Prof. Dr. Isabel Karremann

I have been Professor for Early Modern Literature in English at the University of Zurich since 2019. My research and teaching revolve around early modern drama and theatrical culture, the rise of the novel in the eighteenth century and the literary history of globalization, gender studies and the history of feminism before 1800, and the afterlives of literary classics in modern adaptations and productions. I am particularly interested in the ways literary texts are part of the world: situated in specific historical, political and socio-cultural contexts; shaped by material conditions as well as cognitive, affective and aesthetic perception habits; taking form in theatrical performances, adaptations, re-writings; and working as acts of communication that create communities, shape identities, negotiate conflicts and allow us to understand better the world we live in. 

I am general editor of the Shakespeare Jahrbuch and a long-standing member of several international research associations including the Swiss Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, the Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschaft, the Shakespeare Association of America and the International Shakespeare Association. Before coming to Zurich, I was Professor for English Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Würzburg, Germany, where I also served as Head of Department (2014–2016) and as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Arts (2017–2019). Since 2016 I have held research fellowships and visiting professorships at Jawaharlal-Nehru-University and Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. 

Research Interests

• Early modern drama and theatrical culture 

• Shakespeare, memory and space  

• Cognition, affect and sense perception in early modern drama 

• Eighteenth-century culture and the literary history of globalization 

• Gender studies and feminist criticism 

• Robinson Crusoe and its afterlives