Professorship for English Literature
Organisational unit: Professoship
Organisation profile
In the English Literature section, our research and teaching focusses on a wide range of topics from a broadly Cultural Studies perspective. Areas of particular interest in our research include narratology, image studies, literary translation and adaptation, transnational phenomena, Irish literature, children’s literature as well as literature of the Romantic period and eighteenth-century literature situated at the interface of literature and music. In our teaching we offer courses in the Bachelor and Master programmes in Teacher Education and Cultural Studies. Seminar topics range from a general Introduction to English Literature to literary translation, transmedia storytelling, contemporary Irish short stories, children’s literature, the picturebook and other multimodal texts, literary nonsense, specific writers such as Oscar Wilde or genres such as eighteenth-century travel. We explore how literature works between and beyond the book covers in research-based seminars and project seminars in cooperation with partners in literary institutions, in theatre excursions and through guest lectures by contemporary authors and translators as well as by representatives of publishing houses and from the local theatre. Committed to our teaching, we employ different didactic approaches and methods, including blended learning, and use a variety of teaching materials specifically tailored to our students’ needs and interests.
Main research areas
Areas of research are comparative literature, translation studies, image studies, children's literature and literature in the classroom (intercultural aspects and children's literature in foreign language learning and teaching).
- Conference Presentations
Als ob Hitler diesen ollen Krieg zu ihren Gunsten arrangiert hätte. Evakuierung als zentrales Thema der britischen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur über den Zweiten Weltkrieg
O'Sullivan, E. (Speaker)
08.05.2025Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference Presentations › Research
Ambivalent transfer: Translated children's and youth literature and the postulated enrichment through the encounter with foreign cultures
O'Sullivan, E. (Speaker)
25.09.2022Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference Presentations › Research
“Blyton’s Island(s)”
O'Sullivan, E. (Speaker)
25.09.2024Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference Presentations › Research
Blyton’s Island(s)
O'Sullivan, E. (Speaker)
25.09.2024Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference Presentations › Research
Books for Children. Transnational encounters 1750-1850
O'Sullivan, E. (Speaker)
30.05.2018Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference Presentations › Research
Closing Session: Summary Notes (with Gillian Lathey, as invited honorary speakers). Auf der Konferenz “New Voices in Children’s Literature in Translation: Culture, Power and Transnational Approaches”
O'Sullivan, E. (Speaker) & Lathey, G. (Keynote Speaker)
23.08.2024Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference Presentations › Research
Der Zauberlehrling im Internat: Harry Potter im Kontext der britischen Literaturtradition
O'Sullivan, E. (Keynote Speaker)
09.11.2001 → 10.11.2001Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference Presentations › Research
Die Komplexität der Einfachheit (SIKJM-Jahrestagung 2019, Zürich)
O'Sullivan, E. (Plenary speaker)
25.09.2019Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference Presentations › Research
Eröffnungsvortrag auf dem Symposium 'Ein deutscher Kinderliterat mit Weltruhm. Erich Kästner und die deutsche Kinderliteratur im Ausland 1999
O'Sullivan, E. (Keynote Speaker)
14.02.1999 → 17.02.1999Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference Presentations › Research
Illustration as intersemiotic translation: Visualising nonsense:
O'Sullivan, E. (Keynote Speaker)
19.10.2017Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference Presentations › Research