Dr. Eleoma Bodammer

Reader in German Studies

German Section
Department of European Languages and Cultures
School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Email: eleoma.bodammer@ed.ac.uk
Web: Edinburgh Research Explorer profile

Street: Room 3.04
50 George Square
City: Edinburgh
Post code: EH8 9LH

Due to the corona virus (Covid-19) pandemic, there will be no further in-person Office Hours.
I am on sabbatical from 1 July 2021 until 31 December 2021.

Biography

Background

Dr Bodammer completed her BA Hons in German Studies at the University of Manchester and continued at the University of Manchester, studying for a British Academy funded PhD, which was awarded in 2000. In 2001, she then took up her post as lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2012 and Reader in 2019. She was Head of German from 2013 to 2016.

Qualifications

BA Hons German Studies (University of Manchester)

PhD (University of Manchester)

Responsibilities & affiliations

Administrative Roles

Chair of Exams for German (from Jan 2019 to June 2021)
Course Organiser of the 4th year option course 'Goethe & Schiller'
Course Organiser of the 2nd year option course 'Researching Disability in Literature and Society'
Year 4 Convenor (from July 2020 to June 2021)
Course Organiser of the third year course German 3 Language (from July 2020 to June 2021)
Course Organiser of the fourth year course German Language Paper 1 (from July 2020 to June 2021)
Course Organiser of the fourth year course German Language Paper 2 (from Jan 2021 to June 2021)
Course Organiser of the fourth year course Oral for German (from July 2020 to June 2021)
Personal Tutor

Membership of trusts/boards

Member of the Editorial Board of The Edinburgh German Yearbook
Member of the Cross-Party Group on Germany in the Scottish Parliament
Member of the Editorial Board of the Peter Lang book series Disability, Media, Culture

Membership of Societies/Networks

Women in German Studies (WIGS)
English Goethe Society (EGS)
Lessing Akademie
Association for German Studies in Great Britain and Ireland (AGS, formerly CUTG)
German Studies Association (GSA) (in 2019)
Scottish Disability Studies Network
Scottish Network for Nineteenth-Century European Cultures (SNNEC)
E. T. A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft

Committee roles

LLC People and Equalities Committee member
LLC Steering Group on Decolonising the Curriculum

Teaching & PhD supervision

Undergraduate teaching

Current Undergraduate Teaching:

First year German literature lectures on Goethe's early poetry
DELC Course: Crime and Detection in Literature (Hoffmann's Mademoiselle de Scudery)
Second year German course: Researching Disability in Literature and Society
German 4 Language Paper 1: fourth year - German Précis writing and German to English Translation
German 4 Language Paper 2: fourth year - German to English Literary Translation
Goethe and Schiller (third and fourth year literature option)
German 1B Language: first year written German language course

Postgraduate teaching

MSc Translation Studies: Portfolio of Written Translation Exercises in German

MSc by Research in German

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

Dr Bodammer is interested in supervising PhDs and MScs by Research on Goethe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, the German Sturm und Drang, German Romanticism, German travel writing (1750s to 1830s), disability in German literature (1750s to 1830s), and German translations of Scottish literature (esp. in 18th/19th centuries ).

Current PhD students supervised

Joint Supervisor for PhD student Karin Bosshard: Linguistic heterogeneity in Scottish novels in translation: Translating A Book of Death and Fish by Ian Stephen

Second Supervisor for PhD student Judith Drake: The Case of Disability Theatre in Contemporary Scotland

First Supervisor for MSc by Research student Cameron Cross: The Disabled Enabler: Leprosy, Impairment and Christian Miraculous Intervention in Hartmann von Aue's 'Der arme Heinrich'.

Past PhD students supervised

PhD

First Supervisor for Joanna Neilly, ‘The Image of the Orient in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s works’ (funded by the AHRC), awarded 2013

MSc by Research in German

First Supervisor for Thomas Reid, 'Boredom in German Romanticism' (funded by the Dr Georg Heuser Memorial Scholarship), awarded 2016

Research

Research summary

Eleoma Bodammer's (née Joshua) research interests are German literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with focuses on disability narratives in the German Romantic era, Anglo-German cultural relations, literary landscapes and literary translation. She has published a book on Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg (1750-1819) and the German Romantics. Other publications include journal articles and book chapters on Goethe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Heinrich Heine, Friedrich Schiller and Robert Burns. She has also edited two volumes of the Edinburgh German Yearbook on the themes of cultural exchange and disability in German literature, theatre and film.

Current research interests

Disability in the works of E. T. A. Hoffmann.

Past research interests

• Thomas Carlyle’s life mask of Goethe • The reception of Robert Burns in Austria and German women translators of Burns's poems • The Brocken Inn poetry albums • Stolberg's and Schiller's 'Kassandra' odes • Representations of disability in E. T. A. Hoffmann's 'Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober' • Literary journeys in the Harz Mountains

Knowledge exchange

Dr. Bodammer has given talks to non-specialists internationally, in Austria, Germany, Italy and Belgium, on dialect poetry and the reception of Robert Burns in Austria, German women translators of Burns, and on Friedrich Stolberg’s literary legacy and his conversion to Catholicism.

Affiliated research centres

DELC Research Strand: Cultural Encounters/Cultural Dialogues

Research activities

Disability in E. T. A. Hoffmann's Des Vetters Eckfenster Nov 2021
External Examiner for Heriot Watt University 26 Nov 2020 to Mar 2021
External Examiner appointment at the University of Manchester 30 Oct 2020 to 31 Dec 2024
Wales Literature Exchange and Literature Across Frontiers International Advisory Board Member 2 Oct 2020
Mini-series: Addressing exclusion and underrepresentation through boundary-pushing course design 30 Sep 2020
Curriculum as a site for social justice and anti-discrimination 21 Sep 2020 to 28 Sep 2020
Dostoevsky’s Storm and Stress: Notes from Underground and the Psychological Foundations of Utopia 17 Apr 2020
Disability Workshop 30 Oct 2019
Giving and Responding to Feedback — A Two-Way Street. 29 Apr 2019
American Comparative Literature Association 6 Jul 2017 to 9 Jul 2017

View all 16 activities on Research Explorer

Projects

Project activity

Dr. Bodammer is the co-research strand leader of the DELC research strand "Cultural Encounters/Cultural Dialogues".

The aim of the strand is to interrogate the ways in which cultural encounters and cultural dialogues take place. It will study different modes of cultural and intercultural encounters; the interaction between cultural and linguistic phenomena; national canons; travel literature; translation, film adaptations and transposition of literary texts through performance; literature and the history of ideas; literature and visual arts; intertextuality; cultural identities and symbolic representations; interpretational forms through an international and cross-cultural perspective.

https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/research/research-centres/research-strand-cultural-encounters-dialogues

Past project grants

Dr. Bodammer was awarded a highly prized AHRC research grant of £81,664 as principal and sole investigator of the research project “Scottish-German Cultural Exchange”. The research conducted full-time in the academic year 2011-12 uncovered the acquisition history of Thomas Carlyle’s Goethe Life Mask and examined the German-language reception of Robert Burns in Austria.

As principal investigator, she has held five Carnegie Trust Research grants worth £8,760 for research conducted between 2005 and 2011.
As principal investigator, she received a Moray Endowment Fund grant of £1,400 in 2011.
As co-investigator, she was awarded a British Academy Small Research Grant of £2,289.50 in 2007.
She received a grant of £1,500 from the University of Edinburgh's Development Trust grant in 2006 to cover the travel costs of conference delegates for the two day international conference that she hosted on Cultural Exchange in German Literature.

• Overall total for external grants to date: £93,584.86
• Overall total for internal grants to date: £8,861.03

Publications

Disability Studies and new directions in Eighteenth-century German Studies (7 pages) 28 Apr 2020 In: Goethe Yearbook, vol. 28, pp. 307-313
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Accepted/In press)
Translating Religion: German women translators of Robert Burns's 'The Cotter's Saturday Night' in the Nineteenth Century (22 pages) Apr 2019 In: German Life and Letters, vol. 72, pp. 129-150
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.12224
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Das Jenaer Romantikertreffen im November 1799: Dokumentation und Analyse. Nebst einer kritischen Edition des Epikurisch Glaubensbekenntniß von Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. By Christiane Klein. 2 Jan 2019 In: Modern Language Review, vol. 114, pp. 161-164
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published)
German-language reception of Robert Burns in Austria (22 pages) 19 Jun 2014
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published)
Writing on the Brocken, on the Brocken: The Poetry of the Inn's Albums (23 pages) 19 Mar 2013 In: Publications of the English Goethe Society, vol. 82, pp. 42-64
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/0959368312Z.00000000016
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Thomas Carlyle’s Goethe Mask – Revisited (23 pages) Jul 2012 In: German Life and Letters, vol. 65, pp. 295-317
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0483.2012.01573.x
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Thomas Carlyle's Goethe Mask Revisited 2012
Research output: Contribution to Conference › Conference contribution (Published)
‘Stolbergs und Schillers Kassandrarufe: Gedichte politischer und prophetischer Wahrnehmung’ (14 pages) 2011 In: Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, vol. 61, pp. 131-44
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
‘Illusional Optics: Motifs of Mental Image Projection in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Literary Narratives’ (10 pages) 2010
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published)
Misreading the Body: E. T. A. Hoffmann's Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober (18 pages) 2010 In: Edinburgh German Yearbook, vol. 4, pp. 39-56
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Edinburgh German Yearbook 4: Disability in German Literature, Film, and Theater (246 pages) 2010
Research output: › Book (Published)
‘Literary Harz Journeys. The Perception of the Harz in the Early Nineteenth Century’ (18 pages) 2008
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published)
Edinburgh German Yearbook 1: Cultural Exchange in German Literature (214 pages) 2007
Research output: › Book (Published)
Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg and the German Romantics 2005
Research output: › Book (Published)

View all 14 publications on Research Explorer

Conferences

Conference details

2019 Paper: 'Disability in E. T. A. Hoffmann's "Des Vetters Eckfenster" (1822)', German Studies Association conference, Portland, Oregon, USA (Panel: Dis/ability in German-Language Culture)

2019 Invited speaker: 'Teaching Disability'. Association of German Studies (AGS) Annual Conference, University of Bristol. Panel: Teaching Alterity. Roundtable panel.

2019 Invited paper: ‘Translating Religion: German Women Translators of Burns’s “The Cotter’s Saturday Night”’ at the Hyperion Symposium, UoE

2017 Paper: ‘German Women Translators of Robert Burns, 1802-1845’, American Comparative Literature Association conference, Utrecht

2013 Paper: ‘Biography as Cultural Transfer: Friedrich Stolberg’s Leben Alfred des Grossen (1815)’, Conference on King Alfred and Barbarossa in British and German literature, University of Nottingham

2012 Paper: ‘Thomas Carlyle’s Goethe Mask Revisited’, Carlyle Conference, University of Edinburgh

2012 Paper: 'The Reception of Robert Burns in the Austrian Empire’, Association for German Studies Conference, University of Edinburgh

2011 Paper: ‘German Romantic Freakery and Literary Teratology in Jean Paul’s Dr. Katzenbergers Badereise’, Association for German Studies Conference, Queen Mary, University of London

2011 Paper: ‘Romantics Reading Romantics Transnationally: Representations of the Harz Landscape,’ American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Vancouver

2010 Paper: ‘Misreading the Body: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober’, at the Association for German Studies Conference, University of Reading

Invited speaker

2021 Seminar series: Disability in E. T. A. Hoffmann's "Des Vetters Eckfenster", King's College, University of London

2019 Inspiring Speaker Paper: 'Dis/abling the Curriculum in Higher Education: Putting Disability on the Reading List', Student Success, Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity Project, University of Kent

2019 Panel discussion: 'Giving and Responding to feedback' at the DELC Teaching Forum, University of Edinburgh

2019: Invited paper: ‘Dehumanizing via Translation: Widtmann’s German translation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1912)’, Translation Studies Research Seminar, University of Edinburgh

2017 Lecture: The Ringvorlesung series “Mainz meets Scotland”: Lecture title: ‘Oatmeal and Calvinism: 19^th century German Translations of Robert Burns’s ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night’, University of Mainz, Germany

2016 Paper: ‘German Women Translators of Robert Burns’, IASH, University of Edinburgh

2014 Paper: ‘German Women Translators of Robert Burns: Gender in Retranslation’, University of Newcastle

2012 Lecture: ‘Writing on the Brocken, on the Brocken: The Poetry of the Brocken Visitor’s Books’, at the English Goethe Society in the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, London

2012 Paper: ‘Thomas Carlyle’s Goethe Mask, Revisited’, German Research Seminar, University of Edinburgh

2012 Workshop for Postgraduates at the University of Edinburgh, DAAD Summer School

2009 Paper: ‘E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Klein Zaches genannt Zinnober’, German Department Research Seminar, University of St Andrews

2008 Paper: ‘E.T.A Hoffmann’s Optical Motifs’, German Research Seminar, University of Edinburgh

2006 Paper: ‘Cultural Exchange in the Travel Writing of Friedrich Stolberg’, Conference on Cultural Exchange in German Literature, University of Edinburgh

2005 Workshop on “Teaching Languages” at the DAAD German Language Assistants conference in London

2004 Paper: ‘The Harz Mountains in late Eighteenth-Century Poetry’, German Department research seminar, University of Edinburgh