معرفی
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Lena Wetenkamp is Junior Professor for Gender Studies in German Studies/Modern German Literature at the University of Trier, Germany. From 1 September 2025 she will move to KU Leuven in Belgium. She studied German, Journalism and Cultural Anthropology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, earned her doctorate in 2017 with the study “Europe narrates, locates, remembers. European discourses in contemporary German literature,” and has since held visiting and guest appointments in Lisbon, New York, Metz, Bydgoszcz, Sassari and Milan.
Education
- 2005–2011: Studied German, Journalism and Cultural Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (German National Academic Foundation scholar)
- 2008–2009: Study abroad, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
- 2009–2010: Internship, Cultural Department, Goethe-Institut New York, USA
- 2017: Doctorate, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Research Interests
Her work spans German-language literature from the 18th to the 21st centuries, with particular emphasis on realism and contemporary writing. She investigates European discourses and intercultural literary studies, exploring how literature frames Europe as narrative, location and memory. A second major strand is gender research in literature and media studies, analysing representations and constructions of gender across textual and visual media. She also pursues memory, postmemory, violence and trauma studies, examining how collective and individual memories of war and displacement are mediated. Finally, she focuses on the mediality of literature, researching inter- and transmedia relations between literary texts and 19th-century visual technologies such as dioramas, magic lanterns and panoramas.
Publication Profile
Wetenkamp’s recent publications cluster around three topical nodes: (1) Realism and media history, analysing how 19th-century optical media shaped literary form; (2) Memory and trauma, combining narratology with Memory Studies to investigate Holocaust and post-socialist legacies in contemporary German-language literature; and (3) Gender, body and visibility, theorising the textual performance of gendered and racialised bodies across literature and film.
Scientific Awards & Fellowships
- Scholar of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung)
- Member, Young Academy at the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz (since 2020)
- UniGR Guest Professorship, Université de Lorraine, Metz (Sept–Nov 2024)
Editorial & Organisational Roles
She is Co-Editor of the Jahrbuch der Raabe-Gesellschaft and has co-edited special journal issues on “Memory and Literature” (Journal of Literary Theory), “Literature and Memory – Transphilological Analyses” (PhiN), and the volumes Text/Körper (2024), Fragilität (2023), Langsames Sehen (2024), and several essay collections on violence, realism and European literature.
Labs & Research Groups
Wetenkamp co-leads the interdisciplinary working group “Geschichte(n) des Sehens” within the Young Academy | Mainz, which investigates historical and theoretical models of vision and visibility. She is also a member of the working group “Higher-education teaching in the digital age”, producing policy papers on digital pedagogy.
