Andreas Huyssen (born 1942) is the Villard Professor Emeritus of German and

Comparative Literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where he taught beginning in 1986. He is the founding director of the university's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society and one of the founding editors of the '' New German Critique''.

Biography

Huyssen was born in Germany in 1942. He studied at several European universities in Madrid, Cologne, Paris, and Munich. He received his doctorate in Germanic and Romance Languages and Literature from the

University of Zürich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...

in 1969 under the direction of

Emil Staiger Emil Staiger (8 February 1908, Kreuzlingen, Switzerland - 28 April 1987, Horgen, Switzerland) was a Swiss historian, writer, Germanist and Professor of German Studies at the University of Zurich. Life After graduating from school, Emil Staige ...

, and taught at the

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a public urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and a member of the University of Wisc ...

from 1971 until 1986, when he joined the faculty at Columbia. From 1986 to 1992 and again from 2005 to 2008, he served as head of Columbia's Germanic Languages and Literature department. From 1998 to 2003 he was founding director of the Center for Comparative Literature and Society. He was named a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 2022.

Work

Huyssen is known for his work on 18th-20th century

German literature German literature () comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy and to a less ...

and culture, international

modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

and

postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...

Frankfurt School The Frankfurt School (german: Frankfurter Schule) is a school of social theory and critical philosophy associated with the Institute for Social Research, at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1929. Founded in the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), dur ...

critical theory,

cultural memory Because memory is not just an individual, private experience but is also part of the collective domain, cultural memory has become a topic in both historiography (Pierre Nora, Richard Terdiman) and cultural studies (e.g., Susan Stewart). These ...

historical trauma Historical trauma (HT), as used by psychotherapists social workers, historians, and psychologists, refers to the cumulative emotional harm of an individual or generation caused by a traumatic experience or event. Historical Trauma Response (HTR) re ...

urban culture Urban culture is the culture of towns and cities. The defining theme is the presence of a great number of very different people in a very limited space - most of them are strangers to each other but still try to be polite to each other more times ...

, and

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

. His work has appeared in translation in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, Portuguese, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, French, and other languages. He is currently working on a book assembling and expanding his collected essays on the contemporary visual arts. In addition to his editorship of the ''New German Critique'', Huyssen serves on the editorial boards of ''

October October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the sixth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old calendar of Romulus , October retained its name (from Latin and Greek ''ôct ...

'', ''

Constellations A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the earliest constellation ...

'', '' Memory Studies'' and '' Germanic Review''.

Personal life

He is married to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' correspondent

Nina Bernstein Nina Bernstein is an American journalist, best known for her '' New York Times'' reporting on social and legal issues, including coverage of immigration, child welfare and health care. In 21 years at the Times, from which she retired at the end ...

. Huyssen is a longtime friend of

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

-winning Turkish novelist

Orhan Pamuk Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, his work has sold over thirteen million books in sixty-three lan ...

, and often hosts him when the writer comes to the U.S. The two teach an undergraduate class together at Columbia called "Words and Pictures," which examines problems of visual representation in literature, particularly theories of

ekphrasis The word ekphrasis, or ecphrasis, comes from the Greek for the written description of a work of art produced as a rhetorical or literary exercise, often used in the adjectival form ekphrastic. It is a vivid, often dramatic, verbal descrip ...

Selected works

*''Drama des Sturm und Drang'' (1980) *''After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism'' (1986) *''Postmoderne: Zeichen eines kulturellen Wandels'' (ed. with Klaus Scherpe, 1986) *''Modernity and the Text: Revisions of German Modernism'' (ed. with David Bathrick, 1989) *''Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia'' (1995) *''Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory'' (2003) *''Other Cities, Other Worlds: Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing World'' (ed.,2008) * ''William Kentridge, Nalini Malani: The Shadow Play as Medium of Memory'' (2013) * ''Miniature Metropolis: Literature in an Age of Photography and Film'' (2015) *''The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang's Metropolis" (1981)

References

External links

Faculty page for the Columbia department of Germanic Languages and LiteratureBiography at the Institute for Comparative Literature and SocietyHuyssen’s acceptance speech for the Mark Van Doren AwardInterview with Andreas Huyssen
in Barcelona Metropolis Magazine, Winter, 2010.
Review of ''Modernism after Postmodernism'' by Andreas Huyssen
in Barcelona Metropolis Magazine, Autumn, 2010. {{DEFAULTSORT:Huyssen, Andreas German literary critics Columbia University faculty Columbia University Department of German faculty University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee faculty Professors of German in the United States Comparative literature academics Living people 1942 births German male non-fiction writers Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences