I studied German literature, philosophy, and classics in Germany and Austria at the universities of Bonn, Tübingen, and Vienna. I received my doctorate from Bonn University with a dissertation on the turn-of-the-century author Hugo von Hofmannsthal. I was lucky to work with some of the most distinguished professors in literary studies who instilled in me a permanent love of literature and a fascination with its cultural context. To this day, I believe that the study of literature is the most intriguing way to investigate our historical past and present with all their intellectual, emotional, psychological, and social complexities. In addition, I think that nothing stimulates our imagination and creativity more than this kind of study.

Since I dislike all kinds of dogmatism I do not prefer any particular approach to literary analysis. I believe that the methodology must be chosen and adjusted in response to the individual text (not vice versa). Literary works are multifarious documents, and historical, social, philosophical, and psychological approaches should work together to explicate their meaning and relevance to us. Close reading techniques, reader-response theory and semiotics are among the tools with which we can build a deeper understanding.

My research comprises German literature from the late 18th century through the present with particular emphasis on German romanticism, early modernism, and Austrian literature. Starting from my Hofmannsthal studies, I examined modernism in its diverse forms, the Lebensgefühl and style of impressionism, and the literary aspects of art nouveau. Interdisciplinary comparisons of literature and the fine arts have allowed me to formulate new definitions of these concepts. In the area of romanticism, I am particularly interested in the theory of the early romantics Wackenroder and Friedrich Schlegel and in the narrative works of the late romantics. My most recent book was published in 1998 by Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht in Göttingen and deals with the concept of late romanticism, i.e. with the works and ideas of Eichendorff and Hoffmann, who in many ways represent the best of late romanticism. I have also published on Schiller, Kleist, Tieck, Grillparzer, Saar, Schnitzler, Keyserling, Werfel, and others. My contemporary scholarship includes studies of late 20th-century lyric poetry, the documentary theater, and the issue of war and literature.

Before joining the UCLA Department of Germanic Languages, I taught at the University of Bonn and Boston College. In the seventies I received a fellowship from the Swiss National Foundation and spent two years in Basel, Switzerland, where I collaborated on the design and preparation of a new Critical Hofmannsthal Edition. I try to keep the international dialogue on German studies alive by participating in conferences and symposia throughout Europe, the United States, Asia, and, most recently, Africa. This exchange of ideas has strengthened my understanding of the international development of our field and my commitment to the continued centrality of German language and literature to contemporary German Studies in the United States.