Rainer Nägele

Rainer Nägele (August 2, 1943, in Triesen, Liechtenstein - May 12, 2022) was an American literary scholar whose research interests were literature theory, aesthetics, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. Nägele was the Alfred C. & Martha F. Mohr Professor Emeritus of German Language and Literature.

Life and Career

Rainer Nägele completed his Abitur in St. Gallen, Switzerland and Balzers, Liechtenstein. He studied at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and the University of Göttingen and earned his Ph.D. in 1971 at the University of California, Santa Barbara.His dissertation was titled "Formen der Utopie bei Friedrich Hölderlin".

Nägele was an assistant professor of German at the University of Iowa from 1971 to 1973 and an associate professor at Ohio State University from 1973 to 1975 before joining the faculty of the German department at Johns Hopkins University in 1975. He became a full professor in 1979 and continued to teach at Johns Hopkins until 2006. Nägele was the chairman of the German department at Johns Hopkins from 1987 to 1993. Nägele was a professor of German at Yale University from 2006 until his retirement in 2016.

Nägeler was on the editorial board of the New German Critique, The German Quarterly, Studies in 20th Century Literature, MLN and Comparatio.

Bibliography

Authored Books

• Heinrich Böll. Einführung in das Werk und die Forschung. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer-Athenäum Taschenbuch Verlag 1976.
• Peter Handke. München: C.H. Beck Verlag 1978. (with co-author R. Voris).
• Literatur und Utopie. Versuche zu Hölderlin. Heidelberg: Lothar Stiehm Verlag 1978.
• Text, Geschichte und Subjektivität in Hölderlins Dichtung: Uneßbarer Schrift gleich. Stuttgart: Metzler 1985, 256 pp.
• Reading after Freud. Essays on Goethe, Hölderlin, Habermas, Nietzsche, Brecht, Celan, and Freud. New York: Columbia University Press 1987.
• Theater, Theory, Speculation: Walter Benjamin and the Scenes of Modernity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1991.
• Echoes of Translation. Reading Between Texts. Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press 1997.
• Lesarten der Moderne. Essays. Eggingen: Edition Isele 1998.
• Literarische Vexierbilder. Drei Versuche zu einer Figur. Eggingen: Edition Isele 2001.
• Echos: Übersetzen. Lesen zwischen Texten. Basel: Urs Engeler Editor 2002.
• Hölderlins Kritik der poetischen Vernunft. Basel: Urs Engeler Editor 2005.
• fort / da. topobiographien. Bozen: Edition Sturzflüge 2005.
• Darstellbarkeit. Das Erscheinen des Verschwindens. Basel: Urs Engeler Editor, 2008.
• Der andere Schauplatz: Büchner, Brecht, Artaud, Heiner Müller. Stroemfeld Verlag, 2013.

Edited Books

• Walter Benjamin. Special Issue of Studies in 20th Century Literature 11, 1 (1986).
• Benjamin's Ground. New Readings of Walter Benjamin. Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1988.
• Liechtensteiner Exkurse I: Im Zug der Schrift. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag 1994.
• Liechtensteiner Exkurse II: Was wäre Natur? Eggingen: Edition Isele 1995.
• Liechtensteiner Exkurse III: Aufmerksamkeit. Eggingen: Edition Isele 1998.
• Liechtensteiner Exkurse IV: Kontamination. Eggingen: Edition Isele 2001.
• Liechtensteiner Exkurse V: Das wilde Denken. Eggingen: Edition Isele 2004