Department of German
UW-Madison
College of Letters & Science

	B. Venkat Mani Assistant Professor 858 Van Hise Hall 608/265-0779 E-mail: bvmani@wisc.edu

B. Venkat Mani is Assistant Professor in the German Department since 2001. He is a faculty affiliate of the Center for German and European Studies, the Center for European Studies, Global Studies, Women’s Studies Research Center, and Program in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies at UW-Madison. He is currently also the Interim Director of Global Studies.

Mani holds a BA (1993) and MA (1995) in German Studies from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and an MA (1996) and PhD (2001) in German Studies from Stanford University. He has also studied at Universität Wien (1994), Freie Universität, Berlin (1998-99), and Bogaziçi Universitesi, Istanbul (1998). He received the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund Award for academic excellence (1995). He was one of the recipients of Stanford University’s Centennial Teaching Award (2000), and a Geballe Dissertation Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center (2000-01). He has received several research and travel grants at UW-Madison.

Mani’s teaching and research interests include 19th and 20th century German and European literatures, literature written by authors of non-German heritages, feminist literature, and gay and lesbian literature; theories of multiculturalism, postcolonialism, globalization, and cosmopolitanism. He was the co-organizer of the Mellon Workshop “Cosmopolitan Cultures, Cosmopolitan Histories” (2005-07) and is currently leading the “World Literature/s Research Workshop” (http://global.wisc.edu/worldlit).

Mani was the German Department Faculty Liaison for Stockwerk Deutsch and a Faculty Fellow for the International Learning Community (2002-04), and one of the Undergraduate Advisors for the College of Letters and Sciences (2002-2007). He is currently a member of the Advisory Committee for the Office of Equity and Diversity at UW-Madison and a Steering Committee Member of the UW-Reaccreditation 2009.

Publications

Books and monographs

• 2007: Cosmopolitical Claims: Turkish-German Literatures from Nadolny to Pamuk. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2007. http://www.uipress.uiowa.edu/books/2007-spring/mani.htm

In progress

Transposed Signs of Modernity: India in German Linguistics, Philosophy, Literature, and Cinema (1786-1988) [working title]

Articles

• 2007: “Rehearsing Acquired Privileges. The Nonnative Informant and Didactics of Difference.” (Accepted, Journal of Language, Identity, and Education)
• 2006: “German Studies as Perpetual Difference. A Cosmopolitical Sketch.” In German Quarterly, “Forum on Globalization and German Studies” 79.3 (2006): 381-384.
• 2005: “The Self of the Other. Contemporary German Scholarship on Trans-, Inter-, and Multiculturalism.” In Monatshefte. 97. 4 (2005): 679-696.
• 2003: “The Good Woman of Istanbul. Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn.” In Gegen2002: “Phantom of the ‘Gastarbeiterliteratur.’  Aras Ören’s Berlin Savignyplatz.” In Migration und Interkulturalität in neueren literarischen Texten Aglaia Blioumi (ed). Münich: Iudicium Verlag, 2002: 112-129.wartsliteratur. Ein germanistisches Jahrbuch. 2 (2003): 29-58.
• 2001: “What is Turkish-German?  Developing New Taste Buds for Islam with Emine Sevgi Özdamars Mutterzunge.” In New Europe at the Crossroads. Europe’s Classical Heritage in the Twenty-First Century, Ursula Beitter (ed). New York: Peter Lang, 2001: 201-220.
• 2000: “Minderheitsliteratur im Zeitalter der NATO-artigen Kulturpolitik.” In Das Jahrbuch des Studentenwerks Berlin,1998-99: 206-213.

Note

• 2001:“Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,” a biographical essay. Stanford Presidential Lectures and Symposia in the Humanities and the Arts. Stanford, CA: © 2000 Stanford University. © 2004, Stanford University Libraries. http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/spivak

Book reviews

• 2007: Adelson, Leslie A. The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature. Toward a New Critical Grammar of Migration. New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2005. In Monatshefte 99.1 (2007):128-130.
• 2006: Sideras, Agis. Paul Celan und Gottfried Benn: Zwei Poetologien nach 1945. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005. In Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 25.3 (2007): 218-220.
• 2003: Murti, Kamakshi P. India  The Seductive and Seduced “Other” of German Orientalism. Westport, Connecticut, London: Greenwood Press, 2001. In Monatshefte 95.2 (2003): 345-347.

Seminars and New Courses:

• Identifying the New Europe (Ger 560, Spring 2006) [Developed with a Course Development Grant from the Institute for International Studies]
• The Other Germany (Ger 676, Spring 2006 and Spring 2004) [Capstone Seminar for German Majors]
• Vertauschte Zeichen. Deutschsprachige Literatur, Philosophie und Film imaginieren Indien (Ger 948, Spring 2005 [Graduate Seminar])
• Multiculturalism in Germany (Ger 236, Spring 2005) [Bascom Seminar, Developed with a Course Development Grant from the Center for European Studies]
• Literary Lives of Death (Ger 677, Spring 2003) [Capstone Seminar for German Majors]
• Identitätsdiskurs seit 1945 (Ger 742, Graduate Seminar, Spring 2002)

Other Courses:

• Honors Introduction to German Literature (1784-2005) (Ger 274/84/85, Fall 2005)
• Introduction to 20th Century German Literature and Culture (Ger 221)
• Introduction to 19th Century German Literature and Culture (Ger 222)
• Advance Composition and Conversation I (Ger 225)
• Advance Composition and Conversation II (Ger 226)