Jens Kugele is Head of Research Coordination at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) of the Justus Liebig University Giessen. He is one of the research center’s Principal Investigators and has been a member of the center’s Executive Board since 2014. Previously, he held an appointment as Assistant Professor (Assistenz) at the LMU Munich. In 2016, he was Visiting Researcher at the Institute for German Cultural Studies at Cornell University. His research interests include intersections of the literary and cultural history with the history of religion, German-Jewish literature and culture, constructions of belonging, memory, and space. One of his current research projects looks at ‘sacred space’ as a concept for the interdisciplinary study of culture. He is co-founder and co-editor of the peer-reviewed interdisciplinary open access journal On_Culture.
Dr. Kugele taught an upper/under course in Fall 2022 titled “Kafka and World Literature,” GERM 464. This seminar explored aspects of Franz Kafka’s work in the context of “world literature.” The seminar introduced central approaches in order to apply them to selected texts by Franz Kafka as well as to central aspects of his work in general. Among other topics, constructions of authorship in a trans/national context, (re-)readings of Kafka’s work worldwide, Kafka’s situatedness in the context of German-Jewish literature, Kafka’s view of questions of “national literature” and “minor literature,” and the worldwide struggle for legitimate ownership of Kafka’s literature and legacy were examined.
Dr. Kugele is also an alum of the Georgetown University German PhD program (PhD, 2011). More information on his time as a graduate student at Georgetown can be found here.