Marcel Schmid

Marcel Schmid is an Associate Professor at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Virginia, where he serves as Director of Undergraduate Programs and Language Coordinator. His research bridges literary analysis with technology, focusing on Contemporary German Literature, German Romanticism, and Environmental Studies.

• Education: University of Zurich, Yale University, New York University
• Specialties: Serial Media, German Life Reform movement, Fairy Tales, Science-Media-Technology interfaces

His scholarly work includes monographs and edited volumes on autopoiesis in literature (Autopoiesis und Literatur, 2016), self-referentiality (Self-reflection in Literature, 2019), and the German Life Reform movement (Die Literatur der Lebensreform, 2016). Recent projects focus on car aesthetics, culminating in the Brill volume The Case of Christian Kracht (2024).

Article trends reveal sustained engagement with automotive cultural critique, techno-literary theory, and historical intersections of technology and art. Key subfields include autonomous driving ethics, automobile semiotics, and computational media studies.

• Scientific Awards:
  • Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowships (Graduate, Early Postdoctoral, Advanced Postdoctoral)
  • Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar at Yale and Brown

Grants include funding from the University of Virginia Center for Teaching Excellence (2019). He has organized international symposia on topics ranging from Refugee Urban Integration (2023) to Josef Popper-Lynkeus (2022), demonstrating leadership in academic collaboration.