Seán M. Williams - Sean M Williams

Seán M. Williams
DEGREES
2010- 2014, Modern Languages Faculty, University of Oxford and Jesus College, Oxford:
DPhil Candidate in German (Arts and Humanities Research Council funded).
2009-10, Modern Languages Faculty, University of Oxford and Jesus College, Oxford:
MSt. in German Literature (AHRC funded). Distinction.
2008-9, University of California at Berkeley:
German PhD programme (Linguistics track, fully funded, terminated).
2004-8, University of Oxford and Jesus College, Oxford:
BA (later MA Oxon) in Modern Languages (German) and Linguistics.
‘Congratulatory’ First Class Honours; Distinction in the Spoken Language.
2006-7, University of Trier:
Visiting student (fully funded) in German Philology.
PAPERS DELIVERED
Invited lectures and professional association talks
2013, ‘Vorrede zu Vorreden: Jean Paul’s Pretexts for Literary Parody’. Winning submission for
the Sylvia Naish 2013 student research lecture at the IGRS, London. Also given at the
Association of German Studies (UK), Cardiff.
2012, German Studies Association (USA), Milwaukee, Wisconsin: ‘Jean Paul’s Pecking
Order: Authors’ Aesthetics over Kantian Castrated Cockerels’.
2012 MLA, Seattle: ‘Jean Paul’s Recipe for Success: Figures of Food and Authorial Image’.
2011, German Studies Association (USA), Louisville, Kentucky: ‘Kant’s Novel Interpretation
of History’.
2011, ‘The Genius of Rhetoric: Persuasive Authorship in German Prefaces around 1750’.
Jesus College Humanities Talks.
2011, School of Modern European Languages, University of Edinburgh. ‘Creativity and
Commerce: Authors’ Prefaces to Novels in German, 1700-1850’.
Conferences and seminars
2013, ‘Problems of the Preface around 1800’. Postgraduate Research Seminar, Oxford.
2012, ‘Reputation and Resignation in Romanticism: Jean Paul and ETA Hoffmann’.
Postgraduate Symposium: Anxiety, Oxford.
2012, ‘This Book is Sh–. Jean Paul Digesting Literary Genius for Posterity’. Postgraduate
Research Seminar, Oxford.
2011, ‘Writing Walhalla, Casting Fame? Goethe and Jean Paul’. Postgraduate Symposium:
German Literature and Institutions, Oxford.
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2011, ‘C.F. Gellert untermauern: Das Autor-Konstrukt als rhetorisches Argument’.
At: Autorschaft zwischen Intention, Inszenierung und Gesellschaft. Positionsbestimmungen nach
der „Rückkehr des Autors.“ Humboldt University, Berlin. (Reported in Zeitschrift für
Germanistik 21 / 2011 (3), pp. 620-22).
2010, ‘Creativity and Commerce: Authors’ Prefaces to Novels in German, 1700-1850’.
Swansea University, 48th IGRS National Postgraduate Colloquium.
2010, ‘“Heiter ist das Leben, ernst ist die Kunst” – The Serious Functions of Wieland’s
Cheerful Character (ethos)’. Graduate conference Happiness, University of Virginia, USA.
Postgraduate schools and training seminars
2012, ‘The Genius of Error: Justifying the Literary Mistake circa 1740-80’. DAAD
postgraduate summer school Rechtfertigung at the University of Birmingham.
2012, research pitch at the spring graduate school Theories and Practices of the Archive.
Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach.
2011, ‘Stimmung, um Sprache zu bilden: Jean Paul’s linguistics and literary aesthetics’. DAAD
postgraduate summer school Stimmungen: Climates, Moods, Atmospheres at the University of
Edinburgh.
2011, ‘Madness as Metaphor? E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann’. DPhil seminar series
on Madness, Oxford.
2010, ‘Verkörperte Laune bei Wieland, Goethe und Jean Paul’. As funded Junior Fellow of
both the RWE-sponsored summer school Prometheus and specifically the master
class Poetische Energien. University of Duisburg-Essen.
PUBLISHING SERVICE
October 2010 – July 2012: Assistant to the Germanic Editor, at Modern Language
Review.
CONFERENCE ORGANISATION
2013, co-organiser, 54th National Postgraduate Colloquium, University of Birmingham.
2013, co-organiser, 53rd NPC at IGRS, London.
2012, co-organiser, 52nd NPC at University of Cambridge.
2012, assistant, Frederick the Great and the Republic of Letters. Jesus College, Oxford.
A symposium convened by Dr. Thomas Biskup and Prof. Katrin Kohl.
2012, co-organiser, 51st NPC at IGRS.
2011, co-organiser, 50th NPC at Jesus College, Oxford.
2011, co-organiser with Prof. Karen Feldman, panel: Poetic, Philosophical or Persuasive
History? Interdisciplinarity and Argumentation in 18th-Century Historiography. German Studies
Association, Louisville.
2011, co-organiser, Literature and Institutions. Oxford German Postgraduate Conference.
2010-11, co-convenor, Oxford Postgraduate Research Seminar Series.
2009, moderator, The Threat and Allure of the Magical in Literature, Language, Philosophy,
History and the Arts. UC Berkeley Graduate Conference.
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