Rochelle Tobias works at the intersection of modern German literature and philosophy with additional expertise in phenomenology, modern poetry, German-Jewish culture, environmental thought, religious studies, and theories of the novel. She is particularly interested in the concept of the \u201cworld\u201d in European literature and thought from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries as well as the ecstatic tradition embodied in romantic and modernist literature.<\/p>\r\n
Her first book The Discourse of Nature in the Poetry of Paul Celan<\/em><\/a> (JHU Press, 2016) revives the concept of the poetic conceit to explain how Celan turns the impossibility of poetry after Auschwitz into a \u201cpath of the impossible,\u201d to borrow one of his favorite phrases. It argues that the terminology and, above all, motifs associated with nineteenth and early twentieth-century geology, astrology and physiology provide him with an occasion to trace the origins of his poetry in a hollow or void that is then figured in the work.<\/p>\r\n Tobias\u2019s second book Pseudo-Memoirs: Life and Its Imitation in Modern Fiction<\/em><\/a> (U of Nebraska Press, 2021) revisits some of the foundational questions of literary criticism, aesthetics, and theories of prose fiction. She coins the term \u201cpseudo-memoirs\u201d to describe a broad range of texts from fictional diaries to feigned autobiographies and from imaginary notebooks to mock reminiscences. As the tale of their own telling, or the representation of their own narration, pseudo-memoirs bring to the fore the condition of possibility for any fictional work to present a seeming reality. This condition is consciousness itself, as Tobias shows through theoretical reflections that stretch from Aristotle to Husserl and close readings that extend from Robert Walser to W.G. Sebald.<\/p>\r\n Much of her recent scholarship has emphasized the importance of Husserlian phenomenology for understanding modernism. With Kristina Mendicino (Brown) and Philippe P. Haensler (Zurich), she edited Phenomenology to the Letter: Husserl and Literature<\/em><\/a> (<\/em>de Gruyter, 2020), which is the first volume in decades to explore the poetological implications of Husserl\u2019s work. Her interest in the environmental humanities led to the volume H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s Philosophy of Nature<\/em><\/a> (Edinburgh UP, 2019), that considers the relation of H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s poetic theory to his concept of nature.<\/p>\r\n She is currently working on two book projects. The first tentatively entitled Mindscapes: From Romanticism to Modernity<\/em> explores the subjective constitution of the world as seen in the writings of Novalis and Fichte and again in Rilke and Husserl. The second project, Robert Walser, Literary Miracles, and Virgin Births<\/em> sketches Walser\u2019s incarnational poetics and claims that his texts engineer the birth of the author outside the book in a modern-day version of the word made flesh.<\/p>\r\n Professor Tobias\u2019s honors include a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich in 2009 as well as research grants from the American Association of University Women and the DAAD. She is the Director of the Max Kade Center for Modern German Thought<\/a>\u00a0at Johns Hopkins.<\/p>"],"ecpt_publications":[" See curriculum vitae for complete list.<\/em><\/p>\r\n \u201cThe Expanse of the Sky: Nature, History and Dwelling in Celan and H\u00f6lderlin<\/a>,\u201d Aesthetica<\/em>, the journal of Societ\u00e0 Italiana di Estetica (SIE), 118 (Sept-Dec 2021), 137-159.<\/p>\r\n \u201cGregor Samsa and the Problem of Intersubjectivity<\/a>,\u201d Phenomenology to the Letter: Husserl and Literature<\/em>, ed. Phlippe P. Haensler, Kristina Mendicino, and Rochelle Tobias (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021), 309-29.<\/p>\r\n \u201cIntroduction<\/a>,\u201d H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s Philosophy of Nature<\/em>, ed. R. Tobias (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 1-20.<\/p>\r\n \u201cThe Untamed Earth: The Labour of Rivers in H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s \u2018Der Ister,\u2019<\/a>\u201d H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s Philosophy of Nature<\/em>, ed. Rochelle Tobias (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 75-93.<\/p>\r\n \u201cWalking Is Not Writing: Performance and Poetics in Walser\u2019s\u00a0Der Spaziergang<\/em><\/a>,\u201d\u00a0Spazieren mu\u00df ich unbedingt. Robert Walser und die Kultur des Gehens<\/em>, ed. Annie Pfeifer and Reto Sorg (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2018), 39-49.<\/p>\r\n \"Ringe und Linien bei Sebald<\/a>,\" unpublished lecture.<\/p>\r\n \"Rilke, Phenomenology, and the Sensuality of Thought<\/a>,\"\u00a0Konturen<\/em>\u00a0VIII (2015), 40-61.<\/p>\r\n \"Rilke's Landscape of the Heart: On the\u00a0Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge<\/a>,\"\u00a0Modernism\/modernity<\/em>\u00a020:4, 667-684.<\/p>\r\n \u201cIrreconcilable: Ethics and Aesthetics for Hermann Cohen and Walter Benjamin<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0Modern Language Notes<\/em>\u00a0127:3 (April 2012), 665-80.<\/p>\r\n \u201cRomantic Irony and the Modern Lyric: Szondi on Hofmannsthal,\u201d\u00a0Telos\u00a0140 (Fall 2007), 131-46.<\/p>\r\n \u201cThe Double Fiction in Robert Walser\u2019s\u00a0Jakob von Gunten<\/em><\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0German Quarterly<\/em>\u00a079:3 (Summer 2006), 293-307.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n \u201cMarch 27, 1329: Pope John XXII condemns portions of Meister Eckhart\u2019s work as heretical,\u201d in\u00a0The New History of German Literature<\/em>, ed. David Wellbery et al (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 140-44.<\/p>\r\n \u201cA Doctor\u2019s Odyssey: Sickness and Health in Kafka\u2019s \u2018Ein Landarzt'<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0The Germanic Review<\/em>\u00a075:2 (Spring 2000), 120-131. Reprinted in\u00a0Short Story Criticism<\/em>, Vol. 60, ed. Justin Karr.<\/p>\r\n \u201cDas Gesicht der Dinge,\u201d in\u00a0Gedichte von Rainer Maria Rilke<\/em>, ed. Wolfram Groddeck (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1999), 104-121.<\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>"],"ecpt_cv":["http:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/modern-languages-literatures\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2020\/04\/Public-CV2020.pdf"],"_thumbnail_id":["1030"],"ecpt_books_cond":["on"],"_searchwp_last_index":["1552650624"],"_wp_old_date":["2013-10-29","2020-04-20","0202-01-07"],"_ecpt_cv":["field_61e0871dac8e2"],"cv_file":[""],"_cv_file":["field_61e088d12999e"],"ecpt_job_abstract":[""],"_ecpt_job_abstract":["field_61e0873bac8e3"],"abstract_file":[""],"_abstract_file":["field_61e088f52999f"],"ecpt_hours":["T 4:30-5:40 Th 10-11"],"ecpt_teaching":[" Recent Graduate Seminars<\/strong><\/p>\r\n Husserl's Ideas<\/em>: An Introduction to Phenomenology<\/a><\/p>\r\n Modern Orpheus: Rilke and Celan<\/a><\/p>\r\n Robert Walser, Literary Miracles, and Virgin Births<\/a><\/p>\r\n On the Difficulty of Saying I<\/p>\r\n Music, Poetry, Voice: Literature and the Pursuit of Transcendence<\/p>\r\n Recent Undergraduate Classes<\/strong><\/p>\r\n Literature and Madness<\/a><\/p>\r\n Ghost Stories, Haunted Houses, and Other Occult Phenomena<\/a><\/p>\r\nSample Publications<\/h4>\r\n