معرفی
Karen Leeder is the Schwarz-Taylor Chair of German Language and Literature and Fellow of The Queen's College at the University of Oxford. She holds a D.Phil. (1993) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). Her academic career includes roles such as Associate Head of the Humanities Division (2015–2017) and Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the Southbank Centre (2014–2015). She has been a Fellow at New College, Oxford since 1993 and has held visiting roles at Harvard University (2018) and Australian National University (2016).
Her research focuses on modern German literature with specialization in GDR literature, translation studies, and contemporary poetry. Key areas include post-1945 German culture, Rilke, Brecht, and the intersection of creative and academic practices. She is a prize-winning translator of German poets like Durs Grünbein and Ulrike Almut Sandig, earning accolades such as the Griffin Poetry Prize (2025) and Schlegel-Tieck Prize (2021).
Leeder has delivered over 90 invited lectures globally and organized major international conferences, including the 2016 Ulrike Draesner Symposium. Her grants include funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. Public engagement projects include the Mediating Modern Poetry initiative, shortlisted for Oxford’s VC Innovation Award (2017).
Award highlights include the 2025 Griffin Poetry Prize for her translation of *Psyche Running* and 2021’s Schlegel-Tieck Prize for *Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of my City*. She leads the *AfterWords* project at Freie Universität Berlin, exploring postmodern literary legacies.
Teaching supervision covers topics like GDR literature, poetic rhythm, memory studies, and Berlin Republic narratives. She edits scholarly series such as the *Companions to Contemporary German Culture* and serves on editorial boards for *German Monitor* and *The German Quarterly*.
