Prof Se谩n Allan

Prof Se谩n Allan

Professor of German

Phone
+44 (0)1334 46 3671
Email
sa92@st-andrews.ac.uk
Office
Room 206
Location
Buchanan
Office hours
On leave in Semester 2, 2025-26

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Research areas

Professor Se谩n Allan studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and at the Humboldt Universit盲t in what was then East Berlin. Before taking up his first post at the University of Reading, he spent a number of months as a researcher at the Freie Universit盲t in Berlin funded by a DAAD Grant for Young Academics. From 2001-16 he worked at the University of Warwick before moving to the University of 黑料吃瓜网 in 2016 as Professor of German. In 听2017-18 he was Director of Teaching in the School of Modern Languages, from 2018-2022 was Head of School of Modern Languages, and from Jan -June 2023 was Acting Dean of Arts & Divinity. He is a Bonn University Ambassador and currently holds a Joint Research Professorship f眉r Neuere Deutsche Literaturwissenschaft at the University of Bonn.

His research falls into two main areas. The first of these embraces the culture of the European Enlightenment and, in particular, the work of the German Romantic writer Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) as well as 听the Public Sphere and the German Social Imaginary around 1800.

His latest project will be co-delivered by Elke Dubbels (Osnabr眉ck), Elystan Griffiths (Birmingham) and Christian Moser (Bonn/黑料吃瓜网) and is entitled 'A New Order of Things': Social and Cultural Transition in the Epistolary and Journalistic Networks of Heinrich von Kleist'. It will be funded by the AHRC and DFG for three years from February 2026, to a combined total of 980k 鈧� and will fund two postdoc positions, one in the UK and one in Germany, as well as a major international conference in July 2027 at the University of Birmingham. The project will explore Kleist's creative networks across five key areas: Politics, the Military, Economics, Communication and Travel, and the Visual Arts.

Together with Christian Moser (University of Bonn/黑料吃瓜网) he has published a bilingual volume entitled Re-Imagining the Public Sphere in the Long 19th-Century: Literatur, Theater und das soziale Imagin盲re (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2024). 听In May 2019 he co-organised the symposium German Culture and Napoleonic Occupation at the University of 黑料吃瓜网 and this was followed by a volume (co-edited with Jeffrey L. High) entitled published by Camden House in 2021. He has also co-directed a three-year project with Ricarda Schmidt (University of Exeter) supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), entitled 鈥溾��. This project led to two substantial outputs: a volume of essays specifically on the theme of literature and violence published under the title听, ed. Ricarda Schmidt, Se谩n Allan and Steven Howe (2012); the second was a jointly authored monograph by the same team听听(2014).听

His second main area of expertise is DEFA and the cinema of East Germany. His current work on DEFA is focused on documentary cinema and, in particular, the legacy of Bertolt Brecht. He staged a major international conference on East German documentary cinema in May 2022 and (with Sebastian Heiduschke) has published the co-edited volume (Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, 2024).

In 2016-7 he was awarded a Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust to support the research and writing of the monograph听听which was published in March 2019 and re-issued in paperback in 2022. This research also informed the Summer Institute 鈥樷�� organised by the DEFA Film Library in 2019 and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanties.

Together with Sebastian Heiduschke 听he co-edited the volume 听 which was published by Berghahn Books in 2016.听

PhD supervision

  • Behzad听Lotfi
  • Pauline听Preisler

Selected publications

  • Allan, S. (Editor) & Moser, C. (Editor), 1 Aug 2024, Bielefeld: Aisthesis-Verlag. 497 p. (Studien zur vergleichenden Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft; vol. 9)

    Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book

  • Allan, S. (Editor) & Heiduschke, S. (Editor), 25 Aug 2024, New York, NY: Berghahn. 390 p.

    Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book

  • Allan, S., 1 Feb 2019, New York: Berghahn. 293 p. (Film Europa; vol. 20)

    Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book

  • Allan, S. (Editor) & High, J. L. (Editor), 1 Oct 2021, Rochester, NY: Camden House. 345 p. (Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture; vol. 225)

    Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book

  • Allan, S. D. (Editor) & Heiduschke, S. (Editor), 29 Sept 2016, New York : Berghahn. 378 p. (Berghahn on film)

    Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book

  • Schmidt, R., Allan, S. D. & Howe, S., 31 Dec 2014, W眉rzburg: K枚nigshausen & Neumann. 417 p.

    Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book

  • Allan, S. D. (Editor), Schmidt, R. (Editor) & Howe, S. (Editor), 1 Sept 2012, W眉rzburg: K枚nigshausen & Neumann.

    Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book

  • Allan, S. D. (Editor) & Sandford, J. (Editor), 1 Jun 1999, New York, Oxford: Berghahn. 328 p.

    Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book

  • Allan, S. D. (Editor) & Griffiths, E. (Editor), 1 Sept 2011, 3 ed. German Life & Letters. 160 p.

    Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book

  • Allan, S. D., 1 Feb 2001, Rochester, NY: Camden House. 200 p.

    Research output: Book/Report 鈥� Book

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