Dr. Birgit Capelle
Lecturer
Institutional mailing address
Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Keltologie
Nordamerikastudienprogramm
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Regina-Pacis-Weg 5
53113 Bonn
Email
Research interests
American transcendentalism and pragmatism; theories of modernity and time; transcultural studies; comparative philosophy/literature (East/West), Asian philosophy and religion; auto/biographical studies - life writing, theories of religious experience and conversion; Beat Generation/counterculture movements; nature poetry and prose; arts and aesthetics; American road mythology (literature and film)
Spiritual Crises in Autobiographical Texts from America, Europe, and Asia: A Study of Global Parallels and Growing Convergences from the 17th to the 20th Century (postdoc/habilitation)
“Philosophical Implications of Silence in American Transcendentalism, Japanese Zen Buddhism, and Chinese Taoist Thought.”
Education and grants
Aug. 2018: Endorsement and support by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society (RWES), Research Trip to Concord, Mass., in Sept. 2018
2017, HeRA Travel Grant (Heine Research Academies), Conference "Modernisms and Modernities East, West and South: Comparing Literary and Cultural Experiences,” Shanghai, China, 19-22 July 2017
2017, Fellowship/Frauenförderstipendium (Frauenförderung der Philosophischen Fakultät, HHU Düsseldorf), Conference "Modernisms and Modernities East, West and South: Comparing Literary and Cultural Experiences,” Shanghai, China, 19-22 July 2017
Feb. 2010: Award “Beste Dissertation in der Philosophischen Fakultät 2009,” Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
Jul. 2009: Ph.D., Anglistik, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (summa cum laude); Dissertation: “TIME in American and East Asian Thinking: A Comparative Study of Temporality in American Transcendentalism, Pragmatism, and (Zen) Buddhist Thought”
Apr. 2006: Magistra Artium, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (Anglistik)
Professional experience
Oct. 2020 - Mar. 2022: Lecturer (wiss. Mitarbeiterin) at the North American Studies Program, Department of English, American and Celtic Studies, Bonn University
Oct. 2018 - Sep. 2020: Senior Lecturer (wiss. Mitarbeiterin) in the Section of Modern English Literature - Anglistik IV, Department of English and American Studies, Düsseldorf University
Apr. 2018 - Mar. 2019: Visiting Lecturer (wiss. Mitarbeiterin) at the North American Studies Program, Department of English, American and Celtic Studies, Bonn University
Oct. 2017 - Mar. 2018: Lecturer (wiss. Mitarbeiterin) at the North American Studies Program, Department of English, American and Celtic Studies, Bonn University
Oct. 2016 - Sep. 2017: Visiting Lecturer in the Section of American Studies, Department of English and American Studies, Düsseldorf University
Apr. 2012 - Sep. 2016: Lecturer (wiss. Mitarbeiterin) in the Section of American Studies, Department of English and American Studies, Düsseldorf University
Oct. 2011 - Mar. 2012 Visiting Lecturer in the Section of American Studies, Department of English and American Studies, Düsseldorf University
Oct. 2009 – Mar. 2011: Assistance, Colloquium “Comparative Philosophy: Über Philosophie in Europa und China” (Prof. Dr. jur. Reinhard May, Ph.D.), Department of Philosophy, Düsseldorf University
Publications
Monograph
TIME in American and East Asian Thinking: A Comparative Study of Temporality in American Transcendentalism, Pragmatism, and (Zen) Buddhist Thought. American Studies - A Monograph Series 193. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2011. (Reviewed by Ulfried Reichardt in: Anglia - Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 130.4 (2012): 597-601.)
Edited volume
Capelle, Birgit, and Dennis Sölch, eds. Literarische Philosophie - Philosophische Literatur. Formen des Philosophierens von Platon bis Heidegger. Baden-Baden: Verlag Karl Alber, 2022.
Capelle, Birgit. “Mountains and Waters of No-Mind: A Transcultural Approach to Moments of Heightened Awareness and Non-Substantialist Ontology in Henry David Thoreau, Jack Kerouac, and Gary Snyder.” JAAAS: Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies 2, no. 2 (2022): 117–140, DOI: 10.47060/jaaas.v2i2.93.
Capelle, Birgit. Report on Research Trip to Concord, Mass., Emerson Society Papers. Spring 2019 issue. May 2019. 6.
Capelle, Birgit. "Generation Newness in the Flow of Immediacy: Stein, Kerouac, and the Tao of Modernist Writing." Modernities and Modernization in North America. Eds. Ilka Brasch and Ruth Mayer. American Studies - A Monograph Series 298. Heidelberg: Univ.-Verlag Winter, 2018. 45-63.
Capelle, Birgit. “A Transcultural Consideration of ‘Place’: Thoreau’s Walden Pond and Kitarō Nishida’s ‘basho’.” American Lives. Ed. Alfred Hornung. American Studies – A Monograph Series 234. Heidelberg: Univ.-Verlag Winter, 2013. 467-478.
Capelle, Birgit. “Asian Aspects of Temporal Experience in Transcendentalist Life Writing.” Ecology and Life Writing. Eds. Alfred Hornung and Zhao Baisheng. American Studies – A Monograph Series 203. Heidelberg: Univ.Verlag Winter, 2012. 99-108. (Chinese Translation: 生态学与生命写作 [Shengtaixue Yu Shengming Xiezuo]. Transl. Lin Jiang. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press [中国社会科学出版社, Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe], 2016)
Reviews
Review of Englightened Individualism: Buddhism and Hinduism in American Literature from the Beats to the Present by Kyle Garton-Gundling (2019). OUP Journal American Literary History. (forthcoming 2022)
Professional associations / memberships
International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS)
Ralph Waldo Emerson Society (RWES)
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