Axel Englund

Axel Englund is a Professor at Stockholm University's Department of Culture and Aesthetics, specializing in literary and musicological intersections. He holds the Wallenberg Academy Fellowship and serves as President of the International Association of Word and Music Studies (WMA). Englund's research focuses on modernist literature, operatic performance, and the relationship between words and music, particularly in German-language poetry (e.g., Paul Celan, Rainer Maria Rilke) and 20th-century novels. He coordinates the Master's Programme in Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and actively translates works by Stéphane Mallarmé, W.G. Sebald, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

• Affiliations: Forum Modernism (Stockholm University research group)
• Key roles: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences member, WMA President

Research interests span intermediality, hermeneutics, and gender/sexuality studies, with current projects exploring chamber music in early 20th-century novels (e.g., Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust). His work bridges literary analysis with performance studies, examining how music and sexuality intersect in modernist works.

Awards include the Wallenberg Academy Fellowship and membership in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Englund has published extensively on operatic performance, music-related poetry, and critical theory.