Dr Cordula Böcking-Politis, Teaching Fellow
Contact details
cb210@st-andrews.ac.uk
Phone: 01334 463663
Office: Buchanan 208
Research and Teaching
My research interests lie broadly in the area of medieval studies and their intersection with cultural studies. I am particularly interested in gender and aspects of alterity and interculturality in medieval German literature, and how the two may be related. This has caused me to examine the link between transgressive femininity and cultural otherness, specifically in medieval appropriations of the Amazon myth. I am also interested in constructions of the Orient, as well as in myth reception in medieval and modern literature in general, and in historical linguistics.
At St Andrews, I teach medieval and early modern German literature and also some sessions on film studies and medieval and early modern German history. My Honours modules cover 'Hartmann von Aue: Knights, Lovers, Sinners, Saints', 'Mediaeval Encounters with the Orient: Wolfram von Eschenbach's Willehalm', 'Mermaids, Devils, Fortunes: How the German Novel Began', and 'Contemporary Turkish-German Text and Film'. At postgraduate level, my teaching currently focuses on paradigm shifts in late medieval literature.
Recent Publications
2009; C Politis; "Das 'lanndt der frawen' im Priester Johannes des Ambraser Heldenbuches: Zur Verwendung des Amazonen-Motivs und seiner Bedeutung für das mythologische Selbstverständnis Maximilians I."; Jahrbuch der Oswald von Wolkenstein-Gesellschaft; 17: 47-59.
2008; C Politis; "The Taming of the Amazon: Pentesilie in Ulrich von Türheim's Rennewart"; Medium Aevum LXXVII, no. 1: 77-95.
2008; C Politis; "nach der mannesnamen site? Amazons and their Challenge to Normative Masculinity in Herbort von Fritzlar's liet von Troye"; Edinburgh German Yearbook; 2: 20-33.
2008; Nicola Creighton, C Politis (ed); Weg und Bewegung. Medieval and Modern Encounters. Festschrift in Honour of Gilbert J. Carr and Timothy R. Jackson; Jahrbuch der Germanistik in Ireland; 3; 214.
2007; C Politis; The Individualization of Fortune in the Sixteenth-Century Novels of Jörg Wickram: The Beginnings of the Modern Narrative in German Literature; The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewistown/NY; 292.