Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures
Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures
Marcel Schmid

Marcel Schmid

Daniels Family Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor, Director of German Undergraduate Programs and Language Coordinator, Interim Director of the Center for German Studies
Email: ms5qt@virginia.edu

Office Hours: Mo/We 3pm - 3:30pm, and by appointment.

Specialties: Contemporary German Literature; German Romanticism; Science, Media and Technology; Environmental Studies; Car Culture

Website: https://marcelschmids.com/marcel-schmid/

I teach classes in German language, literature and culture, particularly on Serial Media, early German environmental movements, and Fairy Tales, which I established as popular courses in the German curriculum. 

I studied history, German literature, and art history at the University of Zurich, Yale, and New York University, and I wrote a dissertation (PhD, University of Zurich) on the concept of autopoiesis in literature. Prior to my appointment at UVA I have been a visiting scholar at Yale and Brown University, and a postdoctoral fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation. 

I am interested in literary history, specifically relating to the German Life Reform movement and the interface between literary analysis and technology. In the past few years, I have written and edited books on self-reference in literature and the life reform movement. I have also published in the Feuilleton of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. My latest publication, the co-edited volume The Case of Christian Kracht: Authorship, Irony, and Globalism was published in late 2024. Currently, I am working on a book project on car aesthetics and co-editing a volume on Humanities Under Fire: Reorienting Usefulness (under contract with Palgrave Macmillan).

Books

Selected Grants and Fellowships

  • Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Virginia for the Course Design Institute (2019)
  • Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar, Brown University / Swiss National Science Foundation Advanced Postdoctoral Scholar (2017-2018)
  • Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar, Yale University / Early Postdoctoral Fellow, Swiss National Science Foundation (2015-2017)
  • Fellowship, Swiss National Science Foundation (Visiting Graduate Student, New York University / Yale University) (2011-2013)

Selected Talks

  • “Lebensreform um 1900.“ Conference “Reinheit und die Ordnung des Politischen (1900-2000),” Universität Koblenz, May 12, 2023.
  • "Dream Car." with Lowell Paddock, former GM Planning Director, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke VA, January 19, 2019.
  • “The German Life Reform Movement.” Workshop “A Stronger Body for a Healthier Mind.” The IUPUI Max Kade German-American Center & IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, Indianapolis IN, November 2018.
  • "Seriality and Immediacy: The Journal Projects of the German Romantics." Uehiro Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, April 2018.

Selected Conferences and Workshops Organized

  • “Refugee Urban Integration: Experiences and Challenges from Berlin, Charlottesville, and Tel-Aviv," September 7, 2023. Panel Discussion at UVa, co-organized with Zvi Gilboa. With the support of UVa Center for German Studies; UVa Jewish Studies Program; UVa European Studies; UVa Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures; UVa Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures.
  • “The State as Experiment: Visions, Voices, Margins, A Centenary Symposium in Memory of Josef Popper-Lynkeus (1838-1921),” April 6-8, 2022. International Symposium at UVa, co-organized with Manuela Achilles and Asher Biemann. With the support of the Page-Barbour Funds; Virginia Center for the Study of Religion; UVa Center for German Studies; UVa Jewish Studies Program; UVa European Studies; UVa Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures; UVa Global Affairs; UVa Center for Politics, Global Perspectives, and Democracy; UVa Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.