Charlotte Lee

Dr. Charlotte Lee serves as University Associate Professor and Director of the German Section within the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. Based at Murray Edwards College, she teaches literature from the 18th century to the present while leading German studies initiatives across the university.

Her research centers on 18th and 19th-century German literature with groundbreaking work connecting poetry to physical movement and cognition. Lee investigates how textual rhythms trigger embodied responses, examining German, English, and French poetry through cognitive science lenses. Current projects explore kinaesthetic empathy in reading and the neuroscience of poetic rhythm, building on her monograph The Very Late Goethe: Self-Consciousness and the Art of Ageing (2014) and edited volume Goethe in Context (2024).

Lee's publication trends reveal consistent interdisciplinary innovation, merging literary analysis with neuroscience and dance studies. Her work demonstrates how poetic structures engage universal cognitive mechanisms while reflecting language-specific rhythmic patterns, particularly evident in collaborations with the Centre for Neuroscience in Education's Baby Rhythm Project.

No scientific awards were documented in the source materials.

As a dedicated supervisor, Lee mentors MPhil and PhD students including Jonny Ball and Daniel Rees, welcoming new candidates in cognitive literary studies and German Romanticism. Her cross-disciplinary collaborations span neuroscientists studying infant language acquisition, dance scholars examining kinaesthetic empathy, and art historians working with the New Hall Art Collection.

Lee actively participates in interdisciplinary teams including the 'Watching Dance' project analyzing movement cognition and 'Dance of the Muses' reconstructing ancient Greek choral poetry. Her research bridges literary scholarship with empirical science through partnerships like the Baby Rhythm Project, demonstrating literature's tangible connections to physical experience and cognitive processing.