Prof. Dr. Claudia Nitschke

Studium:
2011 Habilitation an der Universität Tübingen (Venia Legendi für Neue Deutsche Literatur)
1999-2003 Promotion an der Universität Tübingen (gefördert von der Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes)
1992-1998 Studium der Neuen Deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, Mittelalterlichen und Neuen Geschichte an der Universität Tübingen (gefördert von der Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes)

Wissenschaftliche Anstellungen bzw. Tätigkeiten:

Durham University, School of Modern Languages and Cultures
seit 2016   Professor of German
2015-2016 Reader in German
2013-2015 Senior Lecturer in German
2011-2013 University Lecturer in German

University of Oxford
2005-2010 Stipendiary Lecturer/Praelector in German, Lincoln College (DAAD)
2005-2011 Lecturer in German, Somerville College

Universität Tübingen
2003-2004 Vertretung wissenschaftliche Assistenz (Lehrstuhl Prof. Klaus-Detlef Müller, Deutsches Seminar)

Wichtige wissenschaftliche Funktionen und Mitgliedschaften:
seit 2017   Mitglied des AHRC Peer Review College
seit 2017   Mitglied des Editorial Board der Journal Publications of the English Goethe Society und des Councils der English Goethe Society
2017-2018 Associate Director of the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, Durham

Property Genealogies and Lawscapes in German Enlightenment Literature

My project focuses on notions of property in the long eighteenth century: recent crises have thrown the notion of private and public ‘property’ – as a set of rules governing access to and control of land or other material (and intellectual) resources – into sharper relief. A closer look at eighteenth-century literature, in particular Enlightenment texts, provides fresh insights into the history of property and, in so doing, demonstrates that even in a period of the accelerated establishment, enforcement, and sedimentation of western property laws, property – as a relation between ‘persons’ and ‘things’ – appeared far less monolithic and teleological than one might retrospectively expect. The complex dynamics of property become particularly visible in texts that explicitly grapple with two distinct contexts: the complex globalized framework of Enlightenment (understood in particular in the broader context of empire) and the equally complex notion of ‘nature’ (analyzed in the broader context of current environmental studies). Based on this, the project seeks to illustrate two points: first, how certain Enlightenment texts sustain and subvert prominent property theories; second, how this intervention is driven by a specific engagement with nature.