Michael Scheffel (born 27 February 1958,

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its ...

) is a professor for the history of modern German literature and more generally of

Literary science Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

s at Wuppertal University. He is also a co-editor of

Text+Kritik ''Text+Kritik'' (stylized ''text+kritik'') is a quarterly German journal for literature, music, film, and cultural studies in which German-language writers have their works analysed and presented by fellow writers and experts in literary researc ...

Life

After successful completion of his school career in

Scheffel studied German Literature and linguistics,

Romance studies Romance studies or Romance philology ( an, filolochía romanica; ca, filologia romànica; french: romanistique; eo, latinida filologio; it, filologia romanza; pt, filologia românica; ro, romanistică; es, filología románica) is an acade ...

and

Art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thre ...

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metr ...

and

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

. He obtained his

Doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' ...

in 1988 at

. His thesis was published in 1990 under the title "Magischer Realismus. Die Geschichte eines Begriffes und ein Versuch seiner Bestimmung"."Magischer Realismus. Die Geschichte eines Begriffes und ein Versuch seiner Bestimmung"/ ''"Magic Realism. The history of a concept and an attempt at its confirmation"'' He remained at Göttingen as a research assistant, obtaining a Habilitation (promotion/qualification) in 1995 in

German studies German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German ...

. Internationally he has been a guest lecturer at universities in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest cit ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

, Lisbon,

Pécs Pécs ( , ; hr, Pečuh; german: Fünfkirchen, ; also known by other alternative names) is the fifth largest city in Hungary, on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the country's southwest, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administr ...

Peking } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

and

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also other alternative names) is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat of Csongrád-Csanád county. The University of Szeged is one of the m ...

. Since Autumn 2008 he has been Vice-Rector for Research, Funding and Graduate support at the

University of Wuppertal The University of Wuppertal (''Universität Wuppertal'') is a German scientific institution, located in Wuppertal, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The university's official name in German is ''Bergische Universität Wuppertal'' ...

Published output

* ''Magischer Realismus. Die Geschichte eines Begriffes und ein Versuch seiner Bestimmung.'' Stauffenburg, Tübingen 1990. . * ''Formen selbstreflexiven Erzählens. Eine Typologie und sechs exemplarische Analysen.'' Max-Niemeyer-Verlag, Tübingen 1997. . * together with Matías Martínez: ''Einführung in die Erzähltheorie.'' (''"Introduction to

Narratology Narratology is the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect human perception. It is an anglicisation of French ''narratologie'', coined by Tzvetan Todorov (''Grammaire du Décaméron'', 1969). Its theoretical li ...

"'') C.H.Beck, München 1999 ff. . * (as editor): ''Erschriebene Natur. Internationale Perspektiven auf Texte des 18. Jahrhunderts''. (''Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik'', Reihe A, Bd. 66) P. Lang, Bern u.a. 2001. . * together with Andreas Blödorn and Daniela Langer (edited): ''Stimme(n) im Text. Narratologische Positionsbestimmungen.'' De Gruyter, Berlin u. New York 2006. . * together with Julia Abel and Andreas Blödorn (edited): ''Ambivalenz und Kohärenz. Untersuchungen zur narrativen Sinnbildung''. WVT, Trier 2009. . * together with Matías Martínez (edited): ''Klassiker der modernen Literaturtheorie''. C.H. Beck, München 2010. .

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Scheffel, Michael 1958 births Writers from Frankfurt German literary critics 20th-century German non-fiction writers German literary theorists Living people Academic staff of the University of Wuppertal 20th-century German male writers German male non-fiction writers