
Dr Tara Beaney
Lecturer
- About
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School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture
King’s College
University of Aberdeen
AB24 3UBBiography
I have been a lecturer at Aberdeen University since 2014. As an undergraduate I studied German and Philosophy, before spending a year in Japan. To pursue my interests in literature and culture I studied for a masters in Comparative Literature, and for a PhD at the 'Languages of Emotion' excellence cluster of the Free University Berlin.
Education
2013 PhD Literary Studies (magna cum laude)
Free University of Berlin
2009 MA Comparative Literature (distinction)
University College London (and intercollegiate status at SOAS)
2007 BA Hons Philosophy and German (first class)
St Anne’s College, University of Oxford
Internal Memberships
German Examinations Officer
German Year Abroad Coordinator
- Research
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Research Overview
My areas of interest encompass German literature from the Romantic period to the present day, and are also informed by my background in Comparative Literature. A central concern in my work is in how people relate to and position themselves within the wider environment.
My first book Metamorphosis in Modern German Literature (Legenda, 2016) looks at imaginings of becoming non-human and other as a way of grappling with problematic identities. The monograph takes a comparative and historical approach, and traces cultural changes in thinking about bodies, identity and emotion.
Through my interest in the boundaries of the human, I have become interested in how we relate to other beings and to our environment. The environmental crisis has also mobilised me to work on understanding environmental culture. I am particularly interested in issues of agency, and our sense of autonomy and control in relation to environmental and climatic phenomena. I have recently begun a new research project on narratives of floods and flooding in literature from the nineteenth century to the present day.
I welcome enquiries from prospective postgraduate students with interests in any of my areas of research.
Research Areas
Accepting PhDs
I am currently accepting PhDs in German.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.
Research Specialisms
- Comparative Literary Studies
- German Literature
- German Society and Culture
- German Studies
Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Supervision
My current supervision areas are: German.
- Teaching
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Teaching Responsibilities
I teach a range of undergraduate courses on German language, literature, culture and history. My honours options include:
Environmental Crisis in Literature and Culture
Humans and Others: Modernity and its Discontents
Transgression: From Sturm und Drang to Romanticism
Fairytales and Feminism
- Publications
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Page 1 of 1 Results 1 to 3 of 3
Confronting ‟Unforeseen” Disasters: Yōko Tawada’s Surrealist and Animistic Poetics
Ecozon@, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 81-98Contributions to Journals: ArticlesMetamorphosis in Modern German Literature: Transforming Bodies, Identities and Affects
Legenda, Cambridge. 192 pagesBooks and Reports: BooksGothic Emotions: E.T.A. Hoffmann's 'The Devil's Elixirs' and Izumi Kyōka's 'The Holy Man of Mount Kōya'
Compar(a)ison, vol. I-II, no. 2009, pp. 169-186Contributions to Journals: Articles