Oliver Lubrich is professor for German Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Bern. Until 2011 he was junior professor for rhetoric at the Peter Szondi-Institut for General and Comparative Literary Studies and at the excellence cluster “Languages of Emotion” at the Free University of Berlin. He also held guest lectureships at the University of Chicago (2005), California State University in Long Beach (2006), the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexiko (2007) and at the Universidade de São Paulo in Brasilien (2010), and fellowships in Freiburg (2014) and Berlin (2017). His monographies deal with Shakespeare’s self deconstruction (2001) and postcolonial poetology (2004, 2009).
Oliver Lubrich is editor resp. co-editor of several works by Alexander von Humbolt: „Kosmos“ (2004, 2014), „Ansichten der Kordilleren“ (2004), „Ueber einen Versuch den Gipfel des Chimborazo zu ersteigen“ (2006), „Zentral-Asien“ (2009), „Anthropologische und ethnographische Schriften“ (2009), „Politische und historiographische Schriften“ (2010), also: „Alexander von Humboldt in World Literature“ (2012) and „Alexander von Humboldt in Cultural Criticism“ (2012); most recently: „Das graphische Gesamtwerk“ (2014, 2015, 2017). He is principal investigator at the University of Bern’s edition of Humboldt’s complete works (treatises, articles and essays, 2019) funded by the Swiss National Fund.
In collaboration with evolutionary biologists and ethnologists Oliver Lubrich examined “Die Affekte der Forscher” (2013–2018) in a project funded by the VW-foundation. He undertook studies in experimental rhetoric jointly with neuroscientists.
Additionally, in another research project, he is collating the reports of international authors travelling in national socialist Germany: „Reisen ins Reich“ (2004, 2009; Voyages dans le Reich, 2007; Travels in the Reich, 2010), „Berichte aus der Abwurfzone“ (2007), „John F. Kennedy. Unter Deutschen“ (2013).
Together with Mark Nixon he is editing Samuel Beckett’s German Diaries.
Because of his activities as a professor for both Comparative Literature and Modern German Literature Oliver Lubrich is interested in a broad variety of research fields. The following are of particular importance:
- Experimental rhetoric
- Literature and science
- Travel writing
- Alexander von Humboldt
- Orientalism, Colonialism, Postcolonialism
- International witnesses in Nazi-Germany
- History and theory of the theatre
- Shakespeare
- Jewish Studies / Antisemitism
- Contemporary Literature
