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English Department

Portrait and Research Interests

Portrait

Martin Mühlheim teaches English Literature at the University of Zurich (UZH). His research interests include narrative fiction and narratology, intertextuality and genre, and the concepts of collective memory, shame, and identity. He is particularly interested in how gender, ethnicity, and class intersect in literary texts, i.e. in the question how politics and ideology relate to (and are shaped by) fictional texts. Further interests include the theory of adaptation, the concepts of irony and metafiction, the history of depth psychology, (post-)colonialism, and quantitative formalism (i.e. distant reading).

Since he started working in the UZH English Department in the fall of 2004, Martin Mühlheim has taught Bachelor and Master courses on narrative fiction, drama, and a range of other topics. In addition, he has participated actively in several intra-departmental task groups involved in implementing the English Department's new Bachelor and Master curricula. He was also a member of the organizing committee of Legacies, a conference held at the English Department on September 28, 2007, and the Peer Mentoring Group "Genius for Hire," which organized a series of prestigious guest lectures in 2010 and 2011. His PhD thesis, "Fictions of Home: Narratives of Alienation and Belonging, 1850-2000," was submitted in December 2013 and published in book form in 2018.

Martin Mühlheim is the English Department's Advisor of Studies, and he has (co-)taught several further education courses for Gymnasium teachers. He also acts as a board member and is one of the secretaries of the Swiss Association of University Teachers of English (SAUTE), and he is a founding member and coordinator of the Swiss Centre for Irish Studies @ the Zurich James Joyce Foundation (SCIS-ZJJF).

Research Projects

(a) Current

  • an essay on Ralph Ellison's "Mister Toussan" (with Adina Krieger);
  • a survey article on Liberian Literature;
  • an edition of the works of the Liberian author Kona Khasu;
  • the Liberian Literature Project;
  • a graphic novel on Roger Casement (with Neil O'Driscoll).

(b) Long-Term

  • an introduction to the study of narrative fiction;
  • a theoretical critique of some key Jungian concepts (from a left-wing perspective);
  • a comparative analysis of three plays dealing with the relationship between Sigmund Freud, C. G. Jung, and Sabina Spielrein;
  • an essay on Guy Endore's Babouk;
  • a Marxist analysis of Oscar Wilde's "The Nightingale and the Rose";
  • an essay on a comics adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "The Nightingale and the Rose";
  • a book-length study with the working title "Signs of Upheaval: Literature and Revolution."

Successful Project and/or Funding Applications

Date of Confirmation Funding by Project
Fall 2021 SAGW max. CHF 4,350.- for a public lecture and workshop entitled "Breaking the Commodity Chains: Roger Casement, or Rendering Exploitation Visible"
Fall 2020 Irish Embassy, Switzerland (application with Frances Ilmberger, M.A. and Dr. Shane Walshe and the team of the Zurich James Joyce Foundation) 3 x CHF 250.- for an online further education course aimed at Gymnasium teachers of English in the Ticino
Irish Embassy, Switzerland (application with Frances Ilmberger, M.A. and Dr. Shane Walshe) 1 x CHF 250.- for Switzerland in Irish Poetry project
Irish Embassy, Switzerland (application with Frances Ilmberger, M.A. and Dr. Shane Walshe) 1 x CHF 500.- for logo competition for The Swiss Centre of Irish Studies @ the Zurich James Joyce Foundation
Spring 2019

UZH Alumni

(application with Frances Ilmberger, M.A. and Dr. Shane Walshe)

1 x CHF 1500.- for Inaugural Symposium of The Swiss Centre of Irish Studies @ the Zurich James Joyce Foundation (early 2020)
Irish Embassy, Switzerland

1 x CHF 350.- for guest lecture by Prof. Dr. Lionel Pilkington on J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World

UZH English Department 1 x CHF 500.- for guest lecture by Prof. Dr. Lionel Pilkington on J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World
Spring 2018 Max Geilinger-Stiftung 3 x CHF 650.- for travel bursaries for successful applicants to the Yeats Summer School Stipend (2019-2021)
Dr. Wilhelm Jerg-Legat CHF 1250.- for musical evening "Reverberations: Voices & Melodies from Joyce's Ireland" (Spring 2018)
Max Geilinger-Stiftung CHF 1250.- for musical evening "Reverberations: Voices & Melodies from Joyce's Ireland" (Spring 2018)
Fall 2017 UZH Alumni CHF 750.- for excursion in the course Dublin - Trieste - Zurich: The Early Joyce (Spring 2018)
UZH Alumni CHF 300.- for excursions in the course Refugees, Bankers, and Spies: Zurich in Anglophone Literatures (Fall 2017)
Spring 2017 Internationalisierungsstrategie UZH CHF 8,000.- for course Refugees, Bankers, and Spies: Zurich in Anglophone Literatures (Fall 2017)

British Council Switzerland

(application with Prof. Dr. Ana Sobral)

CHF 400.- for lecture series Debating the Anglosphere: History, Hegemony, Identity (Fall 2017)

Dr. Wilhelm Jerg-Legat

(application with Prof. Dr. Ana Sobral)

CHF 900.- for lecture series Debating the Anglosphere: History, Hegemony, Identity (Fall 2017)
Spring 2016 British Council Switzerland CHF 500.- for Queer Shakespeare (as part of the lesbian and gay film festival Pink Apple 2016)

Memberships

Other Activities

Past Activities

  • 2015-2018: Expert for Matura exams in the field of English, Canton of Schwyz