Welcome Visiting Professor Frauke Berndt

The German department is pleased to have Professor Frauke Berndt of the University of Zurich for the Spring 2023 semester. Internationally, Professor Berndt is well known as an expert for aesthetics and rhetoric. Her research focuses on 18th and 19th century literature and philosophy. But time and again, she ventures into the contemporary, asking: “How does art think and act?” For doctoral students and postdocs, she founded two research groups, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation: ETHOS. Ethical Practices in Aesthetic Theories of the 18th Century (2017–2022) and FORM. Generic Ambiguity in Narrative Fiction (1800–1930) (2021–present). Berndt has established a wide-ranging network with American researchers.