Prof. Dr. Henrike Lähnemann – Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

Prof. Dr. Henrike Lähnemann

University of Oxford
German Medieval Studies

External Senior Fellow
July 2024 – August 2024

E-Mail: henrike.laehnemann@frias.uni-freiburg.de

Last Update: 31.08.2024

Curriculum Vitae

I grew up in three German towns that shaped my interest in medieval literature and religion: Münster, Lüneburg and Nürnberg. I then studied Germanistik, History of Art and Theology in Bamberg, Edinburgh, Berlin and Göttingen. My PhD explored the late medieval literary network of Nürnberg. I followed my Doktorvater Professor Christoph Huber to the University of Tübingen where from 1995 to 2006 I taught a variety of courses on medieval German language and literature ranging from Advanced Gothic to Early Print Culture. During that time I gained a Venia Legendi (the right to lecture) in German Philology for my book on the history of the Book of Judith in the Middle Ages and edited an 11th century bilingual commentary on the Song of Songs by Williram of Ebersberg. During these years I spent a year at Oxford on a Humboldt foundation scholarship working with Professor Nigel F. Palmer (2001-2002) and held a Visiting Professorship at the University of Zürich centred around manuscript studies (2005). In 2006, I came to the UK as Chair of German Studies at Newcastle University where my current research projects took shape: the religious landscape of the 15/16th Lüneburg area, particularly the manuscripts produced by the nuns in Medingen. Working there also afforded the opportunity to start shared projects with British German medievalists and the wider field of Modern Languages, e.g. as Chair of Women in German Studies (WIGS). Since starting in Oxford as the Chair of Medieval German Literature and Languages in January 2015, I have taken forward these and new topics within the German and medieval studies community in Oxford.

Selected Publications

Henrike Lähnemann and Ulrike Hascher-Burger: Liturgie und Reform im Kloster Medingen. Edition und Untersuchung des Propst-Handbuchs Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. liturg. e. 18 (Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation 76), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2013. Table of contents
Elizabeth Andersen and Henrike Lähnemann (eds.): Companion to Mysticism and Devotion in Northern Germany in the Late Middle Ages (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 44), Leiden 2013 (Introduction: Mysticism and Devotion in Northern Germany, pp. 1-19). View the Table of contents and read the introduction (pre-print version).
Henrike Lähnemann: ›Hystoria Judith‹. Deutsche Judithdichtungen vom 12. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert (Scrinium Friburgense 20), Berlin/New York 2006.
Henrike Lähnemann and Michael Rupp: Williram von Ebersberg: ›Expositio in Cantica Canticorum‹ und das ›Commentarium in Cantica Canticorum‹ Haimos von Auxerre, Berlin: de Gruyter 2004.
Henrike Lähnemann and Sandra Linden (eds.): Dichtung und Didaxe. Lehrhaftes Sprechen in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, Berlin 2009, ed. by Henrike Lähnemann and Sandra Linden. Introduction ‘Was ist lehrhaftes Sprechen?’, p. 1-10. The full volume is accessible free of charge.

FRIAS Project

Internationalisation and Cooperation. Taking the Oxford – Freiburg connection further

The collaboration between medieval German studies in Freiburg and Oxford has traditionally been very close, ranging from defining new areas of study such as ‚Kulturtopographie des deutschen Südwestens’ (Palmer / Schiewer) to the annual meetings of the graduate community. This productive cooperation has been built into the descriptors for the Chair of Medieval German Literature and Language that had become vacant after Nigel F. Palmer’s retirement. The VW-Stiftung generously provides for a two-month fellowship each year for ten years for the Chair holder to work at the FRIAS and thus „offers a forum to discuss research projects in an interdisciplinary environment“. Topics of the stays in 2015 and 2016 included working on books as cultural objects with Evanghelia Stead; discussing the Reformation quincentenary under the headings singing, printing and translating at FRIAS; teaching and filming palaeography and codicology for the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (MARS); working with the press office on the implications for academia of Brexit and of the impact agenda; and co-hosting the Graduate Conference in Medieval German Studies of the Universities Oxford, Freiburg, Fribourg and Geneva at the FRIAS. For 2017, these themes are to further developed, i.e. the collaboration with MARS on manuscripts will lead to an exhibition.