Frederick G T Bridgham BA (Belfast) PhD (Cambridge) 

Senior Lecturer in German

Current focus on Kleist and Wagner (commissioned books on both underway).

Anglo-German literary relations (replacement of Heinz Oppel: Englisch-deutsche Literaturbeziehungen (1971) envisaged). He is currently co-organising a conference entitled Peacemakers and Warmongers: Anglo-German Interactions in Politics and Letters before World War I

Impact of Nietzsche on modern literature (further articles pending)

Individual authors: esp. Rilke, Kafka, Gottfried Benn

Viennese Classicism and Weimar Classicism (a comparative study of Goethe and Schiller, Mozart and Beethoven)

Modules taught

Undergraduate courses (2000-2001)

Level 1

Core language (GERM1030); Approaching German Literature (GERM1090)

Level 2

18th and 19th Century Literature in its Social Context (GERM2250/2251)

Level 3

20th Century Literature in its Social Context (GERM3295); Advanced Translation (GERM3900)

Levels 2 & 3

Nietzsche (GERM2573/3573)

Kleist (GERM2523/3523)

Wagner (GERM2673/2674)

The War of Words 1890-1920 (GERM2920/2921)

Undergraduate courses/authors previously taught include

Barock literature, Schiller, Schopenhauer, Freud, Kafka, Th. Mann, Rilke, Karl Kraus, Spengler, Gottfried Benn, Expressionism, Döblin, Musil, Uwe Johnson, German historiography, Introduction to Modern Germany

Postgraduate courses taught include

MA in Ango-German literary/cultural relations:

Goldsmith and Sterne reception in Germany; Schiller and Bürger reception in England; travellers' tales (Moritz, Sturz, Lichtenberg, von La Roche, Georg Forster, Coleridge, Wordsworth et al); Mme de Staël; Gothic novel ('Monk' Lewis); historical novel (Scott, Hauff, Alexis); reception of German music in England (Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Weber, Wagner et al); Dickens reception; Nietzsche translations and reception (Lawrence, Yeats, Shaw, Wells, Chesterton, Orage); 'Invasion novels'; the 'War of Words'; First World War poetry; E.M. Forster; Weimar and the cultural consequences of the peace; Berlin in the 1920s (Isherwood, Kästner, Döblin); Richard Hughes; post-1945 German reconstruction

MA in Applied Translation Studies (literary and journalistic translation)

Publications

BOOKS

Rainer Maria Rilke, Urbild and Verzicht (Stuttgart: Heinz Verlag = Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik, Nr.13, 1976), 239pp.

Germany from Unification to Reunification (Bangor: Headstart History, 1992), vi+62pp.

The Friendly German-English Dictionary, A Guide to German Language, Culture and Society through faux-amis, literary illustration and other diversions (London: Libris, 1996), xxv+319pp.

BOOKS COMMISSIONED AND IN PROGRESS

Heinrich von Kleist, a critical study (Libris, 2001*), 120,000 words

Wagner and nineteenth-century culture (Macmillan, 2003*), 80,000 words

PARTS OF BOOKS / ARTICLES

Gottfried Benn's 'Schutt', in P.F. Casey and T.J. Casey, Gottfried Benn, The Galway Symposium (Galway: Galway University Press, 1990), pp.75-92

'Speaking a Language', in The Economist Atlas of the New Europe (London: Economist Books, 1992), pp.42-43

'Thus spake Kafka? A survey and structural report on Die Brücke', in T.E. Bourke, R. Ni Néill and Michael Shields (eds.), Schein und Widerschein, Festschrift for T.J. Casey (Galway: Galway University Press,1996), pp.210-237

'What but a dream? Hans Werner Henze's Der Prinz von Homburg', in Coliseum, The Magazine of English National Opera (No.39, 1995), pp.22-23

'Kleist's Hidden Agenda', in The Prince of Homburg (English National Opera programme, 1996), pp.24-28

'Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina and Thomas Mann', in Hugh Ridley and Karin McPherson (eds.), Feste Freundschaft, Short Essays in Honour of Peter Johnson (Dublin: University College, 1997), pp.86-91

'Schiller, Kleist, Wagner: a Great British Tradition?', in Richard Byrn (ed.), Cousins at One Remove, Anglo-German Studies 2 (Leeds: Northern Universities Press, 1998), pp.1-26

'Kleist and Lewis: give and take', in Susanne Stark, Forschungen und Arbeiten zur Vergleichenden Literatur (Amsterdam: Rodopi, [Dec.] 1999*), 21pp.

Entries on 'Gottfried Benn', 'Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk', 'Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas' in Encyclopedia of German Literature (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, [Dec.] 1999*), 6,000 words

'Emancipating Amazons: Schiller's Jungfrau, Kleist's Penthesilea, Wagner's Brünnhilde', in Forum for Modern Language Studies ([Jan.] 2000*) 12pp.

'Did Coleridge know Prinz Friedrich von Homburg?', pending

TRANSLATIONS

The Prince of Homburg, libretto translation of Der Prinz von Homburg, an opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze, (London: English National Opera/Schott, 1995), 287pp.

Imanuel Geiss, The Question of German Unification: 1806-1996 (London: Routledge, 1997), 151pp., collaborative revision and translation of Die deutsche Frage 1806-1990 (Mannheim: Brockhaus, 1992), 128pp.

REVIEWS

(1980-) for New German Studies, Notes and Queries, Times Higher Literary Supplement

ONGOING PROJECTS

Viennese Classicism and Weimar Classicism: a comparative study (Goethe, Schiller, Mozart, Beethoven)

Anglo-German literary relations (to replace H. Oppel, Englisch-deutsche Literaturbeziehungen (1971))

Conference organisation and papers

Co-ordinator of conference to be held in Leeds at Easter 2002:

Peacemakers and Warmongers: Anglo-German Interactions in Letters and Politics before World War I

Gottfried Benn's 'Schutt', paper given at 'Gottfried Benn, The Galway Symposium' in 1986

Schiller, Kleist, Wagner: a Great British Tradition?: paper given at CUTG Conference in St Andrews 1993

The Major Third: Kleist's Lost Chord: paper given at British Comparative Literature Association Conference on 'Cities Gardens, Wildernesses' in Edinburgh 1994

Kleist and Lewis: give and take: paper given at the International Conference on 'The Novel in Anglo-German Context' in Leeds 1997

Emancipating Amazons: Schiller's Jungfrau, Kleist's Penthesilea, Wagner's Brünnhilde, paper given at International Conference on 'Anglo-German Stereotypes' in Cardiff 1997

Additional information

Research funding and research visits:

Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst scholarship (1966)

Munich (1982, 9 months)

Paris (1986, 6 months)

University of Leeds, University Study Leave Award in the Humanities (1998-9)

Chaired symposium on Henze in Focus with Hans Werner Henze prior to first performance of his The Prince of Homburg, London 1996

Doctoral dissertations supervised:

Jane Ennis, A comparison of Wagner's Ring and William Morris's Sigurd saga (PhD awarded 1993, accepted for publication by Peter Lang), several subsequent articles published.

Diane Milburn, The First World War Deutschlandbild of A.R. Orage and the New Age circle (PhD awarded 1994, pub. Peter Lang, 1996), several subsequent articles published.

MA dissertations supervised

Twelve successfully completed since 1986.

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