Karin Wurst

Candidate statement

Karin A. Wurst is Professor of German at Michigan State University. Her books have focused on representations of the family, women's drama, and cultural consumption in 18th-Century Germany, as well as on J.M.R. Lenz: Das Schlaraffenland verwilderter Ideen. Narrative Strategien in den Prosaerzählungen von J. M. R. Lenz (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2014); Fabricating Pleasure: Fashion, Entertainment, and Consumption in Germany (1780-1830), German Literary Theory and Cultural Studies (Wayne State University Press, 2005). Karin A. Wurst and Alan Leidner, Unpopular Virtues: J. M. R. Lenz and the Critics. A Reception History (Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1999). Edited and introduced Eleonore Thon's "Adelheit von Rastenberg." Texts and Translation Series. (New York: MLA, 1996). Edited and introduced J.M.R. Lenz als Alternative? Positionsanalysen zum 200. Todestag (Köln, Wien, Weimar: Böhlau, 1992). Frau und Drama im achtzehnten Jahrhundert (Köln, Wien: Böhlau, 1991). "Familiale Liebe ist die wahre Gewalt." Zur Repräsentation der Familie in Lessings dramatischem Werk"(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988). Her articles focus on 17th- and 18th-century Germany and issues of gender, cultural and aesthetic representation. They have appeared in German Quarterly, Daphnis, German Studies Review, Lessing Yearbook, Text + Kritik, Seminar, Women in German Yearbook, Goethe Yearbook, Lenz Jahrbuch. Her teaching interests include literary and cultural theories, feminist theory, women's literature and material culture. From 2006 to 2014 she served as Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at MSU; she served as Special Advisor to the Provost on Intercultural Learning and Student Engagement (2014-16).