Prof. Dr. Gerd Bayer

Research Interests

Restoration and early modern prose fiction; Holocaust studies; postmodern and contemporary novel; heavy metal studies; epistolarity

 

Research Supervision

I welcome (post)graduate research proposals in the fields listed above.

 

Current Research Projects

  • textual edition of prose fiction from Peter Motteux’s The Gentleman’s Journal (1692-94), with Mariajosé Coperias (University Valencia)
  • Holocaust literature and film
  • David Mitchell’s postcolonial cosmopolitanism
  • epistolarity in early modern prose fiction

  • English and American Studies and Geography, FAU Erlangen: M.A. & 1. Staatsexamen (1998), Dr. phil. (2003), Dr. phil. habil. (2012)
  • PAD Lecturer, University of Toronto (1998-99)
  • Lecturer, Case Western Reserve University (1999-2004)
  • Assistant Professor (tenure track), University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (2004-05)
  • Akademischer Rat/Oberrat (LfbA), Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (2005-13/2013-16)
  • paternity leave (Summer Semester 2009 and Summer Semester 2012)
  • Akademischer Direktor, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (2016-)
  • außerplanmäßiger Professor (2017-)

  • Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin (March 2006)
  • Member, Editorial Advisory Board, The Journal of Popular Culture (USA), 2007-
  • DFG Grant (personal research leave), project on Restoration prose, paratext and genre (October 2009 – March 2012)
  • Participant at Early Career Researchers Forum, European Science Foundation, National University of Ireland, Maynooth (June 2011)
  • Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies (Spain), 2011-
  • Professeur invité, English Department, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (September 2012)
  • Associate Editor, The Journal of Postcolonial Writing (UK), 2012-22
  • Research Fellowship, travel stipend, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin (March 2013)
  • Member, Editorial Board, Anthem Studies in Popular Culture, Anthem Press (UK), 2013-
  • Visiting Professor, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Tallinn (February 2015)
  • Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Studies in World Literature, Ibidem Press, 2015-
  • Elected Member, Academia Europaea (Literary and Theatrical Studies), 2017-
  • Thyssen-Foundation Grant, project on Restoration epistolarity (2018-2023)
  • Member, Editorial Board, Humanities (Switzerland), 2021-
  • Member, Editorial Board, Epistolographia: An International Journal (Italy), 2022-
  • Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies (US), 2023-
  • Peer Reviewer for journals:

The Journal of Popular Culture (USA)
The Journal of Postcolonial Writing (UK)
Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies (Spain)
Callalloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Art and Letters (USA)
Ariel: A Reivew of International English Literature (Canada)
Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch (Germany)
Res musica (Estonia)
Film Quarterly (USA)
Papers on Language and Literature (USA)
Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly (Hawai’i)
LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory (USA)
Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History (UK)
College Literature (USA)
Concentric: Literary & Cultural Studies (Taiwan)
Journal of Modern Jewish Studies (UK)
Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal (Canada)
C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-century Writings (UK)
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: An Intern. Rev. of English Studies (Poland)
Journal of Perpetrator Research (Netherlands)
Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies (Australia)
Genealogy (Switzerland)
Sederi Yearbook (Spain)
Metal Music Studies (UK)
Humanities (Switzerland)
Geosciences (Switzerland)
Imaginaires (France)
Music, Sound and the Moving Image (UK)
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews (UK)
Arts (Switzerland)
Anglistik (Germany)
Journal of Multicultural Discourses (China/UK)
New German Critique (USA)
e-Rea (France)
Philosophies (Japan)
Women’s Writing (USA)

  • Peer Reviewer for publishers: Routledge (USA), Manchester University Press (UK), Cambridge University Press (UK), Bloomsbury (UK), Ibidem Press (Germany), Anthem Press (UK)
  • Peer Reviewer for grant agencies: European Science Foundation, Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, Schweizerischer Nationalfond, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada), National Science Centre (Poland), Humboldt Stiftung
  • Erasmus teaching and staff mobilities to: Roskilde (Denmark), University College Cork (Ireland), Limerick (Ireland), Ulster (Northern Ireland), London (England), Verona (Italy), Wroclaw (Poland), and Poznan (Poland).

Authored Books

Edited Volumes

Journal Articles

Book Contributions

Translations

  • “The Fact/Fiction-Continuum in Bram Presser’s The Book of Dirt.” Valedictory Address, An International Seminar on Trauma Studies, Krishnammal College for Women, Coimbatore, India, October 2023.
  • “Novels, Genres, Histories: The Prose Fictions in Peter Motteux’s Gentleman’s Journal.” International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference, Rome, Italy, July 2023.
  • “Getting Your Letters Wrong: Early Modern Epistolary Writing.” Keynote, Sederi Conference, Valencia, Spain, May 2023.
  • “The Bishop of Exeter vs Benjamin Hoadly: Pamphlets, Controversy, and the Uses of Epistolarity.” Invited talk, Alicante, Spain, May 2023.
  • “Apologies, Gratitude, Consolation: Jenny Diski‘s Writing as Moral Reckoning.” Consolation in Contemporary British and Postcolonial Literatures, ENS Lyon, France, April 2023.
  • “Epistolary Frames: Restoration Fiction and the Making of Lettered Truths.” Anglistentag, Mainz, Germany, September 2022.
  • “Jenny Diski’s Writing, Illness, and Survival.” Invited Keynote. Crossroads III: Risk and Safety, University of Białystok, Poland, October 2021.
  • “The Unapologetic Writer: Jenny Diski, Michel Montaigne, and Marie De Gournay.” Jenny Diski: A Celebration, Oxford University, UK, April 2021.
  • “Faking Factuality: Restoration Fiction and Epistolarity.” Invited Plenary Lecture. Shaping the Novel: New Critical Perspectives on Early Prose Fiction in English, University of Huelva, Spain, October 2019.
  • “The Bishop of Exeter vs. Benjamin Hoadly: Pamphlets, Controversy, and the Uses of Epistolarity.” International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference, Edinburgh, Great Britain, July 2019.
  • “Dramatisierungen im Dokumentarfilm: The Future of Food (2004) und die Affekte der Rezipienten.” Politische Ziele und ästhetische Strategien von Umwelt-Dokumentarfilmen, Bielefeld, May 2019.
  • “The Performance of Gender in Heavy Metal Film.” Invited Lecture. Poznan University, Poland, April 2019.
  • “Restoration Fiction and Epistolary Deceptions.” British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Oxford, Great Britain, January 2019.
  • “On (not) Watching The Lady in Number 6: Digital Holocaust Film, Copyright Infringement, and the Obligation to Remember.” Digital Ontology and Epistemology:  Between Law, Literature and the Visual Arts, Verona, Italy, November 2018.
  • “The Shadow Lines of an Antique Land: Modernist Impressions of Conflict.” The Shadow Lines Thirty Years After: International Conference, Milano & Torino, Italy, November 2018.
  • “Paratextual Poetics of Restoration Fiction.” Invited Lecture. Salzburg University, Austria, June 2018.
  • “Echte Rockstars: Spiel und Ernst in performativen Identitäten des Heavy Metal.” Wissenschaft im Schloss, FAU Erlangen, June 2018.
  • “Fragmentary Transtextuality: David Mitchell and His Novel.” Fragmentary Writing in Contemporary British and American Fiction. Wroclaw, Poland, September 2017.
  • “David Mitchell’s Slade House and the Non-Place of Transmodernism.” Transmodern Perspectives on Contemporary Literatures in English. Zaragoza, Spain, April 2017.
  • “When Earth Matters: Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather.” MatteReality: Historical Trajectories and Conceptual Futures for Material Culture Studies, FRIAS Freiburg, March 2017.
  • “Restoration Fiction and Paratextual Genre Making.” Invited lecture. Bayreuth University, December 2016.
  • “Early Modern Epistolary Culture: Truly Yours or Truly Told?” Invited talk, GRK Erzählen. University of Freiburg, October 2016.
  • “Displaced Memory: The Screened Past of Fugitive Pieces.” BAHS conference. London, UK, July 2016.
  • “The Proto-Gothic in Mary Pix’s The Inhumane Cardinal.” Invited lecture. Stuttgart University, May 2016.
  • “Is This a Novel Which I See Before Me? The Short Narrative Form in David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks.” Creating Coherence in the British Short Story Cycle. Mainz, October 2015.
  • “Nothing to Be Frightened Of: The Literary Correspondence of Two Senior Writers, Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee.” Writers as Readers and Critics of Their Peers. Lyon, France, October 2014.
  • “Grenzenlose Performanz? Lemmy als ‘Lemmy’ in Lemmy (2010).” Welcome to My Nightmare: Metal & Theatralität. Mainz, June 2014.
  • “Colonialists, Clans, and Can-Do Farming: Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather (1968).” European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies. Innsbruck, Austria, April 2014.
  • “The Broken Letters of Early Modern Fiction.” Anglistentag. Konstanz, September 2013.
  • “Spectres of Mob in Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises.” Invited Talk. University of Bamberg, July 2013.
  • “Making the Postmodern English Novel: John Fowles’s Unpublished ‘Tesserae’.” Narrative: An International Conference. Manchester, UK, June 2013.
  • “Sentimental Comedy and the Heavy Metal Documentary.” International Conference on Heavy Metal and Popular Culture. Bowling Green, Ohio, USA, April 2013.
  • “The Paratextual Poetics of Restoration Fiction.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Cleveland, Ohio, USA, April 2013.
  • “The Spirit of Conviviality and the Demons of the Marketplace.” The Famished Road by Ben Okri, ENS Lyon, October 2012.
  • “Perpetual Apocalypses: David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and the Absence of History.” Anglistentag. Potsdam, September 2012.
  • “Refractions of Empire: David Mitchell’s Jacob de Zoet and the Global Search for Humanity.” Interrogating Cosmopolitan Conviviality: New Dimensions of the European in Literature. Bamberg, May 2012.
  • “True Horror and the Proto-Gothic: Mary Pix’s The Inhuman Cardinal.” British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Oxford, Great Britain, January 2012.
  • “Human Nature in Early Modern Travel Writing.” Biennial Meeting of the Defoe Society. University of Worcester, Great Britain, July 2011.
  • “Alter, Tod, Erinnerung: Lebenswertes und Lesenswertes bei Graham Swift und Howard Jacobson.” Erlangen University, June 2011.
  • “Displaced Memory: The Screened Past of Fugitive Pieces.” Invited talk. University of Barcelona, Spain, April 2011.
  • “Fragments of Cultural Memory: The Dormant Past in Jenny Diski’s Then Again.” Beyond Trauma: Narratives of (Im)possibility. University of Zaragoza, Spain, April 2011.
  • “Genre and the Reader in Restoration Fiction.” British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Oxford, Great Britain, January 2011.
  • “Character Speech, Narration, and Individual Identity in Early Modern Prose.” Anglistentag. Saarbrücken, September 2010.
  • “Early Modern Prose and the Place of Poetics.” European Society for the Study of English. Torino, Italy, August 2010.
  • “Making the Early Modern Reader: Restoration Paratexts and Prose Fiction.” Invited talk. Temple University, Philadelphia, April 2010.
  • “Narrating before Narrators: Restoration Prose and the Instance of Speech.” Narrative: An International Conference. Cleveland, Ohio, April 2010.
  • “The Nature of the Other in Restoration Travel Fiction.” British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Oxford, Great Britain, January 2010.
  • “Mockumentary und ethnographischer Film: Eine postkoloniale Umkehrung.” Invited talk. Conference Fälschungen: literarisch, medial. Stuttgart University, December 2009.
  • “Writing the Penitentiary: Voicing Australia’s Colonial Crimes.” Anglistentag. Klagenfurt, Austria, September 2009.
  • “Facing Trauma: Generations, Memory, Cinema.” ACLA Annual Meeting. Boston, March 2009.
  • “Paratext and Genre: Making 17th-Century Readers.” European Society for the Study of English. Aarhus, Denmark, August 2008.
  • “Der Holocaust als Metapher in postmodernen und postkolonialen Romanen.” Ringvorlesung: Literatur und Holocaust. Erlangen University, January 2008.
  •  “Fake Films as Media Criticism.” Anglistentag, Münster, September 2007.
  • “Am Rande der Küste: Insel und Schiffbruch.” Collegium Alexandrinum, Erlangen University, July 2007.
  • “Nature and Science: Indian Novels of Eco-Resistance.” Re-Routing the Postcolonial, University of Northampton, July 2007.
  • “Madness in the City: Crazy Flâneurs in the Writings of Jenny Diski, Tibor Fischer, and Jane Rogers.” Ecritures de Londres dans le roman contemporain de langue anglaise (1950-2007). Sorbonne, France, March 2007.
  • “On Filming Metafiction: John Fowles and the Filmmakers.” European Society for the Study of English. London, August 2006.
  • “Ocean Life and Scientific Discourse: Gunesekera’s Reef as Post-Colonial Resistance.” Narrative: An International Conference. Ottawa, Ontario, April 2006.
  • “Deceptive Narratives: On Truth and the Epistolary Voice.” Narrative: An International Conference. Louisville, Kentucky, April 2005.
  • “Germany’s Reaction to the Holocaust.” Peace Conference. University of Wisconsin – Whitewater, April 2005.
  • “Images of Terror: Documentary Filmmaking and the RAF.” Invited Talk. U of Arizona, Tucson, March 2005.
  • “Violence and the Postcolonial Project in City of God.” Invited Talk. Tulane U, New Orleans, November 2004.
  • “Narrators in Love: Amorous Voices in Zaimoglu and Pirinçci.” German Studies Association Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C., October 2004.
  • “Cinematic Violence and Decorum: Postcolonialism vs. The Spectacular.” Narrative: An International Conference. Burlington, Vermont, April 2004.
  • “Cinematic Cities: Inventing Memories of Past and Future Urban Spaces.” ACLA Annual Meeting. Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 2004.
  • “Urbanism and the Generation X: Douglas Coupland’s Cityscapes.” MLA Annual Meeting. San Diego, California, December 2003.
  • “Zaimoglu’s Kanak Attack: The Cinematic Performance of Violence.” Popular Culture Conference. New Orleans, Louisiana, April, 2003.
  • “Moving to Cyborgia: Virtual Liminality in Cronenberg’s eXistenZ.” ACLA Annual Meeting. San Diego, California, April 2003.
  • “Chaos vs. The Postmodern: A Narrative Differentiation.” Narrative: An International Conference. Berkeley, California, March 2003.
  • “William Morris’s Rural Utopia and the Un-Malling of America.” Society for Utopian Studies Annual Meeting. Orlando, Florida, October 2002.
  • “The Artist in a Foreign Land: Hybridity in Feridun Zaimoglu’s Work.” ACLA Annual Meeting. San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 2002.
  • “Tragicomic Historiography in Tibor Fischer’s Under the Frog.” 20th Century Literature Conference. Louisville, Kentucky, February 2002.
  • “How Nature Writing Questions Science.” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, June 2001.
  • “Eco-Narrative: The Green Chaos of John Fowles’s Art.” Narrative: An International Conference. Houston, Texas, March 2001.
  • “Politics and Politicians: The Representation of Power in African Novels.” The Republic of Letters 2000. Oxford University, England, September 2000.
  • “Native Writers in Canada: Postcolonialism of the 3rd Dimension?” Is Canada Postcolonial? Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, September 2000.
  • “Postcolonial, or what? How to read German Migrantenliteratur.” Invited Talk. U of Texas, Austin, May 2000.
  • “New Symptoms, Same Diagnosis? Themes in Meja Mwangi’s Novels.” 26th Annual Meeting of the African Literature Association. Lawrence, Kansas, April 2000.
  • “Culture and Identity: The Rhetorics of Migrantenliteratur.” Narrative: An International Conference. Atlanta, Georgia, April 2000.
  • “Pop or Sub? Struggles Within Culture.” German Studies: The Future of the Disciplines (graduate student conference). University of Toronto, Canada, March 2000.
  • “‘A sterile promontory:’ Jane Rogers’s and Jenny Diski’s Views of the Future.” Interdisciplinary Humanities Reflections on the Future. Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, May 1999.
  • “Islands, Shipwrecks, and the Lost Domain: John Fowles and Environmental Ethics.” ACLA Annual Meeting. Montréal, Canada, April 1999.

  • Christof Beer, “Jugendliche Entfaltungs- und Gestaltungsräume im britischen Drama der 1950er und 1960er Jahre.” (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2021)
  • Jaroslaw Jasenowski, “Performing Factuality in John Dunton’s Athenian Cosmos: The Rites of Truth.” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
  • Anna Gruber, “Time and the (Post)colonial Self: Oppressive Uses of Time and the Construction of Postcolonial Identities.” (2024)