Horace's 'Ode I, xiv'", Swift Studies 20 (2005). 70-81. PDF

with Michael Gassenmeier: "Burke's Conservatism and its Echoes on the Continent and in the United States", in: Non-Fictional Romantic Prose: Expanding Borders, ed. Stephen P. Sondrup & Virgil Nemoianu, Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2004), 117-139.

"Charles Percy Snow", in: Metzler Lexikon englischsprachiger Autorinnen und Autoren. Eds. Eberhard Kreutzer & Ansgar Nünning. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2002. 542f.

with Michael Gassenmeier: "The Experience of the City in British Romantic Poetry", in: Romantic Poetry, ed. Angela Esterhammer, Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2002. 305-331.

"Shelley's Misreading of Aeschylus' Prometheus", in: British Romantics as Readers: Intertextualities, Maps of Misreading, Reinterpretations: Festschrift for Horst Meller. Ed. Michael Gassenmeier et al. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 1998. 71-81.

with Michael Gassenmeier: "Über das Versagen und die Versagung der Toleranz, oder vom Lernprozeß des entmannten und verkannten Autors in Laurence Sternes Tristram Shandy, Gentleman", in: Toleranz: Das Fremde, Macht, Identität. Eds. Josef Fellsches & Werner L. Hohmann. Essen: Blaue Eule, 1998. 23-40.

with Michael Gassenmeier: "Statik+Mechanik+Ballistik=Komposition oder Literatur als Technikfolgenkompensation in Laurence Sternes Tristram Shandy", Literatur für Leser 21:2 (1998). 107-120.

"James Thurber: 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty'", in: Amerikanische Short Stories des 20. Jahrhunderts. Ed. Michael Hanke. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998. 36-43.

"Peter Taylor: 'Promise of Rain'", in: Amerikanische Short Stories des 20. Jahrhunderts. Ed Michael Hanke. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998. 122-129.

"'Now more than ever seems it rich to die': Morbidity and English Romanticism in Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus", LWU 30:4 (1997). 287-297.-->

"'Bad is the world and all will come to nought': History and Morality in More's and Shakespeare's Richard III", Litteraria Pragensia 7 (1997). 51-78.-->

 

In press or accepted for publication:

"Esther Holsten: Miranda; or, The Mysterious Stranger (1803)". The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, 1660-1820. Ed. April London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"Esther Holsten: Ernestina (1801)". The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, 1660-1820. Ed. April London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 

Reviews and Conference Reports:


Raphael Zähringer. Hidden Topographies: Traces of Urban Reality in Dystopian Fiction. Anglia Book Series vol. 57. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2017. xi+277pp. In: Anglistik 31:2 (2020): 174-176.

Mihaela Irimia and Andreea Paris (eds.), Literature and the Long Modernity. (Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 176). New York/Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014, in: Anglia 133:4 (2015). 770–773.

Marina McKay, Modernism and World War II, in: Anglia 127:2 (2010), 385-389.

Franziska Schmitt, Method in the Fragments: Fragmentarische Strategien in der englischen und deutschen Romantik, Anglistik 18:2 (2007), 213-217.

Conference Report: "British and European Romanticisms", 11th International Conference of the Gesellschaft für Englische Romantik, München, Oktober 2005, in: Anglistik 17:1 (2006). 221-224.

Stefan Glomb & Stefan Horlacher (eds.), Beyond Extremes: Repräsentation und Reflexion von Modernisierungsprozessen im zeitgenössischen britischen Roman, in: Anglia 123:4 (2005). 765-768.

Dirk Vanderbeke, Theoretische Welten und literarische Transformationen: Die Naturwissenschaften im Spiegel der 'science studies' und der englischen Literatur des ausgehenden 20. Jahrhunderts, in: Anglistik 16:1 (2005). 173-176.

Michael Tratner, Modernism and Mass Politics: Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats, in: Anglia 117:2 (1999). 297-302.

Doris Bachmann-Medick (Hrsg.), Übersetzung als Repräsentation fremder Kulturen, in: Translation and Literature 7:1 (1998). 137-139.

Julian Wolfreys and William Baker (eds.), Literary Theories: A Case Study in Critical Performance, in: LWU, 30:4 (1997). 361-362.


 

Grants, Projects (Selection):

2/2023-1/2026:  Co-I in DFG-AHRC Project (4th Call in the "UK-German Funding Initiative in the Humanities") “Just Futures: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Cultural Climate Models” [with colleagues at the Universities of Cologne, Klagenfurt, Sheffield, Leeds]

1/2022-12/2024:  Cooperative project “Kulturen des Kompromisses”, Universities of Duisburg-Essen, Münster, and Bochum; NRW Ministry of Education and Research; lead: U. Schneider (UDE), U. Willems (Münster), C. Goschler (Bochum)

10/2021-9/2022: Funding for a 12-months exploratory project "Climate Change Literacy"; applicants: Profs. Julia Hoydis (lead applicant), Roman Bartosch (co-applicant), Jens Martin Gurr (co-applicant); Volkswagen Foundation; funding line “Originalitätsverdacht"; funding for a full semester of temporary professorial replacement during research leave (awarded 12/2020; start date: 10/2021).

5/2018-5/2022: Funding for the further development of Competence Field "Metropolitan Research" in the University Alliance Ruhr (lead applicant, with Prof. Dr. Uta Hohn, Bochum, and Prof. Dr. Thorsten Wiechmann, Dortmund), funded by Stiftung Mercator (funding for three 50% positions for four years, research assistants, travel expenses, publications, conferences etc.)

4/2018-9/2018: Hiroshi Kitamura Fellowship at the IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen (shared with Prof. Barbara Buchenau)

2018-2022: Funding for a four-year graduate research school "Scripts for Postindustrial Urban Futures: American Models, Transatlantic Interventions" (applicants: Profs. Barbara Buchenau (Spokesperson), Jens Martin Gurr (Co-Spokesperson), Josef Raab (UDE); Walter Grünzweig, Randi Gunzenhäuser (TU Dortmund); Kornelia Freitag and Michael Wala (Ruhr University Bochum); Volkswagen Foundation call “Wissenschaft und berufliche Praxis in der Graduiertenausbildung”.

1/2017-9/2017: Funding for the establishment of a competence field "Metropolitan Research" in the University Alliance Ruhr (with Prof. Dr. Uta Hohn, Bochum, and Prof. Dr. Thorsten Wiechmann, Dortmund), funded by MERCUR – Mercator Research Center Ruhr

10/2013-3/2014: Funding for research leave (full funding for six months of an interim professor to fill my position) in the "Freiraum für Forschung.NRW" programme of the MIWF-NRW.

5/2013-4/2017: Founding project partner and Board member of the "IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies" (six post-docs, twelve doctoral candidates, BMBF funding)

4/2013: Funding for a "Fact Finding Mission" to the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande del Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil to establish research relations in urban studies (including a joint doctoral colloquium), DAAD

2012: Funding for four doctoral scholarships (3-4 years) in the Graduate School Scholarship Programme - GSSP (DAAD)

4/2012-3/2015: Funding for "Spaces – Communities – Representations: Urban Transformations in the United States", PhD programme in American Studies (with TU Dortmund and Ruhr University Bochum), funded by MERCUR – Mercator Research Center Ruhr

10/2010-12/2013: DAAD funding for an international interdisciplinary doctoral programme "ARUS – Advanced Research in Urban Systems" (currently ~ 27 international doctoral candidates)

Since 3/2009: external funding for three international conferences (Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, IRUN, DFG)

10/2008-2/2009: Fellowship for a period of research at ZiF (Center for Interdisciplinary Research) at the University of Bielefeld

1996-1999: PhD Scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes

3/1996: Scholarship awarded by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes

Born in Hamburg,
October 29, 1974
 
since 4/2007 Professor of British Literature and Culture, Universität Duisburg-Essen

10/2006 – 3/2007

Stand-in position at Universität Bamberg

1/2006 – 4/2006

Visiting Professor, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

10/2004 – 9/2005

Stand-in professorship "English Literary Studies and Applied Literary Studies", Universität Duisburg-Essen (successor to Prof. Dr. H.F. Plett)

4/2004 – 9/2004

Stand-in professorship "American Studies", Universität Duisburg-Essen

3/2003 – 3/2004

"Privatdozent" and part-time lecturer at Universität Duisburg-Essen; freelance work for Booz Allen Hamilton

01/2003

Habilitation at Universität Duisburg-Essen

10/2001 – 9/2002

Leave of Absence from Booz Allen Hamilton to complete thesis for Habilitation and to teach at Gerhard-Mercator-Universität Duisburg

9/1999 – 2/2003

Full-time employment as Management Consultant with leading international Management Consulting Firm Booz Allen Hamilton

4/1999

Dr. phil. (PhD) in English, Gerhard-Mercator-Universität Duisburg

4/1996 – 8/1999

Part-time lecturer at Gerhard-Mercator-Universität Duisburg

4/1996 – 3/1999

Work on doctoral thesis (PhD scholarship from the "Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes")

3/1996

M.A. in English and German, Universität Mannheim (English and German), scholarship awarded by the "Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes"

8/1993 – 10/1994

Worked in kindergarten for period of compulsory social service (Zivildienst)

6/1993

Abitur, Gymnasium Glinde

10/2022-9/2024 Head of Department, Department of Anglophone Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen

Since 3/2022

Member of the Board of Trustees ("Kuratorium") of the Volkswagen Foundation

10/2018-present Member of the Advisory Council of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut [KWI]), Essen
05/2018-present Member of the doctoral committee of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Duisburg-Essen (Deputy Chair since 1/2022)

Since 7/2017

Member of the University Council of the University of Duisburg-Essen (re-elected in 2022)

since 2016

Coordinator of the UAR Ruhr Competence Field "Metropolitan Research"

5/2014-9/2016

Member of the Senate of the University of Duisburg-Essen

10/2013-9/2022

President of the German Society for English Romanticism (re-elected 2015, 2017, 2019)

3/2013-12/2019 Member of Advisory Board for the City of Essen's application as European Green Capital (EGC year 2017) and follow-up activities
10/2008-2/2023       Speaker of the University of Duisburg-Essen's "Strategic Research Area" ("Profilschwerpunkt") "Urban Systems"
10/2008-9/2010 Member of the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Humanities, UDE
10/2008-9/2010 Head of Department, Department of Anglophone Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen

 04/2007-present       

Referee for Alexander von Humboldt and Volkswagen Foundations; Edinburgh UP; Routledge; German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung) and other institutions and foundations

 

 

Conferences Hosted (Selection):

12/2020: "Zukunftsnarrative für Metropolregionen/Future Narratives for Metropolitan Regions", Annual Conference of the Competence Field Metropolitan Research in the University Alliance Ruhr (digital conference, co-organized with Cornelia Jöchner, Rolf Parr and Wolfgang Sonne)

11/2019: "Media, Memory and the City", Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities/Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI), supported by Joint Center Urban Systems, the Faculty of Humanities and the KWI.

1/2015: "Current Approaches to Urban Complexity", Interdisciplinary Symposium with "Scientist in Residence" Michael Batty, University of Duisburg-Essen, funded by Sparkasse Essen

10/2011: "Romantic Cityscapes: International Symposium of the Society for English Romanticism", University of Duisburg-Essen, funded by the DFG

11/2010: "First IRUN Symposium on Urban Systems: Healthy and Liveable Cities", Essen, Zeche Zollverein, funded by IRUN (International Research Universities Network)

6/2010: International Conference "Simultaneity, Multiplicity and Chaos in Cityscapes in the Americas and Beyond: Representations of Urban Complexity in Literature, Film and Media", University of Bielefeld, with Willy Raussert

3/2009: International Conference "EthniCities: Metropolitan Cultures and Ethnic Identities in the Americas", Center for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Bielefeld, funded by Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, with Martin Butler and Olaf Kaltmeier

Photo: Jasmijn Visser

Prof. Dr. Jens Martin Gurr

ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3822-6385


Research interests

  • Public Functions of Narrative
  • Conflict Narratives
  • Climate Change Fiction and Climate Change Communication
  • Theory of Models
  • Literary Urban Studies, Urban Cultural Studies, Theories and Methods of Inter- and Transdisciplinary Urban Studies
  • Contemporary Anglophone Fiction
  • Literary and Cultural Theory
  • Literary and Cultural History
  • 18th-century British Literature
  • British Romanticism