Kathrin Bethke MA



Research Interests:

  • Late Medieval and Early Modern Literature
  • History and Theory of Poetry, Poetics, and Genre
  • History and Theory of Emotions
  • Literature and History of Science
  • Literary Theory
  • Postcolonial and Transcultural Literary Studies

  • Career History:
  • Since Oct 2022: Assistant Professor at the English Department of the University of Göttingen
  • 2016 - 2021: Assistent Professor at the English Department of Kiel University
  • 2015 - 2016: Freelance Translator and German Teacher at Sprachenatelier Berlin
  • 2013: Assistant Professor at the Peter Szondi-Institute of Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin (Maternity Leave Replacement)
  • 2011: Adjunct Lecturer at the Peter Szondi-Institute of Comparative Literature at FU Berlin

  • Education:
  • 2021: PhD in English at Freie Universität Berlin
    Thesis: Affective Appraisals: Shakespearean Correlations of Emotions and the Concept of Value
  • 2009 – 2012: Graduate Student at the Cluster of Excellence Languages of Emotion, FU Berlin
  • 2014: Visiting Researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • 2011: Visiting Researcher at Stanford University
  • 2009: M.A. in Comparative Literature, Philosophy and Theatre Studies at FU Berlin
    Thesis: The Poetics of Pathological Grief in Early Modern England: On the Complaints of Chaucer, Spenser and Shakespeare
  • 2003 – 2004: Visiting Student at Yale University
  • 2001 – 2002: Visiting Student at the University of Edinburgh

  • Grants and Scholarships:
  • 2014: DAAD Global Humanities Junior Fellowship in the Research Network Principles of Cultural Dynamics at the Dahlem Humanities Center
  • 2012: Conference Travel Grant of the DRS (Dahlem Research School)
  • 2011: Research Grant of the DRS (Dahlem Research School)
  • 2009 - 2012: Graduate Scholarship of the Cluster of Excellence Languages of Emotion
  • 2003 – 2004: Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Visiting Fellowship
    Fellowship of the Berlin Consortium of Germanic Studies
    Fulbright Travel Grant
  • 2001 – 2002: Socrates/ Erasmus Scholarship

  • Publications
  • 2022: Protean Poetics in Shakespeare and Joyce.“ Shakespeare Seminar Online 19, Special Issue: Shakespeare’s Odysseys, hg. v. Lukas Lammers und Kirsten Sandrock.
    https://shakespeare-gesellschaft.de/publications-3/shakespeare-seminar-online/sso-issues/issue-15-2017-2-2-2/?lang=en
  • 2021: Love’s Accountants: Double-Entry Bookkeeping and the Sonnet Form in Early Modern England.” In: Forms at Work: New Formalist Approaches to the Study of Literature, Culture and Media. Ed. by Ansgar Nünning, Elisabeth, Kovach and Imke Polland.
  • 2021: “Emotion Metaphors and Literary Texts: The Case of Shakespaere’s Sonnets.” In: The Rhetoric and Topics of Forms. Ed. by Gianna Zocco. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. 15-27. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110642032-002
  • 2012: “‘I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.’ Embodiment und Sprachmaterial in King Lear und Richard II.“ In: Gefühle Sprechen: Emotionen an den Anfängen und Grenzen der Sprache. Ed. by Victoria Räuchle and Maria Römer. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. 139-60.
  • 2011: “Zwischenbericht: Der 3. Tag, die 3. Fahrt. Auf dem Karusell: Kathrin Bethke & Bastian Ronge.” In: Fühlt Weniger! Dialoge über Emotionen. Recherchen 78. Ed. by Irene Albers and Isabel Dziobek. Berlin: Theater der Zeit. 208-17.
  • 2010: “‘Where I have lost, I softer tread’: Emily Dickinson und die Prosodie der Trauer.” In: Emotionale Grenzgänge: Konzeptualisierungen von Liebe, Trauer und Angst in Sprache und Literatur. Ed. By Lisanne Ebert et. al. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. 133-51.

  • Guest Lectures and Conference Presentations
  • 2023: Fear of the Future and the Future of Fear: On the Evolution and Degeneration of Emotions in Late Victorian Dystopias. (Victorian Affects, Online-Workshop des DACH Victorianists Network)
  • 2022: Sad Recursions: Poetics of Grief and Consolation in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess and the Early Modern Complaint Tradition (Liebesgeflüster und Wutgeschrei: Affektkommunikation in Antike, Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, Osnabrück).
  • 2022: Protean Poetics in Shakespeare and Joyce (Shakespeare’s Odysseys, Frühjahrstagung der Deutschen Shakespearegesellschaft in Bochum).
  • 2021: „When Love hath cast his utmost sum”: Economies of the Sonnet Form in Early Modern England (Vortrag auf Einladung der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz).
  • 2020: Emotion, Affect, and the ‘Folly of Evaluation’: Reading Shakespeare with Massumi (Value and its Other[s], Workshop Series at the University of Kiel).
  • 2019: Forms in Conjunction: Double-Entry Bookkeping and the Sonnet Form in Early Modern England. (Invited Talk at the English Department of the University of Leipzig)
  • 2018: Love’s Accountants: Double-Entry Bookkeeping and Literary Form in the Renaissance (Forms at Work: New Formalist approaches to Literary Studies, GCSC at the University of Gießen)
  • 2016: Emotion Metaphors and Literary Texts: The Case of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. (21st Annual Meeting of the International Comparative Literature Association in Vienna)
  • 2015: Love’s Appraisals: Poetic Numbers and Emotional Prosody in Shakespeare. (61st Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Berlin)
  • 2012: “Nothings monstered”: Economies of Pride in Coriolanus and Troilus and Cressida. (40th Annual Convention of the Shakespeare Association of America Boston, USA).
  • 2011: “I cannot heave my heart into my mouth”: Languages – and Silences – of Emotion in Shakespeare. (Gefühle Sprechen: Emotionen an den Grenzen der Sprache, Graduate Conference at the FU Berlin)
  • 2010: Value Feelings: The Economy and Axiology of the Passions in Troilus and Cressida (Performing the Poetics of Passion – Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, FU Berlin)
  • 2009: “Where I have lost I softer tread”: Emily Dickinson’s Prosody of Grief (Language Talks – Konzeptualisierungen von Liebe, Trauer und Angst in Sprache und Literatur, Graduate Conference at LMU Munich)