Burkhard Niederhoff is professor of English Literature. As a teacher, he is a generalist, with a broad range of courses centered around individual writers, genres, motifs and theoretical subjects. His research interests include the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson, narrative theory and the history and theory of comedy. He co-edits Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate and has hosted some of the bi-annual conferences organised by the editors of the journal. He is currently editing a volume of early tales for The New Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. Moreover, he has been dean of the Faculty of Philology since the winter semester 2019/20. In all of these activities, he is very grateful for the support of his team (see below left).
What's New?
Office Hours during the semester
If you want to talk to me, you can choose between a meeting on campus
and a meeting via Zoom:
• from October 27 on, Tuesdays, 16-16.30 on campus (GB 6/141) and
16.30-17.30 via Zoom
Please send an email to me (Burkhard.Niederhoff@rub.de) to make an appointment. I will then provide you with a time slot and, if you choose Zoom, a link to the Zoom conference.
Office Hours during the term break
If you want to talk to me, you can choose between a meeting on campus
and a meeting via Zoom:
• from August 18 on, Tuesdays, 11-12 on campus (GB 6/141) and
12-13 via Zoom
Please send an email to me (Burkhard.Niederhoff@rub.de) to make an appointment. I will then provide you with a time slot and, if you choose Zoom, a link to the Zoom conference.
Corona Information (3 June 2020)
The Ruhr University is closed. Courses are taught in the mode of distant learning.
For information on final exams and theses, see the pages of the Prüfungsamt der Fakultät für Philologie.
For general information on the Corona situation for students, see the Homepage of the RUB.
Recently Published
With Roland Weidle. “Perspektive – Frühe Neuzeit / Perspective – Early Modern Period.” Handbuch Historische Narratologie, edited by Eva von Contzen und Stefan Tilg, J.B. Metzler, 2019, pp. 157-169.
(This article was written as a collaboration between two members of the English Department)
Dean of the Faculty of Philology
On October 1, 2019, Burkhard Niederhoff began to serve as dean of the Faculty of Philology. He is still available to students in his office hour (see right) and continues to teach (with a reduced teaching load) during his tenure as dean.
Recently Published
Lena Linne’s doctoral dissertation Unlived Lives in English Literature: A Typological Study, wchich was supervised by Burkhard Niederhoff, was published as a book in September 2019 by Winter.
Research Stay at Beinecke Library
During the month of September 2019, Prof. Niederhoff is working as a visiting scholar at the Beinecke Library, a research library of Yale University in New Haven, CT. He is studying letters and manuscripts by Robert Louis Stevenson, which are relevant to his work as a volume editor for The New Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Annotating Literature: Workshop with Richard Dury and Lesley Graham
Time & Room: 25 June 2018, 9 s.t. to 12, GB 03/49
As students and scholars of literature, we encounter explanatory notes almost every day – but do we ever think about them? Do we reflect on what, why and how we annotate? In this workshop, we will focus on the practice and the principles of explanatory annotation. Two editors of the The New Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (EdRLS; 2014-) have been invited.
Richard Dury is a general editor of EdRLS. He is a linguist as well as a literary scholar and the author of The Annotated Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1993). Lesley Graham is a volume editor of the fifth volume in the series, Uncollected Essays 1880-1894. She is the director of the Département Langues et Cultures (DLC), Université de Bordeaux and has published several essays on Stevenson’s life and oeuvre.
Guest Lecturer Dr. Tracy Collins (CMU)
Dr. Tracy Collins joins us from the faculty at Central Michigan University. She earned a Ph.D. in 19th Century British Literature with a secondary area in Women’s Studies form Purdue University in 2007. Her dissertation “Physical Fitness, Sports, Athletics, and the Rise of the New Woman” was awarded the university’s bi-annual Best Dissertation Prize awarded to the best dissertation in the College of Arts and Letters. She has published on a variety of topics ranging from Joseph Conrad and George Bernard Shaw to Punch magazine and women in baseball literature. When she is not working, she enjoys playing a variety of sports, travelling, and hanging out with friends and family. Her husband John, who has joined her in Bochum, is a retired English professor, and her 16 year-old daughter Rebecca is completing an 11-month study abroad program in Gmunden, Austria. You can find her most days in her office GB 5/31 studying for German class.
Joseph Conrad Under Eastern Eyes
(Konferenz in Englischer Sprache)
Joseph Conrads Ruhm gründet sich auf Romane, die sich durch eine modernistische Erzähltechnik auszeichnen und die problematischen Seiten des britischen See-Imperiums darstellen. Weniger bekannt ist, dass er polnischer Adliger war und seine Berufung zum englischsprachigen Schriftsteller erst spät auf Umwegen fand.
Die Vortragsveranstaltung widmet sich den osteuropäischen Kontexten von Conrads Werk und versammelt dafür Beiträge von Philologen aus Deutschland und Polen. Es wird sowohl um Conrads Auseinandersetzung mit Russland gehen als auch um seine tiefen Verbindungen mit der polnischen (Volks-) Kultur. Gastgeber: Prof. Dr. Mirja Lecke (Slavistik, RUB), Prof. Dr. Burkhard Niederhoff. Teilnehmer: Prof. Dr. Christiane Maria Binder (Anglistik, TU Dortmund), Prof. Dr. Wisław Krajka (Anglistik, Universität Lublin), Prof. Dr. Anna Brzozowska-Krajka (Polnistik, Universität Lublin). Ort: Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Veranstaltungszentrum Beckmannshof, Seminarraum Shanghai. Zeit: DI 28.11. 15:00 – 18:00
Die Konferenz ist Teil des Joseph-Conrad-Festivals anlässlich des 160. Geburtstages des Schriftstellers. Weitere Informationen zum Festival
Self-Imposed Fetters: The Productivity of Formal and Thematic Restrictions (Symposium)
The 14th International Connotations Symposium is concerned with one of the most remarkable (and, indeed, paradoxical) accounts of literary genesis: the appreciation of limitations and restrictions as the condition of creativity, as well as of the scope and depth of representation. Why is it that writers seek to impose restrictions upon themselves so as to set free their powers of imagination? What is it that those restrictions bring about?
The conference “Self-Imposed Fetters” investigates this paradox of how limitations serve as inspiration in literary texts.
It takes place at the conference centre “Wolfsburg” (Mülheim a.d. Ruhr),
30 July – 3 August. Students and staff are welcome to join!
Recently Published: Die englische Komödie: Eine Einführung
Die englische Komödie hat eine wechselvolle, an Höhepunkten reiche Geschichte. Sie hat eine Reihe herausragender Dramen hervorgebracht, darunter Stücke von weltliterarischer Geltung wie William Shakespeares Midsummer Night’s Dream und Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest.
In einem einleitenden Theoriekapitel referiert das Buch zunächst eine Auswahl älterer und neuerer Thesen zur Komödie, um dann ein Modell der Gattung zu entwickeln, das typische Darstellungsweisen und Handlungsstrukturen in einen systematischen Zusammenhang bringt. Die weiteren Kapitel stellen die Geschichte der englischen Komödie vom ausgehenden Mittelalter bis zum Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts dar. Jedes dieser Kapitel beginnt mit einem Überblick, der wichtige Themen und Tendenzen des jeweiligen Zeitraums skizziert. Es folgen Einzelanalysen, die sich detailliert mit herausragenden oder repräsentativen Dramen befassen und einen Eindruck von der Vielfalt der Gattung vermitteln. Zu den ausführlich analysierten Dramen gehören neben den oben genannten Klassikern aus der Feder Shakespeares und Wildes auch weniger bekannte, aber lohnende Stücke wie Aphra Behns The Rover und Thomas Otways The Soldiers’ Fortune.
