Chair of British Literature and Culture

Prof. Dr. Christoph Heyl

FRHistS, FSA Scot


Room:       R11 T04 C08
Tel.:          +49 201 183-4711
Fax:          +49 201 183-4713
e-mail:      christoph.heyl@uni-due.de

Office hours:

Semester:                       Semester break:
Tuesday 4 to 5 pm.        by appointment

Curriculum Vitae

2011 – present

Full professor at the university of Duisburg-Essen
(Chair of British Literature and Culture).

October 2012 - September 2014: Head of Department

2006 – 2011

Temporary appointments at several German universities: stand-in for Ratsstellen at Otto Friedrich-Universität, Bamberg and Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz; visiting professor at the University of Regensburg and Humboldt-Universität, Berlin (twice).

2006

Habilitation: Worlds of Wonders: Sammelndes Schreiben und schreibendes Sammeln im England des 17. Jahrhunderts (Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main). Post-doctoral thesis about connections between the culture of collecting (cabinets of curiosities), literature and the visual arts in the seventeenth century.

From 2001

Lecturer (C1) at Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main.

2000

Ph. D.: A Passion for Privacy: Untersuchungen zur Genese der bürgerlichen Privatsphäre in London, ca. 1660-1800 (Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main). Thesis on the rise of the private sphere in eighteenth-century London and the impact of emerging concepts of privacy on literature and art of the period.

Teaching post (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) at the University of Frankfurt. Extended stays in London on a regular basis to do research for Ph. D. and Habilitation (all in all several years), attached to the German Historical Institute and the School of Advanced Study, University College London. Research grants awarded by German Historical Institute, German Academic Exchange Service and other funding bodies.

1993

Staatsexamen in English and History (Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main).

From 1986

Studied English and History at Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main and the University of Reading

1985-86

Non-military national service

Membership in Learned Societies and Other Associations

Society for Scottish Studies in Europe: Vice-President and co-founder

Royal Historical Society, London: Fellow

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Edinburgh: Fellow

Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft Frankfurt am Main e.V.: Member of the Board

Dagmar Westberg-Universitätsfonds der Deutsch-Britischen Gesellschaft Frankfurt am Main e.V. (a funding body supporting British Studies at the University of Frankfurt): Member of the Board

Georg Simmel Centre for Metropolitan Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin: Associate Member

Deutscher Anglistenverband

British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

ADEF / German Association for the Study of British History and Politics

Research Interests

(NB: I would be happy to supervise theses related to topics listed below.)

British Literature and Culture, mostly from the Early Modern period to the present. Major research projects – both completed and active – in 17th, 18th and 19th/20th literature and culture. More specifically:

Earliest Beginnings to Middle Ages

  • London’s cultural and literary history.

The 16th and 17th Century

  • The culture of collecting (cabinets of curiosities) and related phenomena in English literature. Texts as collections, collections as texts. Interactions between collecting, early global exploration and early scientific research. Transformations of obsolete knowledge. (Specific collectors: the Tradescants, Sir Thomas Browne, the Royal Society).
  • London in the seventeenth century. The Great Plague and the Great Fire; pre- and post-Fire architecture.
  • Literary and early scientific prose (Robert Burton, Sir Thomas Browne).
  • Diaries (Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn, Celia Fiennes etc.) .
  • Early journalism (John Dunton).
  • Poetry (the Elizabethan sonnet; the Metaphysical poets, especially John Donne and Andrew Marvell; Rochester); epic poetry (John Milton).
  • Drama (Shakespeare; Congreve, Vanbrugh, Wycherley).
  • The visual arts (especially: Wenceslas Hollar).

The 18th Century

  • The rise of the private sphere in eighteenth-century London: material culture and middle-class mentalities. The private sphere and literature: the novel (Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, Cleland), the diary (Boswell), journalism (Addison and Steele; The Gentleman’s Magazine, The London Magazine), conduct books. The private sphere and the visual arts: conversation pieces; Hogarth’s Modern Moral Subjects.
  • Gender roles, writing and publishing in eighteenth-century England (Montagu, Seward, Leapor / Pope, Gay, Swift, Smart).
  • Eighteenth-century Edinburgh, its literary and cultural history. Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, John Kay. Edinburgh as the Athens of the North. Scotland after 1746.
  • Neo-classicism.
  • Taste and the senses in the eighteenth century.
  • The pre-history of English crime fiction: textual and visual narratives of crime
  • Eighteenth-century music and musical aesthetics. Intermediality: text and music. George Frederic Handel’s oratorios. Ballad operas and cantatas. Exoticism, primitivism and the perception of Scottish music.
  • Intermediality: text and image. Hogarth and Lichtenberg.

The 19th Century

  • Romanticism, tourism and travel literature.
  • Romantic poetry: Byron, Heine, Pushkin.
  • Anglo-German literary and cultural relations.
  • History and literature: the historical novel. Scott.
  • Crime fiction; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
  • Science and literature: Charles Darwin and Lewis Carroll.
  • Journalism and social criticism: Mayhew.
  • Intermediality: authors and illustrators in the nineteenth century (Dickens / Cruickshank)
  • Intermediality: text and music. Gilbert & Sullivan. Music hall and pantomime.

The 20th and the 20th Century

  • German- and Yiddish-speaking emigrants and refugees in London, 1848-1945. Literatures of migration and exile. (Mayhew, Fontane, Zangwill, Kerr etc.) Identity and perceptions / depictions of urban space. Mental mapping and social topographies. Assimilation and cultural memory. Orientalism / urban exoticism: London as an oriental city.
  • James Joyce. Modernism.
  • Scottish crime fiction (Ian Rankin and others).
  • Literature, culture and identity in post-devolution Scotland. The construction of a Scottish diaspora.

Publications and Work in Progress

a) Books:

Ph.D. thesis: A Passion for Privacy. Untersuchungen zur Genese der bürgerlichen Privatsphäre in London, 1660-1800. Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Historischen Instituts London, Bd. 56 (München: Oldenbourg, 2004)
574 pp. Large sections of this book are available on Google Books.

Just published:
 
Harald A. Mieg and Christoph Heyl (eds.), Stadt. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Stuttgart: Verlag J. B. Metzler),             ISBN: 978-3-476-02385-8
For further details, see: Metzler Verlag

Habilitationsschrift: Worlds of Wonders: Schreibendes Sammeln und sammelndes Schreiben in England, ca. 1600-1700. Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Historischen Instituts London, 589 pp. (Munich: Oldenbourg, forthcoming).

 

 Books: Work in Progress:

Monograph: German- and Yiddish-speaking emigrants and refugees in London, 1848-1945.

Proceedings: Sigrid Rieuwerts, Christoph Heyl and Shona Allan (Eds.): Scotland-Scot(t)land. Proceedings of the First Conference of the Society for Scottish Studies in Europe (2011).

Monograph: London – eine kleine literarische Kulturgeschichte von den Anfängen bis in die Gegenwart

 

 b) Articles:

„עונש בכפר – אופנה בעיר ” („Punishment in the Country – Fashion in the City”). In: משקפײמ (Mishkafayim Art Quarterly), No. 33, 3/1998 (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem), pp. 28-31.

When they are veyl’d to be seene: The Metamorphosis of the Mask in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century London” in: Tseelon, E. (Hrsg.), Masquerade and Identities (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 114-134.

When they are veyl’d to be seene” erschien gleichfalls in: Entwistle, J., Wilson, E. (Hrsg.), Body Dressing. Dress, Body, Culture (Oxford: Berg, 2001), pp. 121-143.

We are not at Home: Protecting Middle-Class Domestic Privacy in Post-Fire London” in: The London Journal, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2002), pp. 12-33.

Deformity’s Filthy Fingers: Cosmetics and the Plague in: (Anon.), Artificiall Embellishments, or Art’s best Directions how to preserve Beauty, or procure it (Oxford, 1665)” in: Glaisyer, N.; Pennell, S. (Hrsg.), Didactic Literature in England 1500-1800: Experience Constructed (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 137-151.

„Einhorn und Indianermantel” in: Spektrum der Wissenschaft 4/2004, Sonderheft Forschung und Technik der Renaissance, pp. 12-15.

Whodunnit und who are we? Das Thema der schottischen Identität in Ian Rankins neuem Roman Fleshmarket Close“ in: Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, LIII, Jahrgang 2005, Heft 4, pp. 369-383.

Meyney, Maummenark, Billingbing, Banana: Textualität, exotische Klangmagie und Imagination im Kuriositätenkabinett der Tradescants” in: Lozar, A. and Felfe, R. (Eds.),  Frühneuzeitliche Sammelpraxis und Literatur (Berlin: Lukas, 2006), pp. 194-215.

Lusus Naturae und Lusus Scientiae im ältesten öffentlich zugänglichen  Kuriositäten­kabinett Englands“ in: Cardanus. Jahrbuch für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Nr. 6, 2006, pp. 25-44.

„Gentleman“ in: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit, Vol.. 4: FriedeGutsherrschaft (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2006), 2 pp, q.v.

„Dame Nature’s Imagination: Creation, Creativity and Gender” in: Zwierlein, Anne-Julia (Ed.), Gender and Creation. Surveying Gendered Myths of Creativity, Authority and Authorship (Heidelberg: Winter, 2010), pp. 65-84.

"London as a Latter-Day Rome? From Neo-Classicist to Post-Colonial Urban Imagination and Beyond, 1666-1941" in: Kinzel, Ulrich (Hrsg.), London. Urban Space and Cultural Experience. Literatur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, Special Issue, XLII, 2/3, 2010, pp. 103-126.

 „God’s terrible Voice in the City: Anmerkungen zur Rezeption des Great Fire of London (1666) in: Rößler, Hole and Koppenleitner, Vera (Eds.), Urbs Incensa – Ästhetische Transformationen der brennenden Stadt. Schriftenreihe des kunsthistorischen Max Planck-Instituts in Florenz, Bd. 10 (München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011), pp. 23-44.

„Horrid Howling or Sublime Sensation? Reactions to the Scottish Bagpipes and Eighteenth-Century Aesthetic Theory” in: Wagner, Peter and Ogée, Frédéric (Eds.), Taste and the Senses in the Eighteenth Century (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2011), pp. 145-163.

„Ungrateful Odours, Sullying Toch: Excursions into the Dubious Realms of Trivia and Cloacina” in: Wagner, Peter and Ogée, Frédéric (Eds.), Taste and the Senses in the Eighteenth Century (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2011), pp. 269-282.

„Horticultural, Panoramic and Peripatetic Modes of Identity Construction in Eighteenth-Century England” in: Anja Müller and Isabel Karremann (Eds.), Mediating Identities in Eighteenth-Century England, 20 S. (Ashgate, 2011), pp. 205-209.

„Staging Scottishness: The Homecoming Scotland 2009 Initiative and Post-Devolution Perceptions of Scottish Culture, Literature and Identity” in: Frenk, Joachim and Steveker, Lena (Edd.), Anglistentag 2010 Saarbrücken: Proceedings (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2011), pp. 39-56. www.wvttrier.de/top/proceedings_2010_wvt.pdf

“Wenn die Menschen plötzlich tugendhaft wären, so müßten viele Tausende verhungern: Kriminalität in London zur Zeit Lichtenbergs” in: Joost, Ulrich (Ed.), Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch 2011 (Heidelberg: Winter, 2012), pp. 101-116.

„William Hogarth, Science and Human Nature” in: Haekel, Ralf and Blackmore, Sabine (Ed.), Discovering the Human: Life Sciences and the Arts in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century (Göttingen: V&R, 2013), pp. 29-52.

"Die Stadt als kultureller Raum" in: Harald Mieg and Christoph Heyl, Stadt. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013), pp. 199-201.

„Stadt und Literatur“ in: Harald Mieg and Christoph Heyl, Stadt. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013), pp. 222-243.

„Privatsphäre, Öffentlichkeit und urbane Modernität. London als historischer Präzedenzfall“ in: ” in: Harald Mieg and Christoph Heyl, Stadt. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013), pp. 271-282.

“Barometz, Dodo, Jubjub, Heffalump: Vom Heimischwerden bizarrer Tiere in der englischen Literatur“ in: M. Ulrich und D. de Rentiis (edd.), Animalia in Fabula (Bamberg, 2014), pp. 29-49.

“Handel’s Oratorios and the Taste of Eighteenth-Century London Audiences: Solomon as a Box Office Disaster” in: Frédéric Ogée and Peter Wagner (edd.), Taste and the Senses in the Eighteenth Cebtury IV (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2014 / forthcoming), 17 pp.

„Between Closet and Tea-Table: Domesticity, Leisure and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century London“ in: Hill-Zenk, Anja and Sprang, Felix (Eds.), Leisure and the Making of Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Europe, 25 S. (Ashgate: forthcoming).

 “Private Narratives Beyond the Core Canon: William Hogarth’s Conversation Pieces” in: Bernd W. Krysmanski (ed.), 250 Years On: New Light on William Hogarth (Hildesheim,Zurich andNew York: Olms, 214 / forthcoming), 16 pp.

 

c) Reviews:

 

Biagoli, Mario, Galileo’s Instruments of Credit. Telescopes, Instruments, Secrecy (Chicago, 2006) in: Sehepunkte 7 (2007, Nr. 10) (ISSN 1618-6168), URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2007/10/pdf/9938.pdf

Snook, Edith, Women, Reading and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern England (Aldershot, 2005) in: Sehepunkte 7 (2007, Nr. 10) (ISSN 1618-6168), URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2007/10/pdf/12084.pdf

Edwards, Clive, Turning Homes into Houses. A History of the Retailing and Consumption of Domestic Furnishings (Aldershot, 2005) in: Sehepunkte 7 (2007, Nr. 10) (ISSN 1618-6168), URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2007/10/pdf/12085.pdf

Prein, Philipp, Bürgerliches Reisen im 19. Jahrhundert (Münster, 2005) in: Historische Zeitschrift No. 286 (2008), pp. 221-222.

Sutherland, Gill, Faith, Duty and the Power of Mind. The Cloughs and their Circle, 1820-1960 (Cambridge, 2006) in: Historische Zeitschrift Nr. 286 (2008), pp. 522-524.

Schwalm, Helga, Das Eigene und das Fremde. Biographische Identitätsentwürfe in der englischen Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts (Würzburg, 2007) in: Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, LVI, 2008, Heft 4, pp. 403-404.

Manz, Stefan, Schulte-Beerbühl, Margrit und Davis, John R., Migration and Transfer from Germany to Britain, 1660-1914 (München, 2007) in: Angermion, Vol. I (2008), pp. 183-187.

Chalcraft, Anna und Viscardi, Judith, Strawberry Hill: Horace Walpole’s Gothic Castle (London, 2007) in: Journal for the Study of British Cultures, Vol. 15/2 (2008), pp. 192-194.

Cowen Orlin, Lena, Locating Privacy in Tudor London (Oxford, 2007) in: Journal for the Study of British Cultures, Vol. 16/1 (2009), pp. 98-99.

Huck, Christian, Fashioning Society, or, The Mode of Modernity. Observing Fashion in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Würzburg, 2010) in: Journal for the Study of British Cultures, forthcoming

 

d) Miscellaneous

„Die Playfords und ihre Zeit”. Essay on amateur music-making in early modern London, sleeve notes, CD Oranges and Lemons. John Playford’s English Dancing Master (Coviello Classics COV20709, 2007), pp. 3-5 and 29-31.

Theodora und das Londoner Publikum: Versuch einer Rekonstruktion“ Sleeve notes, CD Georg Friedrich Händel, Theodora. An Oratorio. HWV 68. Junge Kantorei / Frankfurter Barockorchester (Naxos MB 10024, 2010), pp. 11-15.

Current Lectures and Seminars Winter 2014/15

Mo 16-17.00, Lecture:

V - Introduction to Literary Studies (einstündige Einführung) (Mod. II)

Prof. Dr. Christoph Heyl

Modul: II, A/Aa

Room: S04 T01 A01

The "Introduction to Literary Studies" consists of this lecture and the accompanying "Grundkurse", each one hour per week.

The lecture will cover the following areas: (1) What is "literature"? Why study literature? (2) Overview of British and American literary history and the history of New Literatures in English (3) Introduction to the major genres of literature (poetry, drama, narrative) (4)  Introduction to Literary Theory (6) How to write a "Hausarbeit".

This course will be a helpful introduction for all further courses in literary and cultural studies throughout your further studies at our university. The obligatory written test ("Klausur") required for completion of the "Introduction to Literary Studies" will cover both the lecture and the accompanying "Grundkurse". A Reader will be available from the copy-shop Reckhammerweg well in advance of the semester. You also need to buy (and read) in the following editions (and none other):

William Shakespeare (Hrsg: Stephen Orgel), The Tempest. Oxford World’s Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-953590-3

John Steinbeck (Hrsg: Susan Shillinglaw), Cannery Row. Penguin Modern Classics. SSBN-13: 987-0-141-18508-8

Michael Meyer, English and American Literatures. 4. Auflage. UTB Basics. ISBN-13: 798-3825-235505

Besondere Hinweise: Dies ist die Vorlesung zum Grundkurs Literaturwissenschaft "Introduction to Literary Studies". Teilnahme ist Pflicht. Eine Anmeldung zur Vorlesung ist nicht nötig; für die Grundkursgruppen ist eine Anmeldung verpflichtend.

Requirements: regular attendance, reading the assigned texts, active participation in the “Grundkursgruppen”, and a final exam.

 

Di 10-12.00 Advanced Seminar:

The Restoration: Literature, Culture and Everyday Life in a Period of Change

Prof. Dr. Christoph Heyl

Modul: VIII/1, G/Ga, BP3, VI

Room: R11 T05 C84

After a dramatic revolutionary period which saw the beheading of the king, the monarchy was re-established with the return of Charles II from exile in 1660. This new beginning was in itself a kind of cultural revolution. Gone were the days of a Puritan government that had enforced a strict morality. King Charles II’s mistresses became famous, the Earl of Rochester wrote incredibly bawdy poetry, and Samuel Pepys recorded his experiences and escapades in his famous diary. Fashions became more and more exuberant and colourful. The theatres, which had been closed during the revolutionary period, reopened, and for the first time there were actresses on stage. The period known as the Restoration was full of excitement – including the sort of excitement one would rather do without. Life in London was disrupted by two major disasters, the Great Plague of 1664, which killed of a large part of London’s population, and the Great Fire of 1666 which destroyed most of the City of London.

In this seminar, we shall discuss key aspects of the literature, culture (including architecture, art and music) and everyday life of the Restoration. A reader will be made available well in advance of the semester (available from the usual place in Reckhammerweg).

Requirements: regular attendance, reading the assigned texts, active participation, and written work according to your particular Studienordnung. As always: read, think, enjoy (!!), annotate (!) and look things up if necessary.

 

Di 14-16.00, Advanced Seminar:

Alexander Pope

Prof. Dr. Christoph Heyl

Modul: VIII/1, G/Ga, BP2, BP3, VI

Room:  R09 T07 D33

This seminar will give you an opportunity to get acquainted with the works of a major eighteenth-century author. His poems cover an impressive range of topics including how to write literary texts, a very odd case of hair fetishism, the characters of women, architecture and what to do with one’s money. He wrote absolutely ferocious satires; these include The Dunciad, a mock-heroic poem describing, among other things, the reign of the goddess of Dullness and the bizarre rituals practised by her followers. His poems were regarded as models of elegance and formal accomplishment; at the same time, they can be full of fierce humour and bizarre surprises.

Requirements: regular attendance, reading the assigned texts, active participation, and written work according to your particular Studienordnung. As always: read, think, enjoy (!!), annotate (!) and look things up if necessary. The first text to be discussed is The Rape of the Lock. Please buy the following edition: Alexander Pope (ed.: Pat Rogers), Major Works (Oxford World´s Classics, ISBN 978-0-19-953761-7).

 

Mi 10-12.00, Advanced Seminar:

How to be a Lady/Gentleman (and Many Other Things Besides): Conduct Books

Prof. Dr. Christoph Heyl

Modul: VIII/1, G/Ga, BP3, VI

Room: R12 R03 A93

Conduct books (i.e. books that explained how to do things and how to behave in accordance to one’s social position, for instance as a lady, as a gentleman, as a well-mannered child or as a servant) became very popular from the late seventeenth century on. They remained so well into the Victorian era and even beyond. In this seminar, we shall study this type of text. Conduct books and advice literature in a wider sense can be read as historical sources; they can tell us a lot about the development of gender roles or about changing attitudes to children and childhood. At the same time, the authors of such texts frequently employed strategies borrowed from literary texts such as the novel.

A reader with material from the seventeenth century to the Victorian era will be made available well in advance of the semester (available from the usual place in Reckhammerweg).

Requirements: regular attendance, reading the assigned texts, active participation, and written work according to your particular Studienordnung. As always: read, think, enjoy (!!), annotate (!) and look things up if necessary.

 

Mi 14-16.00, Advanced Seminar:

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: English Musical Humour from the Seventeenth Century to Monty Python

Prof. Dr. Christoph Heyl

Modul: VIII/1, G/Ga, BP3, VI

Room: R11 T07 C94

There appears to be a specifically British tradition of British musical humour. In this seminar, we are going to look at the emergence and developments of this tradition. We shall study (and listen to) seventeenth-century songs, the Beggar’s Opera (by Gay and Pepusch) and similar eighteenth-century works, The Pirates of Penzance, Ruddigore and The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan, music hall songs of the 19th century and material of much more recent origin. You will meet any number of funny singing pirates, Japanese princesses, ghosts, sorcerers, men and women from London’s East End … and of course a not altogether serious character called Brian singing about looking on the bright side of life while being executed.

A reader will be made available well in advance of the semester (available from the usual place in Reckhammerweg).

Requirements: regular attendance, reading the assigned texts, active participation, and written work according to your particular Studienordnung. As always: read, think, enjoy (!!), annotate (!) and look things up if necessary.

 

 

Doctoral Colloquium in Literary and Cultural Studies

Di 18 - 19.30, dates to be announced,

Room: T12 V2 D20 oder Casino, vierzehntäglich.

Prof. Dr. Christoph Heyl

(Buchenau/Gurr/Heyl/Raab)

This colloquium serves as a central forum of discussion, deliberation and debate for all doctoral candidates working on a dissertation in literary and/or cultural studies - regardless of whether your focus is on North America, Great Britain or another Anglophone region. In addition to discussing individual projects we will deal with more general issues relating to dissertations, academic conferences, and the profession.

Registration: Please sign up with your advisor ahead of time; additionally send an email to frauke.warmbier@uni-due.de.