Kirsten Kramer

Prof. Dr. Kirsten Kramer is a Professor (W3) for Comparative Literature/Romance Studies at Universität Bielefeld since 2012, affiliated with the Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies. She serves as Director of the Center for InterAmerican Studies (CIAS) and leads subproject D04 in the Collaborative Research Center 1288 "Practices of Comparison. Ordering and Changing the World".

Her educational background includes studies in Romance Studies, English Studies, and Philosophy at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, LMU München, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, and Ecole Normale Supérieure. She earned her Maîtrise from Paris-Sorbonne and completed her First State Examination at Bonn. Kramer received her PhD in 2001 from LMU München with a dissertation on French Romanticism and completed her Habilitation in 2012 at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen with research on early modern Spanish lyric poetry.

Kramer's research spans literature and globalization, travel literature, theories of perception, and the history of knowledge. Her work examines Spanish, Hispano-American, and French literature across multiple centuries with particular attention to comparative practices, postcolonial perspectives, and the intersection of literature with visual studies and cultural anthropology. She investigates how travel narratives and ethnographic literature have shaped comparative knowledge production from the 18th to 20th centuries.

As Director of the Center for InterAmerican Studies and Principal Investigator at the Maria Sibylla Merian Centre for Advanced Latin American Studies (CALAS), Kramer leads significant interdisciplinary research initiatives examining global connections, particularly between Europe and the Americas. Her current projects explore how comparative practices have ordered and changed the world, with special attention to travel literature and ethnographic writing from 1850-1950.

• Project leadership in SFB 1288 subproject on Global Comparison and Global Knowledge
• Principal Investigator at CALAS since 2017
• DAAD IVAC collaboration between Berlin, Bielefeld, La Plata, and Guadalajara
• DAAD ISAP partnership with Universidad Nacional de La Plata

Kramer has held academic positions at multiple German universities and conducted extensive research in Latin America, including appointments at Universidad de Guadalajara, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Universidad de Antioquia, and Universidad Nacional de La Plata. She maintains active connections with institutions across the Americas through her leadership roles in international research networks.