Renata Schellenberg
Biography
I am Professor of German and Program Advisor for the German Studies Program here at Mount Allison. I have been at Mount A since 2004 and since that time I have taught diverse language, literature and culture courses in our program, as well as managing the various exchange and work opportunities that exist with Germany. Our program is small but busy!
My area of expertise is eighteenth-century German literature and culture and I have published on such key authors as Goethe, Herder and Alexander von Humboldt as well as on scientific literacy and material culture in this fascinating period between Classicism and Romanticism. I love German literary culture and am thrilled to be able to share this interest with my students. I even get them to read (and hopefully like) Goethe. No small feat.
In addition to this core expertise in eighteenth-century German literature, I have also been researching forms of commemoration in post-conflict societies. In 2016 I published a monograph entitled Commemorating Conflict: Models of Remembrance in Postwar Croatia, in which I investigated the relationship between memory, identity and national belonging in post-1990 Croatia. I have also published on war museums and memorials in the region. I am currently working on a SSHRC-funded project that explores memorial practices in Namibia, particularly in relation to the genocide of the Nama and Herero people that occurred during German imperial rule in the 1900s. I focus particularly on the material legacy of this organized, historical violence and the means by which this memory has been documented and preserved by the institutional authorities who shape the national memorial landscape.
Publications
鈥淐ultivating Contacts: Collectors, Critics and the Public in Eighteenth-Century Germanophone Europe,鈥 German and European Cultural Histories Around 1800: Between Network and Narrative, eds. Birgit Tautz and Crystal Hall, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2024. 139-55.
Monograph
Commemorating Conflict: Models of Remembrance in Postwar Croatia. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2016.
Peer-Reviewed Articles and Chapters in Press
"Composing the Blue Book: The Use of Oral Sources to narrate German South-West Africa," Oral History Review (2023). doi.org/10.1080/00940798.2022.2160263.
鈥淭he Emergence of the Art Dealer in Eighteenth-Century Germany,鈥 Art Markets. Agents and Collectors in Europe and the United States 1550-1950, ed. Adriana Turpin. London: Bloomsbury, 2021. 151-60.
鈥淢emory, Mobility and Migration in today鈥檚 Istria,鈥 Journal of Contemporary European Studies (2021). 25 Pages. DOI: 10.1080/14782804.2021.1891869
鈥淩eparation and Remembrance: Determining the Future of German-Namibian Relations,鈥 EuropeNow 33 (2020),
鈥淩efugee Reception in Goethe鈥檚 Hermann und Dorothea,鈥 Goethe Yearbook 27 (2020): 83-99.
鈥淭he Post-Yugoslav Literature of Dubravka Ugre拧i膰,鈥 The Many Voices of Europe, eds. Gisela Brinker-Gabler and Nicole Shea. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020. 103-13.
鈥淲itnessing the Object,鈥 Augenzeugenschaft als Konzept, eds. Claudia Hattendorff and Lisa Bei脽wanger, Transkript Verlag, 2019. 195-209.
鈥淢useums and Museality: Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Vienna's Ringstrasse,鈥 Journal of Austrian Studies 51.2 (2018): 31-51.
鈥淭he literary legacy of the D眉sseldorfer Gem盲ldegalerie,鈥 Journal of the History of Collections, fhy013,
鈥淕oethe und Die neue Melusine: A Critical Reinterpretation,鈥 Melusine's Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth, eds. Deva Kemmis, Misty Urban and Melissa Ridley Elmes. Leiden: Brill, 2017. 303-324.
鈥淐ommemorative War Museums in 1990s Postwar Croatia,鈥 The Museum Review 2.1 (2017), .
鈥淎esthetic and Commercial Influences on Travel in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany,鈥 Travel Writing in Dutch and German, 1790-1930. Modernity, Regionality, Mobility, eds. Alison E. Martin, Lut Missinne and Beatrix van Dam. New York: Routledge, 2017. 198-213.
鈥淧olitics and Remembrance in post-war Vukovar,鈥 Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 17.1 (2015): 15-28.
鈥淢oving towards the Museum in Eighteenth-Century Germany,鈥 Material Culture Review (2012): 47-52.
鈥淭he Self and Other Things: Goethe the Collector,鈥 English Goethe Society (2012): 166-177.
鈥淧rint and Preserve: Periodicals in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany,鈥 Re-Writing the Radical: Enlightenment, Revolution and Cultural Transfer in 1790s Germany, Britain and France. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012. 88-102.
鈥淭he Impact of Ossian: Herder鈥檚 Literary Legacy,鈥 The Voice of the People: Writing the European Folk Revival, eds. Mathew Campbell and Michael Perraudin. London: Anthem, 2012. 9-20.
鈥淪cientific Literacy in Eighteenth -Century Germany,鈥 Languages of Science in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Britt-Louise Gunnarson. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. 91-107.
鈥淕oethe鈥檚 Opposition to Scientific Convention,鈥 Literature鈥檚 Reflections on Science, ed. Cedric Barfoot. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011. 133-151.
鈥淭he Incommensurability of Nature and Beauty of Thought: Goethe鈥檚 Scientific Method,鈥 The Journal of Science in Society 1.2 (2009): 45-58.
鈥淭he Fantasy of America as an Idea of Europe in the 18th&苍产蝉辫;颁别苍迟耻谤测,鈥&苍产蝉辫;The Idea of Europe in the 18th Century, ed. Lara Piccardo. Paris: Champion, 2009. 129-141.
鈥淐ollecting and Recollecting: Creating a Museum Culture in Eighteenth-Century Germany,鈥 The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 1 (2008): 91-96.
鈥淲ords and Images, Texts and Pictures,鈥 Word and Image in the Long Eighteenth Century: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar Press, 2008. 360-363.
鈥淰iewing the New World Through Nature,鈥 Special Issue: The Global Eighteenth Century, ed. Vlatka Velcic. Genre 26 (2006): 31-49.
鈥淭he Genesis of Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre&苍产蝉辫;(1821),鈥&苍产蝉辫;New German Review 17 (2002): 47- 63.
鈥淪ubversive Satire: The Glasgow Verses,鈥 Maruliana 9 (2002): 371-376.
Edited Volume
Editor (with Christina Ionescu). Word and Image in the Long Eighteenth Century: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008.
Research
Age of Goethe; Post-Enlightenment German Literature; Museum and Collection Studies; Memory Studies; Turn of the Century Vienna
Grants, awards & honours
2022 SSHRC IG Grant
2021 Paul Par茅 Excellence Award
2020 International Scholarship Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
2019 SSHRC IDG Grant
2017 Hiob Ludolf Fellowship, Gotha Research Centre, Gotha, Germany
2017 SSHRC Aid to Small Universities Grant "MTA Connects"
2016 Paul Pare Research Excellence Award
2015 Fellowship for Enlightenment Studies, IZEA, Halle, Germany
2015 Research Fellowship, Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Weimar, Germany
2015 SSHRC IDG Grant
2014 IMLR/UCL Visiting Research Fellow in Cultural Memory Studies, London, UK