Prof. Dr. Gerd Bayer

From April to September 2025, I am on leave.

For questions relating to the MA English Studies, please contact Dr Bethke.
For questions relating to study abroad programmes, please contact PD Dr Broders.
For any other questions relating to the English department, please contact our department assistant, Mrs Kottenhahn.

Research Interests

Restoration and early modern prose fiction; Holocaust studies; postmodern and contemporary novel; heavy metal studies; epistolarity

Research Supervision

I welcome (post)graduate research proposals in the fields listed above.

Current Research Projects

  • textual edition of prose fiction from Peter Motteux’s The Gentleman’s Journal (1692-94), with Mariajosé Coperias (University Valencia)
  • Holocaust literature and film
  • David Mitchell’s postcolonial cosmopolitanism
  • epistolarity in early modern prose fiction

  • English and American Studies and Geography, FAU Erlangen: M.A. & 1. Staatsexamen (1998), Dr. phil. (2003), Dr. phil. habil. (2012)
  • PAD Lecturer, University of Toronto (1998-99)
  • Lecturer, Case Western Reserve University (1999-2004)
  • Assistant Professor (tenure track), University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (2004-05)
  • Akademischer Rat/Oberrat (LfbA), Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (2005-13/2013-16)
  • paternity leave (Summer Semester 2009 and Summer Semester 2012)
  • Akademischer Direktor, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (2016-)
  • außerplanmäßiger Professor (2017-)

  • Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin (March 2006)
  • Member, Editorial Advisory Board, The Journal of Popular Culture (USA), 2007-
  • DFG Grant (personal research leave), project on Restoration prose, paratext and genre (October 2009 – March 2012)
  • Participant at Early Career Researchers Forum, European Science Foundation, National University of Ireland, Maynooth (June 2011)
  • Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies (Spain), 2011-
  • Professeur invité, English Department, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (September 2012)
  • Associate Editor, The Journal of Postcolonial Writing (UK), 2012-22
  • Research Fellowship, travel stipend, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin (March 2013)
  • Member, Editorial Board, Anthem Studies in Popular Culture, Anthem Press (UK), 2013-
  • Visiting Professor, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Tallinn (February 2015)
  • Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Studies in World Literature, Ibidem Press, 2015-
  • Elected Member, Academia Europaea (Literary and Theatrical Studies), 2017-
  • Thyssen-Foundation Grant, project on Restoration epistolarity (2018-2023)
  • Member, Editorial Board, Humanities (Switzerland), 2021-
  • Member, Editorial Board, Epistolographia: An International Journal (Italy), 2022-
  • Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies (US), 2023-
  • Visiting Lecturer, MA seminar early modern fiction, University of Granada, Spain, April 2025.
  • Peer Reviewer for journals:

The Journal of Popular Culture (USA)
The Journal of Postcolonial Writing (UK)
Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies (Spain)
Callalloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Art and Letters (USA)
Ariel: A Reivew of International English Literature (Canada)
Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch (Germany)
Res musica (Estonia)
Film Quarterly (USA)
Papers on Language and Literature (USA)
Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly (Hawai’i)
LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory (USA)
Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History (UK)
College Literature (USA)
Concentric: Literary & Cultural Studies (Taiwan)
Journal of Modern Jewish Studies (UK)
Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal (Canada)
C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-century Writings (UK)
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: An Intern. Rev. of English Studies (Poland)
Journal of Perpetrator Research (Netherlands)
Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies (Australia)
Genealogy (Switzerland)
Sederi Yearbook (Spain)
Metal Music Studies (UK)
Humanities (Switzerland)
Geosciences (Switzerland)
Imaginaires (France)
Music, Sound and the Moving Image (UK)
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews (UK)
Arts (Switzerland)
Anglistik (Germany)
Journal of Multicultural Discourses (China/UK)
New German Critique (USA)
e-Rea (France)
Philosophies (Japan)
Women’s Writing (USA)
The AnaChronisT (Hungary)

  • Peer Reviewer for publishers: Routledge (USA), Manchester University Press (UK), Cambridge University Press (UK), Bloomsbury (UK), Ibidem Press (Germany), Anthem Press (UK)
  • Peer Reviewer for grant agencies: European Science Foundation, Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, Schweizerischer Nationalfond, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada), National Science Centre (Poland), Humboldt Stiftung
  • Erasmus teaching and staff mobilities to: Roskilde (Denmark), University College Cork (Ireland), Limerick (Ireland), Ulster (Northern Ireland), London (England), Verona (Italy), Wroclaw (Poland), and Poznan (Poland).

Authored Books

Edited Volumes

Journal Articles

Book Contributions

Translations

  • “Bodies of Metal in the film The Sound of Metal.” International Society for Metal Music Studies conference, Sevilla, Spain, June 2025.
  • “The Fact/Fiction-Continuum in Bram Presser’s The Book of Dirt.” Valedictory Address, An International Seminar on Trauma Studies, Krishnammal College for Women, Coimbatore, India, October 2023.
  • “Novels, Genres, Histories: The Prose Fictions in Peter Motteux’s Gentleman’s Journal.” International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference, Rome, Italy, July 2023.
  • “Getting Your Letters Wrong: Early Modern Epistolary Writing.” Keynote, Sederi Conference, Valencia, Spain, May 2023.
  • “The Bishop of Exeter vs Benjamin Hoadly: Pamphlets, Controversy, and the Uses of Epistolarity.” Invited talk, Alicante, Spain, May 2023.
  • “Apologies, Gratitude, Consolation: Jenny Diski‘s Writing as Moral Reckoning.” Consolation in Contemporary British and Postcolonial Literatures, ENS Lyon, France, April 2023.
  • “Epistolary Frames: Restoration Fiction and the Making of Lettered Truths.” Anglistentag, Mainz, Germany, September 2022.
  • “Jenny Diski’s Writing, Illness, and Survival.” Invited Keynote. Crossroads III: Risk and Safety, University of Białystok, Poland, October 2021.
  • “The Unapologetic Writer: Jenny Diski, Michel Montaigne, and Marie De Gournay.” Jenny Diski: A Celebration, Oxford University, UK, April 2021.
  • “Faking Factuality: Restoration Fiction and Epistolarity.” Invited Plenary Lecture. Shaping the Novel: New Critical Perspectives on Early Prose Fiction in English, University of Huelva, Spain, October 2019.
  • “The Bishop of Exeter vs. Benjamin Hoadly: Pamphlets, Controversy, and the Uses of Epistolarity.” International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference, Edinburgh, Great Britain, July 2019.
  • “Dramatisierungen im Dokumentarfilm: The Future of Food (2004) und die Affekte der Rezipienten.” Politische Ziele und ästhetische Strategien von Umwelt-Dokumentarfilmen, Bielefeld, May 2019.
  • “The Performance of Gender in Heavy Metal Film.” Invited Lecture. Poznan University, Poland, April 2019.
  • “Restoration Fiction and Epistolary Deceptions.” British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Oxford, Great Britain, January 2019.
  • “On (not) Watching The Lady in Number 6: Digital Holocaust Film, Copyright Infringement, and the Obligation to Remember.” Digital Ontology and Epistemology:  Between Law, Literature and the Visual Arts, Verona, Italy, November 2018.
  • “The Shadow Lines of an Antique Land: Modernist Impressions of Conflict.” The Shadow Lines Thirty Years After: International Conference, Milano & Torino, Italy, November 2018.
  • “Paratextual Poetics of Restoration Fiction.” Invited Lecture. Salzburg University, Austria, June 2018.
  • “Echte Rockstars: Spiel und Ernst in performativen Identitäten des Heavy Metal.” Wissenschaft im Schloss, FAU Erlangen, June 2018.
  • “Fragmentary Transtextuality: David Mitchell and His Novel.” Fragmentary Writing in Contemporary British and American Fiction. Wroclaw, Poland, September 2017.
  • “David Mitchell’s Slade House and the Non-Place of Transmodernism.” Transmodern Perspectives on Contemporary Literatures in English. Zaragoza, Spain, April 2017.
  • “When Earth Matters: Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather.” MatteReality: Historical Trajectories and Conceptual Futures for Material Culture Studies, FRIAS Freiburg, March 2017.
  • “Restoration Fiction and Paratextual Genre Making.” Invited lecture. Bayreuth University, December 2016.
  • “Early Modern Epistolary Culture: Truly Yours or Truly Told?” Invited talk, GRK Erzählen. University of Freiburg, October 2016.
  • “Displaced Memory: The Screened Past of Fugitive Pieces.” BAHS conference. London, UK, July 2016.
  • “The Proto-Gothic in Mary Pix’s The Inhumane Cardinal.” Invited lecture. Stuttgart University, May 2016.
  • “Is This a Novel Which I See Before Me? The Short Narrative Form in David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks.” Creating Coherence in the British Short Story Cycle. Mainz, October 2015.
  • “Nothing to Be Frightened Of: The Literary Correspondence of Two Senior Writers, Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee.” Writers as Readers and Critics of Their Peers. Lyon, France, October 2014.
  • “Grenzenlose Performanz? Lemmy als ‘Lemmy’ in Lemmy (2010).” Welcome to My Nightmare: Metal & Theatralität. Mainz, June 2014.
  • “Colonialists, Clans, and Can-Do Farming: Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather (1968).” European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies. Innsbruck, Austria, April 2014.
  • “The Broken Letters of Early Modern Fiction.” Anglistentag. Konstanz, September 2013.
  • “Spectres of Mob in Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises.” Invited Talk. University of Bamberg, July 2013.
  • “Making the Postmodern English Novel: John Fowles’s Unpublished ‘Tesserae’.” Narrative: An International Conference. Manchester, UK, June 2013.
  • “Sentimental Comedy and the Heavy Metal Documentary.” International Conference on Heavy Metal and Popular Culture. Bowling Green, Ohio, USA, April 2013.
  • “The Paratextual Poetics of Restoration Fiction.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Cleveland, Ohio, USA, April 2013.
  • “The Spirit of Conviviality and the Demons of the Marketplace.” The Famished Road by Ben Okri, ENS Lyon, October 2012.
  • “Perpetual Apocalypses: David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and the Absence of History.” Anglistentag. Potsdam, September 2012.
  • “Refractions of Empire: David Mitchell’s Jacob de Zoet and the Global Search for Humanity.” Interrogating Cosmopolitan Conviviality: New Dimensions of the European in Literature. Bamberg, May 2012.
  • “True Horror and the Proto-Gothic: Mary Pix’s The Inhuman Cardinal.” British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Oxford, Great Britain, January 2012.
  • “Human Nature in Early Modern Travel Writing.” Biennial Meeting of the Defoe Society. University of Worcester, Great Britain, July 2011.
  • “Alter, Tod, Erinnerung: Lebenswertes und Lesenswertes bei Graham Swift und Howard Jacobson.” Erlangen University, June 2011.
  • “Displaced Memory: The Screened Past of Fugitive Pieces.” Invited talk. University of Barcelona, Spain, April 2011.
  • “Fragments of Cultural Memory: The Dormant Past in Jenny Diski’s Then Again.” Beyond Trauma: Narratives of (Im)possibility. University of Zaragoza, Spain, April 2011.
  • “Genre and the Reader in Restoration Fiction.” British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Oxford, Great Britain, January 2011.
  • “Character Speech, Narration, and Individual Identity in Early Modern Prose.” Anglistentag. Saarbrücken, September 2010.
  • “Early Modern Prose and the Place of Poetics.” European Society for the Study of English. Torino, Italy, August 2010.
  • “Making the Early Modern Reader: Restoration Paratexts and Prose Fiction.” Invited talk. Temple University, Philadelphia, April 2010.
  • “Narrating before Narrators: Restoration Prose and the Instance of Speech.” Narrative: An International Conference. Cleveland, Ohio, April 2010.
  • “The Nature of the Other in Restoration Travel Fiction.” British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Oxford, Great Britain, January 2010.
  • “Mockumentary und ethnographischer Film: Eine postkoloniale Umkehrung.” Invited talk. Conference Fälschungen: literarisch, medial. Stuttgart University, December 2009.
  • “Writing the Penitentiary: Voicing Australia’s Colonial Crimes.” Anglistentag. Klagenfurt, Austria, September 2009.
  • “Facing Trauma: Generations, Memory, Cinema.” ACLA Annual Meeting. Boston, March 2009.
  • “Paratext and Genre: Making 17th-Century Readers.” European Society for the Study of English. Aarhus, Denmark, August 2008.
  • “Der Holocaust als Metapher in postmodernen und postkolonialen Romanen.” Ringvorlesung: Literatur und Holocaust. Erlangen University, January 2008.
  •  “Fake Films as Media Criticism.” Anglistentag, Münster, September 2007.
  • “Am Rande der Küste: Insel und Schiffbruch.” Collegium Alexandrinum, Erlangen University, July 2007.
  • “Nature and Science: Indian Novels of Eco-Resistance.” Re-Routing the Postcolonial, University of Northampton, July 2007.
  • “Madness in the City: Crazy Flâneurs in the Writings of Jenny Diski, Tibor Fischer, and Jane Rogers.” Ecritures de Londres dans le roman contemporain de langue anglaise (1950-2007). Sorbonne, France, March 2007.
  • “On Filming Metafiction: John Fowles and the Filmmakers.” European Society for the Study of English. London, August 2006.
  • “Ocean Life and Scientific Discourse: Gunesekera’s Reef as Post-Colonial Resistance.” Narrative: An International Conference. Ottawa, Ontario, April 2006.
  • “Deceptive Narratives: On Truth and the Epistolary Voice.” Narrative: An International Conference. Louisville, Kentucky, April 2005.
  • “Germany’s Reaction to the Holocaust.” Peace Conference. University of Wisconsin – Whitewater, April 2005.
  • “Images of Terror: Documentary Filmmaking and the RAF.” Invited Talk. U of Arizona, Tucson, March 2005.
  • “Violence and the Postcolonial Project in City of God.” Invited Talk. Tulane U, New Orleans, November 2004.
  • “Narrators in Love: Amorous Voices in Zaimoglu and Pirinçci.” German Studies Association Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C., October 2004.
  • “Cinematic Violence and Decorum: Postcolonialism vs. The Spectacular.” Narrative: An International Conference. Burlington, Vermont, April 2004.
  • “Cinematic Cities: Inventing Memories of Past and Future Urban Spaces.” ACLA Annual Meeting. Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 2004.
  • “Urbanism and the Generation X: Douglas Coupland’s Cityscapes.” MLA Annual Meeting. San Diego, California, December 2003.
  • “Zaimoglu’s Kanak Attack: The Cinematic Performance of Violence.” Popular Culture Conference. New Orleans, Louisiana, April, 2003.
  • “Moving to Cyborgia: Virtual Liminality in Cronenberg’s eXistenZ.” ACLA Annual Meeting. San Diego, California, April 2003.
  • “Chaos vs. The Postmodern: A Narrative Differentiation.” Narrative: An International Conference. Berkeley, California, March 2003.
  • “William Morris’s Rural Utopia and the Un-Malling of America.” Society for Utopian Studies Annual Meeting. Orlando, Florida, October 2002.
  • “The Artist in a Foreign Land: Hybridity in Feridun Zaimoglu’s Work.” ACLA Annual Meeting. San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 2002.
  • “Tragicomic Historiography in Tibor Fischer’s Under the Frog.” 20th Century Literature Conference. Louisville, Kentucky, February 2002.
  • “How Nature Writing Questions Science.” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, June 2001.
  • “Eco-Narrative: The Green Chaos of John Fowles’s Art.” Narrative: An International Conference. Houston, Texas, March 2001.
  • “Politics and Politicians: The Representation of Power in African Novels.” The Republic of Letters 2000. Oxford University, England, September 2000.
  • “Native Writers in Canada: Postcolonialism of the 3rd Dimension?” Is Canada Postcolonial? Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, September 2000.
  • “Postcolonial, or what? How to read German Migrantenliteratur.” Invited Talk. U of Texas, Austin, May 2000.
  • “New Symptoms, Same Diagnosis? Themes in Meja Mwangi’s Novels.” 26th Annual Meeting of the African Literature Association. Lawrence, Kansas, April 2000.
  • “Culture and Identity: The Rhetorics of Migrantenliteratur.” Narrative: An International Conference. Atlanta, Georgia, April 2000.
  • “Pop or Sub? Struggles Within Culture.” German Studies: The Future of the Disciplines (graduate student conference). University of Toronto, Canada, March 2000.
  • “‘A sterile promontory:’ Jane Rogers’s and Jenny Diski’s Views of the Future.” Interdisciplinary Humanities Reflections on the Future. Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, May 1999.
  • “Islands, Shipwrecks, and the Lost Domain: John Fowles and Environmental Ethics.” ACLA Annual Meeting. Montréal, Canada, April 1999.

  • Christof Beer, “Jugendliche Entfaltungs- und Gestaltungsräume im britischen Drama der 1950er und 1960er Jahre.” (Peter Lang, 2021)
  • Jaroslaw Jasenowski, “Performing Factuality in John Dunton’s Athenian Cosmos: The Rites of Truth.” (Palgrave, 2024)
  • Anna Gruber, “Time and the (Post)colonial Self: Oppressive Uses of Time and the Construction of Postcolonial Identities.” (2024)
  • Hasan Serkan Demir, “Alienation in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Fiction” (2025)
  • Andrea Petzenhauser, “Remembering Tomorrow: The Evolution of Holocaust Memory Across Generations.” (AT)