Nitzke, Solvejg

Comparative research becomes relevant wherever knowledge is negotiated and, as in ecological contexts for example, where science and (self-)narrative must come together in order to enable action. My work concerns precisely these precarious points where no single form of knowledge operates in isolation and where never just one language (in both the metaphorical and literal senses) is present. Comparative literature is important in cultural studies and society not least because it probes the boundaries of knowledge and systematically explores ways of dealing with uncertainty.

Ecological research in literary and cultural studies, with a focus on plants and climate

• Conceptualisations of time and matter, including in nature writing and ecological narrative
• Precarious natures in the long 19th century
• Literary and cultural visions of the future, with a focus on catastrophes and apocalypses
• Interactions between science and fiction / knowledge and literature
• Genres of knowledge communication

• 2005–2010 Studied Comparative Literature and German Studies at Ruhr University Bochum and Linnaeus University in Växjö (Sweden)
• 2011–2015 PhD fellow at the “Ruhr-University Research School”
• 2011–2012 Teaching Assistant at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Virginia (UVA)
• 2015 PhD in German Studies/New German Literature, thesis title: “The Production of Catastrophe: The Tunguska Event and the Programmes of Modernity”
• 2015–2017 Research assistant on the DFG project "Zeit des Klimas" (led by Prof. Dr Eva Horn) at the Institute of German Studies, University of Vienna
• Aug. 2015–Apr. 2016 Maternity and parental leave
• 2017–2020 Open Topic Postdoc (OTPP) at Dresden University of Technology (Project: "Precarious Nature. Landscape, Climate and People in Village History")
• 2020–2021 Research Assistant at the Chair of Media Studies and Modern German Literature, Dresden University of Technology
• 2021–2023 Project Leader for "Strange Kinship. A Cultural Poetics of Trees", funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, Dresden University of Technology
• 2021–2024 TUD Young Investigator and Project Leader of the project "Disrupt!Research. Dynamic Collaboration under Conditions of Disruption" as part of the Centre of Excellence "TUDiSC. Disruption and Societal Change" (in collaboration with Prof. Dr Jens Krzywinski, Industrial Design, and Dr Martina Pieperhoff, Economics/Sociology), TU Dresden
• 2023 Habilitation, topic: "Strange Kinship. A Cultural Poetics of Trees", venia legendi for the subjects of Modern German Literature and General and Comparative Literature, TU Dresden
• 2024–2026 Acting Professor of Comparative Literature/General and Comparative Literary Studies at Ruhr University Bochum (vacancy: Prof. Dr Monika Schmitz-Emans)
• since September 2026 Professorship of Comparative Literature, Faculty of Philology and Cultural Studies, University of Vienna