Seminar für Deutsche Philologie

Prof. Dr. Jörg Wesche

Professor of Modern German Literature and Digital Humanities


  • Head of the “Text and Language” department at the Institute for Digital Humanities at the University of Göttingen
  • Deputy Director of the Göttingen Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Research
  • since 4/2020 Professor of Modern German Literature and Digital Humanities at the Department of German Philology, University of Göttingen
  • 4/2012-3/2020 professor (W3) for Modern German Literature with a focus on the Early Modern Era, Cultural Studies and Rhetoric at the University of Duisburg-Essen; Guest lectureships at the Universities of Harvard, Khabarovsk, Nijmegen, Pittsburgh, Windhoek and Vladivostok
  • Substitute professor (W3) of modern German literature with a focus on the early modern era, cultural studies and rhetoric at the University of Duisburg-Essen
  • 4/2010-9/2010 Substitute professor (W2) for modern German literature with a focus on 17./18. Century, literary life after 1945 and contemporary literature at the University of Augsburg
  • Substitute professor (W2) for modern German Literary History at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
  • 10/2009 Habilitation and appointment as private lecturer (Privatdozent; qualification to teach Modern German Literature and General Literary Studies)
  • 10/2006 - 9/2007 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department for Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University (USA) and Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
  • since 4/2003 Research Assistant at the Chair for Modern German Literature (Univ. Augsburg)
  • 1/2002 - 3/2003 Scientific coordinator at the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Research (University of Göttingen)
  • 2/2003 Dissertation award of the “Universitätsbund Göttingen”
  • 6/1999 - 12/2001 PhD doctorate at the Department for Modern German Literature (University of Göttingen), with a doctoral scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation
  • 10/1992 - 12/1998 Studies for the teaching degree at secondary schools (Lehramt für Gymnasien) at the University of Göttingen. Majors: Biology, German, Art History; Minors: Philosophy, Pedagogy

  • German Literature from the 16th to the 18th century
  • Drama and Theatre of the 20th and 21st centuries, Contemporary Literature Intercultural Literary Studies and History of Translation
  • Intercultural Literary Studies and History of Translation
  • Literature and Natural Sciences, especially Biology
  • Literary Diversity and Poetic Freedom
  • Poetics and Rhetoric
  • History of Literary Genres; History of Prosody
  • Theory and Reception of Myths

  • 2023-2025: Start-up financing for a digital Lessing edition with funds from the Ministry of Science and Culture of the State of Lower Saxony (with Prof. Dr. Cord-Friedrich Berghahn, Prof. Dr. Kai Bremer, Prof. Dr. Peter Burschel, Prof. Dr. Berenike Hermann and Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Décultot)
  • 2022-2025: DFG sub-project “The Ambiguity of the Turkish in Early Modern German Narrative Literature”; part of the DFG Research Unit 2600 “Ambiguity and Distinction. Historical and Cultural Dynamics”
  • since 2022: Development of the database „Barockpoetik.de“
  • 2018-2024: Head of the DFG Priority Programme 2130 2130 “Early Modern Translation Cultures” (with Prof. Dr. Regina Toepfer and Prof. Dr. Peter Burschel); part of the the sub-project “Verse Techniques in Translation. The Internationalisation of German Poetics and Occasional Poetry of the 17th and 18th Centuries”
    • “Ambiguity and Distinction. Historical and Cultural Dynamics”
  • 2017-2020: DFG Research grant “Interactional speech in the plays of Andreas Gryphius: Data based research from the perspective of Linguistics and Literary Studies” (with Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Imo) DFG-Projekt


Teaching projects

  • Murr. The German Studies learning app
    Get to know the world of German Studies, in the company of Murr, the tomcat from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novel “The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr”. In this quiz app, you can test and expand your knowledge of the German language and literature in a playful way. The app is suitable for students of German Studies and anyone interested in literature.

  • Rhetorik und Interdiskursanalyse. Theoretische und praktische Zugriffe auf ein wenig beachtetes Verhältnis (hg. mit Cyril de Beun und Rolf Parr). Hannover 2023.
  • Neues von der Insel. Englische Literatur und Kultur der Frühen Neuzeit in deutscher Übersetzung (hg. mit Franz Fromholzer und Silvia Serena Tschopp) (vorauss. Stuttgart 2023
  • Übersetzen ist Macht. Essays zur Frühen Neuzeit (hg. mit Ulrike Draesner, Annkathrin Koppers und Regina Toepfer). Hannover 2022.
  • Übersetzen in der Frühen Neuzeit – Konzepte und Methoden / Concepts and Practices of Translation in the Early Modern Period (hg. mit Peter Burschel und Regina Toepfer). Stuttgart 2021
  • Der Vers im Drama. Studien zur Theorie und Verwendung im deutschsprachigen Sprechtheater des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts. Fink: Paderborn 2018.