The Centre

Markus Messling has been full professor at Saarland University since 2019 and holds the chair of Romance Literatures and Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies. Before this, he was deputy director of Centre Marc Bloch, the Franco-German research center for Social sciences and Humanities, and professor of Romance Literatures at Humboldt University of Berlin. From 2009 to 2014 he directed the Junior Research Group “Philology and Racism in the 19th Century” at the University of Potsdam financed by an Emmy Noether excellent grant of the German Research Foundation. Since 2019 he is also principal investigator of the Consolidator Grant “Minor Universality. Narrative World Productions After Western Universalism” funded by the European Research Council. He has held visiting professorships and fellowships at EHESS Paris, the University of Cambridge, the School of Advanced Study/University of London, and Kobe University in Japan. From April 2024 on, he will co-direct the Käte Hamburger Center for Cultural Practices of Reparation (CURE) with Christiane Solte-Gresser, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

• (ed. with I. Dayeh, T. Hever, E.E. Johnston) Formations of the Semitic: Race, Religion, and Language in Modern European Scholarship, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2017 (=Philological Encounters 2/3-4). 
• (ed. with I. Dayeh): Early Modern ‘New Sciences’: Inquiries into Ibn Khaldūn and Giambattista Vico, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2020 (=Philological Encounters 5/1).
• (ed. with F. Hofmann) The Epoch of Universalism / L’Époque de l’universalisme (1769-1989), Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2022.
• Philology and the Appropriation of the World. Champollion’s Hieroglyphs, revised edition, transl. Michael T. Taylor and Marko Pajević, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
• (ed. with J. Tinius): Minor Universality. Rethinking Humanity After Western Universalism / Universalité mineure. Repenser l’humanité après l’universalisme occidental. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2023.
• Universality after Universalism. On Francophone Literatures of the Present, transl. Michael T. Taylor, foreword by Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2023. (forthcoming)

Christiane Solte-Gresser has been full professor at Saarland University since 2009 and holds the chair of General and Comparative Literature. There she is the spokeswoman of the Research Training Group “European Dream Cultures” (GRK 2021, running from 2014 to 2024), funded by the German Research Foundation. She is chair of the German Society for General and Comparative Literature (DGAVL) since 2023. She is also a member of the board of directors of LOGOS, the international graduate school of the Université de la Grande Région, and the commission of the Saarland’s state graduate funding. She has held visiting and substitute professorships at the Université Aix-Marseille and the Goethe University Frankfurt. From April 2024 on, she will co-direct, the Käte Hamburger Center for Cultural Practices of Reparation (CURE) with Markus Messling, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

• Leben im Dialog. Wege der Selbstvergewisserung in den Briefen von Marie de Sévigné und Isabelle de Charrière, Königstein: Helmer, 2000.
• Spielräume des Alltags. Literarische Gestaltung von Alltäglichkeit in deutscher, französischer und italienischer Erzählprosa (1929-1949), Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2010. 
• (ed. with H.-J. Lüsebrink u. M. Schmeling) Zwischen Transfer und Vergleich. Theorien und Methoden der Literatur- und Kulturbeziehungen aus deutsch-französischer Perspektive, Stuttgart: Steiner, 2013.
• (ed. with M. Schmeling) Theorie erzählen / Raconter la théorie / Narrating Theory. Fiktionalisierte Literaturtheorie im Roman, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2016.
• (ed. with C. Schmitt) Literatur und Ökologie. Neue literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven, Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2017.
• (ed. with S. Thiltges) Kulturökologie und ökologische Kulturen in der Großregion / Écologie culturelle et cultures écologiques dans la Grande Région, Berlin: Peter Lang, 2020.
• Shoah-Träume. Vergleichende Studien zum Traum als Erzählverfahren, Paderborn: Fink, 2021.