Martha Kleinhans

Martha Kleinhans serves as Academic Director and apl. Professor at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, affiliated with the Faculty of Philosophy and the Institute of Modern Languages / Romance Studies. Her academic trajectory includes a Magister Artium (1986), doctorate (1991), and habilitation (2002/2003) in Romance Philology. She has held continuous positions at Würzburg since 1988, progressing from research assistant to professorship, and notably declined a chair appointment at Universität Innsbruck in 2004.

Her research explores:

• Transcultural Italian literature (Afro-Italian migration narratives, Armenian diaspora)
• Modern Italian prose/poetry (Carlo Emilio Gadda, Eugenio Montale, trauma representation)
• Medieval mystical traditions (imagery in French/Italian texts, Dantean symbolism)
• Francophone Maghreb literature

Her publications exhibit strong interdisciplinary engagement with trauma theory, visual semiotics, and postcolonial critique, particularly focusing on 20th-century literary responses to violence and displacement. Recent work integrates medieval epistolary culture with spatial theory.

Kleinhans coordinates the university's Romance Studies Erasmus programs and holds editorial roles at the Edinburgh Journal of Gadda Studies. She has organized international conferences on transcultural literature and served as deputy women's representative for the Faculty of Philosophy (1996–2006).