Clark S. Muenzer
Associate Professor of German and Chair
PhD, Princeton University, 1974
Department Chair
1409 Cathedral of Learning
412-624-5840 or 412-624-5909
muenzer@pitt.edu
Areas of Research and Teaching Focus
- German literature and culture during the Age of Goethe
- Goethe
- Literary theory
- German intellectual history
- Literature and architecture
- Kafka and modernism
Courses Taught Recently
Undergraduate Courses
- Approaches to Literature
- Kafka and the Modern World
- German Literature and Culture of the 18th Century
- Classical Drama
- Sturm und Drang
- Reading Literary Texts
Graduate Courses
- Eighteenth-Century Culture and Literature
- Sturm und Drang
- Classical Drama
- Goethe
- Goethe’s Dramatic Practice
- Goethe’s Faust
- German Intellectual History from the 18th to 20th Centuries
- Kafka
Recent and Significant Publications and Projects
Monograph
- Figures of Identity: Goethe’s Novels and the Enigmatic Self (University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984). Reviewed in Goethe Yearbook, Germanistik, Studies in Romanticism, Eighteenth Century Studies, and Modern Language Notes
Edited Volumes
- Remembering Goethe: Essays for the 250th Anniversary, ed. Clark S. Muenzer (Modern Language Studies, 31, 2001).
- Wegbereiter der Moderne: Festschrift für Klaus Jonas, eds. Helmut Koopmann and Clark Muenzer (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1990).
Selected Articles
- "Goethe's Metaphysics ofImmanence," Colloquia Germanica, 39 (2007), 1-19.
- Fugitive Images and Visual Memory in Goethe's Discourse on Color," in The Enlightened Eye: Goethe And Visual Culture, eds. EvelyK. Moore and Patricia Anne Simpson (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 220-237.
- "At the Edge of Chaos: Goethe and the Question of the Global," in Literatur im Spiel der Zeichen: Festschrift für Hans-Vilmar Geppert, eds. Werner Frick, Fabian Lampart, and Bernadette Malinowski (Tübingen: Francke, 2006), 125-140.
- "Das Buch Hiob und Goethes Naturbegriff," in Goethe und die Bibel, ed. Johannes Anderegg (Stuttgart: Deutscher Bibel-Verlag, 2005), 157-167.
- “Borders, Monuments and Goethe’s Reconstruction of Knowledge,” Arcadia 38 (2003), 248-53.
- “Wandering Among Obelisks: Goethe’s Idea of the Monument,” Modern Language Studies, 31 (2001), 5-34.
- “Culture’s Uncanny House: Exile and the Genealogy of the Classical Stage in Goethe’s Die Natürliche Tochter,” in Exil: Transhistorische und Transnationale Perspektiven, eds., Helmut Koopmann and Klaus Dieter Post (Paderborn: Mentis, 2001), 101-133.
- “Victor Lange: Bibliography 1932-1996,” in Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik, 29 (1997), 14-25.
- “Transplanting the Poem: Goethe, Ghosts and The Metamorphosis of an Elegy,” in Themes and Structures: Studies in German Literature from Goethe to the Present. Festschrift for Theodore Ziolkowski, ed. Alexander Stefan (Columbia S.C.: Camden House, 1997), 39-77.
- “Ihr ältesten, würdigsten Denkmäler der Zeit: Goethe’s Über den Granit and his Aesthetics of Monuments,” in Festschrift für Wolfgang Wittkowski, ed. Richard Fisher (New York and Bern: Lang, 1995), 193-214.
- “Herders Von deutscher Art und Kunst: Der Sturm und Drang deutscher Selbst-Legitimierung. Ostern 1773,” in Zwischen Traum und Trauma: Die Nation, ed. Claudia Mayer-Iswandy (Tübingen: Stauffenberg Colloquium, 1994), 39-57.
- “Goethe’s Gothic Classicism: Antecedents to the Architecture of History in Faust II, Act III,” in Faust Today, eds. Jane K. Brown, Meredith Lee, and Thomas P. Saine (Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1994), 187-206.
- “A Kafkan Reflection on Kierkegaard: Auf der Galerie and Kritik der Gegenwart,” in Wegbereiter der Moderne: Festschrift für Klaus Jonas, eds. Helmut Koopmann and Clark Muenzer (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1990), pp. 144-162.
- “Goethe’s Werther and Kant's Aesthetics of Failure,” Modern Language Notes, 98 (1983), 492-99.
- “Virginity and Tragic Structure: Continuity and Change in Emilia Galotti, Iphigenie auf Tauris, and Die Jungfrau von Orleans,” Monatshefte, 71 (1979), 117-130.
- “Eduard and Rhetoric: Characterization and Narrative Strategy in Goethe’s Die Wahlverwandtschaften,” Modern Language Notes, 94 (1979), 493-509.
Work in Progress
Goethe's Metaphysics of Immanence: Topics in the Reconstruction of Knowledge
Introduction: The Metaphysical Compulsion and Goethe's Pure Object of Thought
1. Trek: Goethe's Idea of the Monument
2. Rock: Granite, History, and Aesthetics
3. Cathedral: The Babel of Building and Goethe's Architectural Idea
4. Plant: Ghosts, Monuments, and the Riddle of Metamorphosis
5. Eye: Colors and Visual Memory
6. Elegy: Transplanting the Poem
7. Stage: Culture's Uncanny House
8. Collection: In Pursuit of the Elusive Whole
9. Globe: Mapping Time and Modern Complexity Theory
Other
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Board of Directors, Goethe Society of North America, 2007-2009
Executive Secretary, Goethe Society of North America (1998-2004)