Professor, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
Ph.D. Princeton University
M.A. Princeton University
B.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Office: Lowerre Academic Center, Office 6
Phone: +41 91 986 36 53
Email: cwiedmer@fus.edu
Caroline Wiedmer is professor of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies (CLCS) and received her PhD from Princeton University with a dissertation on memory of the Holocaust in Germany and France. She is the author and (co)-editor of a number of books and articles circling questions of memory, motherhood, the intersections of law, narrative and culture, the maritime port as a space of trade and cultural exchange, and various forms of sustainability. She is currently at work on a project on the refugee politics in Europe and on a co-authored book, with Rafael Newman, on the confluence of industry, nation-building and literature in a small Swiss village in 19th century Emmental.
At Franklin she has spearheaded programs in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Social Justice and Sustainability, and a Sustainable Cities program in Zurich. She has built, together with Christoph Kueffer, the Center for Environmental Justice and Sustainable Futures (CJSF), and, with Johanna Fassl, the Scholarships Without Borders program which welcomes refugees to Franklin. She is Co-Chair of the Division of Arts and Culture, co-director of the CJSF, and director of Franklin’s Zurich Program.
She has received grants and research fellowships from Princeton University, the University of London, the Center for Gender Studies of the University of Basel, the NEH program at Stanford University, the Collegium Helveticum at the ETH in Zürich, the Center for Advanced German and European Studies of the Freie Universität of Berlin, and the Swiss National Science Foundation. She is a member of the Swiss section of Scholars at Risk (SAR), co-editor for Franklin’s journal intervalla and a member of the TETI group which explores textures and experiences of trans-industriality.
Research interests:
Her research interests include memory studies, gender, film, law and culture, spatiality, and the workings of narrative in multiple domains of cultural and intellectual life. She is currently at work on a study of street newspapers and the construction of public space.
Publications:
Books and edited volumes:
Maritime Poetics: From Coast to Hinterlands, ed. with Gabriel Gee, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2021.
Intersections of Law and Culture. Co-editor with Priska Gisler and Sara Steinert Borella. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012.
Motherhood and Space: Configurations of the Maternal in Politics, Art and the Every-day. Ed. with Sarah Hardy, London: Palgrave Macmillan, January 2006.
Inventing the Past: Essays on Memory, Trauma and Culture. Ed. with Otto Heim, International Cooper Series in English Language and Literature, forthcoming Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2005.
The Claims of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Germany and France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Edited Journals and Reports:
Neue Akteurgruppen für die Biodiversität in der Schweiz, with Christoph Kueffer, Ariane Tanner, Marta Wartenweiler, Hella Wiedmer-Newman, Jasmin Joshi (2020), report to the Bundesamtes für Umwelt (BAFU), Bern (Project co-leaders: Kueffer and Wiedmer), BAFU, 2020.
Environmental Justice, ‘Collapse’ and the Question of Evidence, intervalla 3, with Christoph Kueffer, Brack Hale and Sara Steinert Borella, 2015
Trauma, Abstraction, and Creativity, intervalla 2, with Johanna Fassl, 2014
Sound Changes: An International Survey of Women’s Career Strategies in Higher Education, universelle 4, Zurich: Ropress Genossenschaft, 2001
Journal articles and book chapter:
“Refugees in Higher Education”, forthcoming in intervalla, edited by Johanna Fassl, 2022
“Liquid Knowledge and Experiential Learning”, forthcoming in intervalla, edited by Fabio Ferrari and Kate Roy, 2021.
"The Family Plot: Overrun by the Future, Underwritten by the Past," with Rafaël Newman, forthcoming in Mobile Soils, ed, by Anne-Laure Franchette, Gabriel N. Gee, and José Caceres Mardones, forthcoming Zurich: TETI Press, 2021.
"Introspections" in Maritime Poetics: From Coast to Hinterlands, with Gabriel Gee, forthcoming, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2021.
"The Logistics of Border Regimes from the Mediterranean to its Hinterlands" in Maritime Poetics: From Coast to Hinterland, edited by Gabriel Gee and Caroline Wiedmer, forthcoming, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2021.
"Time for a Biodiversity Turn in Sustainability Science," with Christoph Kueffer, Manuela Di Giulio, Katrin Hauser, GAIA, vol.30, pp. 77-89, 2020
“Melinda Nadj Abonji and Jurczok 1001: Performance, Politics, and Poetry,” with Rafaël Newman in The Short Story in German in the Twenty-First Century, ed. by Lyn Marven, Andrew Plowman, Kate Roy, London: Camden Press, 2020
"Forced Entanglements: Stories of Expulsion, Sovereign Power and Bare Life," Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift, de Gruyter, vol. 2, 2019
"Applying the Environmental Humanities?," with Christoph Kueffer, Philippe Forêt, Marcus Hall, GAIA, vol. 23, pp. 87-93, 2018
“Stories from the Hothouse: Climate Garden 2085”: "Geschichten aus dem Treibhaus: Climate Garden 2085”, in a bilingual edition in Climate Garden 2085: Handbook for a Public Experiment, eds. Juanita Schläpfer and Daniela Dahinden, Zurich: Park Books, June, 2017
“Environmental Justice, Collapse and the Question of Evidence,” with Christoph Kueffer, Brack Hale and Sara Steinert Borella, intervalla 3, 2015
“Rogue Memories: Reflections on Trauma, Art and Technology,” with Johanna Fassl, intervalla 2, 2014
“Developing the Environmental Humanities: A Swiss Perspective,” with Christoph Kueffer, Philippe Forêt, Marcus Hal, GAIA, vol. 23, pp. 67-69, 2014
“Introduction: Geometries of Law and Culture,” in Intersections of Law and Culture, ed. with Priska Gisler and Sara Steinert-Borella, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012
“Female Genital Cutting, Migration and the Art of Legal Boundary Maintenance,” in Intersections of Law and Culture, ed. with Priska Gisler and Sara Steinert-Borella, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012
“Strangers in Paradise: Swiss Migration Between Multiculturalism and Hybridity,” in From Multiculturalism to Hybridity: New Approaches to Teaching Modern Switzerland, eds. Karin Baumgartner and Margrit Zinggeler, Fall 2010
“The Politics and Poetics of Reading Street Newspapers,” PMLA, vol. 125, no. 2, March 2010, pp. 437-442
“Double Lives, Double Narratives: Tracing the Story of the Family in Rousseau, the Swiss Civil Code and the Fathers’ Rights Debates,” Feminist Legal Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, August 2009, pp. 185-204
“Illegitime Eltern: Zur rechtlichen (Neu-) Verteilung der Geschlechterrollen in Schweizer Familien,” in Wandel der Geschlechterverhältnisse durch Recht, ed. Michelle Cottier, Zurich: Dike Verlag, 2008
“Geschichten von Macht, Raum und Mutterschaft in der Schweizer Akademie, Debates,” in Gender in Motion: Die Konstruktion von Geschlecht in Raum und Erzählung, eds. Dominique Grisard, Jana Häberlein, Anelis Kaiser und Sibylle Saxer, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2007
“Auf den Spuren einer räumlichen Narratologie. Raum, Zeit und Narrativ im Gespräch,” in Gender in Motion: Die Konstruktion von Geschlecht in Raum und Erzählung, eds. Dominique Grisard, Jana Häberlein, Anelis Kaiser und Sibylle Saxer, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2007
“An Office of One’s Own: Stories of Power, Space, and Motherhood in the Swiss Academy,” in Motherhood and Space: Configurations of the Maternal in Politics, Home, and the Body, eds. Sarah Hardy and Caroline Wiedmer, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005
“Geographies of Motherhood: An Introduction,” in Motherhood and Space: Configurations of the Maternal in Politics, Home, and the Body, eds. Sarah Hardy and Caroline Wiedmer, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005
“The Workings of Memory and the Dialectics of Culture,” with Otto Heim, in Inventing the Past: Memory Work in Culture and History, eds. Otto Heim and Caroline Wiedmer, International Cooper Series in English Language and Literature, Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2005
“Justice by Legal Means: The Case of Sabine and Charles Sonabend,” in Inventing the Past: Memory Work in Culture and History, eds. Otto Heim and Caroline Wiedmer, International Cooper Series in English Language and Literature, Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2005
“Gesetz und Narrativität: Notizen zu einer Anatomie", in Wissenschaft und Welterzählung: Die narrative Ordnung der Dinge, ed. Matthias Michel, Zurich: Edition Collegium Helveticum 1, 2003
“Memory, Law and Literature: Reflections of World War II in Swiss-Jewish Literature,” in Coming to Terms with “What” Past?: New Perspectives on the Holocaust and Its Place in the Twentieth Century, eds., Robert D. Levy and William Brustein , Greenwood/Praeger, 2002
“Odysseus’ Tattoo: On Daniel Ganzfried’s The Sender and Binjamin Wilkomirski’s Fragments,” with Rafaël Newman, in Literary Friendship, Literary Paternity: Studies in Honor of Stanley Corngold, ed, Gerhard Richter, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002
“The Glass Ceiling in German-Speaking Switzerland,” in Sound Changes: An International Comparison of Women’s Career Strategies in Higher Education, ed. Caroline Wiedmer, Zürich: Ropress Genossenschaft, 2002
“ ,” an article on transdisciplinarity, eds. Helga Nowotny, Martina Weiss, Karin Hänni, Jahrbuch des Collegium Helveticum der ETH Zürich, Zurich: Hochschulverlag AG an der ETH Zürich, 2001
Review of Barbie Zelitzer, Remembering to Forget, Biography 21.3, winter 2000
“Akademische Freiheiten, gläserne Leitern, mögliche Alternativen: Nachwuchs-und Frauenförderung an Hochschulen in den USA und in der Schweiz,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, November 7, 2000, p. B37
“Locus et Imagines,” in Arbeitsbuch für ein Denkmal in Berlin, eds. Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock, Berlin: Vogt Verlag, 1999
“Designs of Memory: A Memorial in Schöneberg and the Jewish Museum in Berlin,” Alphabet City 3/4, fall 1995
Awards and Honors:
Grant from the Cooper International Series in English Literature and Culture, to support publication of co-edited book on Memory and Trauma (August 2005), with Schwabe Verlag in Basel.
Grant from the Competence Center for Gender Studies at the University of Zurich