E. T. A. Hoffmann and Other Bodies
Thursday 16th – Friday 17th July 2026
Room 2, Taylorian Institute, University of Oxford
St Giles’, Oxford, OX1 3NA directions
On the occasion of the meeting of the E. T. A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft in Oxford, the cabinet exhibition highlights some of the holdings in the Taylor Institution Library, the Modern Languages Library for the university. The Taylorian opened in 1849 but interest in Hoffmann grows mainly during the era of the Professor Hermann Fiedler. From his collection comes the edition of the ‘Serapionsbrüder’ with his bookmark, showing him as scholar at the table with Goethe’s famous last words ‘Mehr Licht’.
THURSDAY 16TH JULY
10.30 onwards:Registration, tea and coffee
11.00 Opening and Welcome: Dr Joanna Neilly (University of Oxford) and Dr Eleoma Bodammer (University of Edinburgh)
11.15 Prof. Dr. Bettina Wagner, President of the E. T. A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft, Bamberg, ‘The E. T. A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft in 2026’
11.30-12.30 Panel 1: Automata and Artificial Intelligence
Chair: Dr Joanna Neilly (University of Oxford)
Rainer Lewandowski (former artistic director of the E. T. A. Hoffmann Theatre, Bamberg), ‘E. T. A. Hoffmann. Automaten, Puppen und Getier: Phantasie und Technik’
Dr Sahib Kapoor (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), ‘“Olimpia und Ich?” Hoffmann’s Olimpia and her Representation in Visual Arts’
1.45-3.15 Panel 2: Childhood Development and Embodied Learning
Chair: Dr Eleoma Bodammer (University of Edinburgh)
Prof. Holly Blackford Humes (Rutgers University), ‘Childhood Toys: Embodiment in Media and Performing Objects’
Dr Elizabeth Ramsey (University of Cambridge), ‘“[N]ichtsnütziges Zeug”: Hoffmann’s “Das fremde Kind” and the Robotic Body as the Site of Anxiety about Education and the Human’
Dr Joanna Neilly (University of Oxford), ‘Usurping Maternity in Hoffmann’s Nachtstücke’
3.30-4.30 Panel 3: The Petrified Corpse, in History and in Fiction
Chair: Dr Joanna Raisbeck (University College London)
Prof. Ritchie Robertson (University of Oxford), ‘From Fet-Matts to Elis Fröbom: The Mummified Body in “Die Bergwerke zu Falun”’
Dr Stephanie Großmann (Universität Passau), ‘Vom Erzählen zur Bühne: Alchemie und Verkörperung in “Die Bergwerke zu Falun” (Hoffmann 1819; Hofmannsthal 1899; Wieler 2021)’
4.45 ‘The Hoffmann Experience—Embodied Storytelling in Virtual Environments’. Led by Svenja Hahn (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Followed by: Drinks reception in the Main Hall, sponsored by the English Goethe Society.
FRIDAY 17TH JULY
9.45-11.15 Panel 4: Aesthetics of the Body: Intermediality and Form
Chair: Dr Eleoma Bodammer (University of Edinburgh)
Prof. Ricarda Schmidt (University of Exeter), ‘Hoffmanns Körperdarstellungen, Commedia dell’arte und Raffael’
Agathe Duperron (Universität Heidelberg), ‘Körper zwischen Literatur und bildender Kunst in der Erzählung “Die Abenteuer der Sylvester-Nacht”’
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Kinzel (Universität Kiel), ‘Carnival of Bodies: Hoffmann’s Die Elixiere des Teufels’
11.30-1.00 Panel 5: Marginalised Bodies
Chair: Dr Joanna Neilly (University of Oxford)
Bogdan Burghelea (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), ‘Heavenly Body: Queerness and Otherness in Hoffmann’s Fairytale “Das fremde Kind”’
Prof. Ute Weidenhiller (Roma Tre University), “Die Gelüste der schwangeren Frauen”. Mütterliches ‘Versehen’ und die Genealogie des Verbrechens in E.T.A. Hoffmanns Das Fräulein von Scuderi
Dr Polly Dickson (Durham University), ‘Working Through Pregnancy in “Rat Krespel”’
2.15-3.45 Panel 6: Disability and Artistic Practice
Chair: Dr Polly Dickson (Durham University)
Dr Eleoma Bodammer (University of Edinburgh), ‘The Disabled Gaze and Creative Rehabilitation in Hoffmann’s “Des Vetters Eckfenster”’
Dr Jasmin Köhler (Universität Vechta), ‘Die Poetologie einer “Dis/ability to See” in Hoffmanns “Des Vetters Eckfenster”’
Dr. Dr. Bernd Hesse and Jörg Petzel, ‘Die Körperlichkeit der Titelfigur “Klein Zaches genannt Zinnober”’
4.00-5.00 Panel 7: The Mind and the Body
Chair: Prof. Ritchie Robertson (University of Oxford)
Prof. Christa Spreizer (Queens College, CUNY), ‘The Imperfectly Embodied Present of “The Sandman”.’
Prof. Jürgen Barkhoff (Trinity College Dublin), ‘Animal Magnetism in Kater Murr’
The organisers would like to acknowledge the generous support of the following:
- University of Oxford John Fell Fund
- St Peter’s College Oxford John O’Connor Fund
- University of Oxford Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages
- The Modern Humanities Research Association
- The E. T. A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft
- The English Goethe Society
- Association for German Studies in Great Britain and Ireland
We would also like to extend a special thanks to Dr Alexandra Hertlein and Martin Lindner for their invaluable assistance in the running of this conference.