Alexander Draxl *23

Alexander Draxl joined the Department of German in 2017 after studying education and psychology at the University of Innsbruck and spending a semester as a visiting graduate student at the University of Alberta. His dissertation, “On Schicksal: The Return of Tragedy in Modernity,” explores the concept of fate in modern German literature and thought, including works by Kant, Schiller, Simmel, and Freud. Alexander’s research interests include the theory and history of drama, psychoanalytic theory, Erste Kulturwissenschaft (Benjamin, Cassirer, and Warburg), and women’s writing, especially texts by Ingeborg Bachmann, Marlen Haushofer, and Susan Taubes.

Between 2020 and 2022, Alexander was a Junior Fellow at the Internationale Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften (IFK, Vienna); during this time, he was also a visiting scholar at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and the Internationale Psychoanalytische Universität (Berlin). Forthcoming articles explore the notion of farming in Heidegger’s late philosophy (Monatshefte 115, no. 1, 2023) and Annette von Droste-Hülshoff’s reception of the genre of Schicksalstragödie (Droste-Jahrbuch, 2023).