Education

PhD: Uppsala University, 2005

MA: Uppsala University, 2000

Academic biography

I am a professor of Comparative Literature at Södertörn University and Head of the Department of Aesthetics, Art History, and Comparative Literature.

I received my PhD from Uppsala 2005, and my thesis consisted of a phenomenological study of the Swedish writer Birgitta Trotzig’s oeuvre. Since then my research has focused on literature and aesthetics from the Age of Goethe (Goethezeit, ca. 1770–1830), early German Modernism (klassische Moderne, ca. 1890–1940), and contemporary German literature, and I have written books and essays on Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Karl Philipp Moritz, Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, Friedrich Hölderlin, Clemens Brentano, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Elfriede Jelinek.

Together with Professor Claudia Lindén, I am currently outlining a research project on temporality and spatiality in Southern Gothic fiction. My subproject will focus on space and architecture in novels by, among others, William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Carson McCullers, and Gillian Flynn. I am also working on a book project on Hermann Melville's Pierre and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun.

I am interested in interdisciplinary issues, such as ideology, representation, phenomenology, intermediality, aesthetic experience, and aesthetic autonomy. I have published books and essays in English, German, and Swedish.

My research projects have been funded by, among others, the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, The Royal Swedish Academy of Science, Wenner-Gren Stiftelserna, Åke Wibergs Stiftelse, and the Matarika Fellow Exchange Programme.

I have been a visiting scholar at the Peter Szondi Institute at Freie Universität Berlin (2006–2008), the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, New York (2014), and the German, Nordic and Slavic Department at University of Wisconsin-Madison (2019), and a visiting professor and Matariki Fellow at the German Seminar at Eberhard Karls Universität Tubingen (2014–2015).

I have taught literature in Uppsala, Södertörn, and Tubingen at undergraduate level (BA) as well as as at graduate level (MA and PhD). Routinely I teach courses in literary history from antiquity to the 21st century and in literary theory.

Ongoing reseach projects

Literature of the Unspoken. The Presence of History in Southern Gothic Fiction, together with Claudia Lindén

Romantic Transactions in Herman Melville’s Pierre and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun, book project

Publications (selection)

Books

Beyond Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century British and German Aesthetics, Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Karl Axelsson, Camilla Flodin & Mattias Pirholt (New York & London: Routledge, 2021), 312 pp.

Luften så klar. Nordeuropeiska konstnärer och författare i Rom 1780–1950, ed. Roland Lysell, Mattias Pirholt & Anna Smedberg Bondesson (Gothenburg & Stockholm: Makadam, 2020) [The Air so Clear. Northern European Artists and Writers in Rome 1780–1950]

Kulturmöten. En festskrift till professor Christine Farhan, ed. Amelie Björck, Eva Jonsson, Claudia Lindén & Mattias Pirholt (Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2020), 297 pp. [Encounters of Cultures. A Festschrift for Professor Christine Farhan]

Grenzerfahrungen. Studien zu Goethes Ästhetik, Beiträge zur neueren Literaturgeschichte, vol. 388 (Heidelberg: Winter, 2018), 269 pp.

Reviews: Leena Eilittä in Modern Language Review 115 (2020), 746–748; David Wellbery in Goethe Yearbook 28 (2021), 368–370

Das Abenteuer des Gewöhnlichen. Alltag in der deutschsprachigen Literatur der Moderne, ed. Thorsten Carstensen & Mattias Pirholt, Philologische Studien und Quellen, vol. 267 (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2018), 383 pp.

Reviews: Viktor Fritzenkötter in Zeitschrift für Germanistik 31 (2021), 175–178

Ofullbordade utopier. Tyskspråkig litteratur från tre århundraden (Stockholm: Aiolos, 2016), 210 pp. [Incomplete Utopias. German Literature from Three Centuries]

"någonstädes mellan sol och söder, mellan nord och natt". Interdisciplinära studier tillägnade professor Torsten Pettersson, ed. Jenny Björklund, Ann-Sofie Lönngren, Mattias Pirholt, Magnus Ullén & Maria Wennerström-Wohrne (Möklinta: Gidlunds, 2015), 426 pp. [“Somewhere between Sun and South, between North and Night”. Interdisciplinary Studies Dedicated to Professor Torsten Pettersson]

"Darum ist die Welt so groß". Raum, Platz und Geographie im Werk Goethes, ed. Mattias Pirholt & Andreas Hjort Møller, Beiträge zur neueren Literaturgeschichte, vol. 326 (Heidelberg: Winter, 2014), 239 pp.

Reviews: Michael Bies in Goethe-Jahrbuch 131 (2014), 219-220; Gustav Landgren in Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 66 (2016), 115-117

Metamimesis. Imitation in Goethes Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre and Early German Romanticism, Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2012), 220 pp.

Reviews: Paul Bishop in Journal of European Studies 43 (2013), 184-186; Jon Helgason in Sjuttonhundratal 2013, 226-227; Andreas Hjort Møller in Orbis litterarum 68 (2013), 525; Dirk Kemper in Germanistik 54 (2014), 485-486; Franz R. Kempf in German Studies Review 37 (2014), 172-174; John B. Lyon in Goethe Yearbook 22 (2015), 287-289; Friederike von Schwerin-High in European Romantic Review 26 (2015), 89-97; Martin Swales in The Modern Language Review 109 (2014), 548-550; Christine Waldschmidt in Athenäum 23 (2013), 231-235

Constructions of German Romanticism. Six Studies – Konstruktionen der deutschen Romantik. Sechs Studien, Historia litterarum 29, ed. Mattias Pirholt (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2011), 189 pp.

Reviews: Jon Helgason in Sjuttonhundratal 2012, 223-225; Andrew Miller in Romantik 1 (2012), 168-169

Tolkningens scen, Festskrift till Roland Lysell, ed. Otto Fischer (main ed.), Carin Franzén, Paula Henrikson, Mattias Pirholt, Cecilia Sjöholm, Jakob Staberg & Jon Viklund (Stockholm: Aiolos, 2008), 265 pp. [The Scene of Interpretation. Festschrift to Roland Lysell]

Ett språk, ett spår. En studie i Birgitta Trotzigs författarskap, diss. Uppsala (Stockholm/Stehag: Symposion, 2005), 384 pp. (abstract External link.) [A Language, a Trace. A Study of Birgitta Trotzig’s Oeuvre]

Research articles and book chapters

”Heimentlassung. Die Heimat und die Wüste in Ingeborg Bachmanns Todesarten-Projekt,” Heimat in Literatur und Kultur. Neue Perspektiven, ed. Thorsten Carstensen & Oliver Kohns (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, [in print])

"Imagery, Irony, and Transcendence in Carl Jonas Love Almqvist’s The Queen’s Tiara,” Scandinavian Studies 94, no. 2 (2022), 196–220

“Imitation, Interest, and the Ethics of Imperfection in Karl Philipp Moritz’s Aesthetics, 1786–1788,” Monatshefte 113, no. 2 (2021), 263–285

“‘Allt gamla bekanta’. Reflektioner över Goethes italienska resa och konstverkets idé,” Luften så klar. Nordeuropeiska konstnärer och författare i Rom 1780–1950, ed. Roland Lysell, Mattias Pirholt & Anna Smedberg Bondesson (Gothenburg: Makadam, 2020), 17–30 [Everything Old Acquaintances. Reflections on Goethe’s Italian Journey and the Idea of the Work of Art]

"Goethe's Exploratory Idealism," Beyond Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century British and German Aesthetics, Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Karl Axelsson, Camilla Flodin & Mattias Pirholt (New York & London: Routledge, 2020), 217–238

"Disinterested Love. Ethics and Aesthetics in Karl Philipp Moritz's 'Versuch einer Vereinigung aller schönen Künste und Wissenschaften unter dem Begriff des in sich selbst Vollendeten,'" Goethe Yearbook 27 (2020), 63–81

"Karl Philipp Moritz' melankoliska blick och mötet med Italien," Kulturmöten. Festskrift till Christine Farhan, ed. Amelie Björck m.fl. (Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2020), s. 241–258 [Karl Philipp Moritz's Melancholic Gaze and the Encounter with Italy]

"Walter Benjamins Ekphrasen des Alltags in Berliner Kindheit um 1900", Das Abenteuer des Gewöhnlichen. Alltag in der deutschsprachigen Literatur der Moderne, ed. Thorsten Carstensen & Mattias Pirholt, Philologische Studien und Quellen, vol. 267 (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2018), 307-326

”I begynnelsen var traumat. Prolegomenon till en analys av Kjell Westös Drakarna över Helsingfors”, Modernitetens uttryck och avtryck. Litteraturvetenskapliga studier tillägnade professor Claes Ahlund, ed. Anna Möller-Sibelius & Freja Rudels (Åbo: Föreningen Granskaren, 2017), 241–250 [In the Beginning was the Trauma. Prolegomenon to an Analysis of Kjell Westös Novel Drakarna över Helsingfors]

"´Gott segne Kupfer´. Goethes Kunstbeschreibungen im Zeitalter des semitechnischen Reproduzierbarkeit", Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 80 (2017), 392-417

"Sentimentale Gegenstände. Die sentimentalisch-zeitliche Bedeutsamkeit des Symbols bei Goethe", Augenblick, Lebenszeit, Geschichte, Ewigkeit. Die Zeit in Goethes Werken, Beiträge zur neueren Literaturgeschichte, vol. 366, ed. Liisa Steinby & Michael Schmidt (Heidelberg: Winter, 2017), 93-136

"ins Praktische der Kunst einzugreifen. Goethes und Meyers Preisaufgaben für bildende Künstler", Wirkendes Wort 66 (2016), 385–396

"Aesthetic Union and the Politics of Sameness in Clemens Brentanos Theoretical Writings", Afterlives of Romantic Intermediality. The Intersection of Visual, Aural, and Verbal Frontiers, ed.Leena Eilittä & Catherine Riccio-Berry (Lanham: Lexington, 2016), 95-112

"A Truth Tried and Tested. The Phenomenology of Truth in Herders Plastik", Herder: From Cognition to Cultural Science/Von der Erkenntnis zur Kulturwissenschaft, ed. Beate Allert (Heidelberg: Synchron, 2016), 63-77

"Am Rande der Kunst. Arabeske, Ornament und die Heteronomie der Ästhetik Goethes", Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 65 (2015), 149-163

"Ord ur en mun som inte själv kan tala. Hjalmar Gullbergs negativa poetologi", "någonstädes mellan sol och söder, mellan nord och natt". Interdisciplinära studier tillägnade professor Torsten Pettersson, ed. Jenny Björklund m.fl. (Möklinta: Gidlunds, 2015), 273-292 [Words from a Mouth that cannot speak itself. Hjalmar Gullberg’s Negative Poetology]

"Alltid hemma. Topografi och utopi hos Bachmann och Jelinek", Aiolos, no. 46–47 2014, 139–159 [Always at Home. Topography and Utopia in Bachmann and Jelinek]

"Die Teilung des Raums. Wandlungen der ästhetischen Erfahrung Goethes", "Darum ist die Welt so groß". Raum, Platz und Geographie im Werk Goethes, Beiträge zur neueren Literaturgeschichte, vol. 326, red. Mattias Pirholt & Andreas Hjort Møller, 326 (Heidelberg: Winter, 2014), 203–238

"Lättjans poetik och politik i Friedrich Schlegels Lucinde", Aiolos, no. 44–45 2012, 35–44 [The Poetics and Politics of Indolence in Friedrich Schlegel’s Lucinde]

"Naturens främmande form. Efterbildningskritik och estetiskt vetande i den unge Goethes estetiska skrifter", Samlaren 133 (2012), 145–165 [The Alien Form of Nature. Critique of Imitation and Aesthetic Knowing in the Aesthetic Writings of the Young Goethe]

"Det estetiskas gränser. Inledning till estetikens problem hos Goethe", Lychnos. Årsbok för idé- och lärdomshistoria 2011, 227–239 [The Limits of the Aesthetic. Introduction to the Problem of Aesthetics in Goethe]

"Nachahmung und Symbolik. Zu den geschichtsphilosophischen Grundlagen der Ästhetik Goethes", Studia Neophilologica 83 (2011), 220–227

"Kommunikativ ambivalens i Joel Petterssons Måndagsmorgon", Avain, no. 3 2011, 38–47 [Communicative Ambivalence in Joel Pettersson’s Monday Morning]

"Romanticism and Modernity. Master Narrative and the Ideological Construction of Literary History", Constructions of German Romanticism. Six Studies – Konstruktionen der deutschen Romantik. Sechs Studien, Historia litterarum 29, ed. Mattias Pirholt (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2011), 153–181

"Uncanny Writing: Shock Impression and the Phenomenology of Writing", Carriages and Computers. Aesthetic Technologies in Literature from the 18th to the 21st Century, ed. Gunnar Foss & Yngve Sandhei Jacobsen (Trondheim: Tapir, 2009), 153–163

"A Symbolic-Mystic Monstrosity. Ideology and Representation in Goethes Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre", Goethe Yearbook 16 (2009), 69–99

"En ofullständig modernisering. Georg Brandes läser Esaias Tegnér", Ett möte. Svensk och dansk litterär romantik i ny dialog, Centrum för Danmarksstudier, vol. 20, ed. Gunilla Hermansson & Mads Nygaard Folkmann (Gothenburg/Stockholm: Makadam, 2008), 40–52 [Incomplete Modernization. Georg Brandes reads Esaias Tegnér]

"Överskridande och överträdelse. Om imitationsestetiken i Friedrich Schlegels Lucinde", Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap, no. 2 2008, 25–39 [Transcendence and Transgression. The Aesthetics of Imitation in Friedrich Schlegel’s Lucinde]

"Bild och drift. Ludwig Tiecks Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen", Tolkningens scen, Festskrift till Roland Lysell, main ed. Otto Fischer (Stockholm: Aiolos, 2008), 11–24 [Image and Drive. Ludwig Tieck’s Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen]

"Det orena ödet. Friedrich Hölderlins hymn Der Rhein", Aiolos, no. 27–28 2006, 109–121 [Impure Destiny. Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hymn Der Rhein]

"Naturens fördubbling. Från symbol till allegori i Ola Hanssons tidiga författarskap", Samlaren 126 (2005), 66–96 [The Doubling of Nature. From Symbol to Allegory in Ola Hansson’s Early Writings]

"Ekfras och eskatologi i Birgitta Trotzigs prosapoesi", Litteratur og visuell kultur. Literature and Visual Culture, ed. Dagný Kristjánsdóttir (Reykjávik: Bókmenntafræðistofnun, Háskóla Íslands, 2005), 203–211 [Ekphrasis and Eschatology in Birgitta Trotzig’s Prose Poetry]

"Robert Musil och berättandets ort. En läsning av Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless", Valör, no.2–3 2003, 78–93 [Robert Musil and the Place of Narration. A Reading of Die Verwirrung des Zöglings Törless]