Most of my academic work can be roughly divided into four broad areas of interest: the mediaeval chronicle, mediaeval Biblical literature, the philology of the baroque period and cross-cultural aspects of modern literature.
1. The Mediaeval Chronicle
This book is based on my PhD thesis. It is a study of Jans's Weltchronik, a 30,000 line Middle High German world chronicle written in Vienna around 1272. The opening chapter provides the most comprehensive general survey of Jans-der-Enikel scholarship currently in print, including a new manuscript catalogue. The main body of the book (chapters 3-9) analyses the Old Testament passages, comparing them with possible Latin source texts and parallel accounts in various languages. The final three chapters draw conclusions about Jans's aims and methodology. One important finding is that the Imago mundi of Honorius Augustodunensis is not, as was previously held, a significant source for Jans. A great deal of what is characteristic in Jans's narrative can be explained in terms of the emergent urban literary milieu in which the work was conceived. In particular, charges that he is a sloppy historian must be reassessed in view of the historiographical assumptions and requirements of this milieu. See the reviews by David Wells in The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 1998, 600f, and by Jean-Claude Colbus in Etudes Germaniques 1999, 624f.
Compares Jans's account of Frederick's reign with historical records and with contemporary anti-Hohenstaufen propaganda.
2. Mediaeval Biblical Literature
Discusses the animals in the final chapters of Job as they are presented in the 14th-century Job paraphrase of the Teutonic Order. The juxtaposition of contrasting methods of exegesis is highlighted. Interesting motifs are the acquisition by the raven of characteristics belonging to the phoenix, and the unusual presentation of the elephant.
The Auchinleck Life of Adam contains a six-line astronomical excursus (verses 53-58) which appears to have little to do with the surrounding narrative of the fall of Lucifer. This can be understood in terms of the idea of the Devil as a wanderer, and of a pun on Middle English se.
3. The Philology of the Baroque Period
Opitz's Anno: The Middle High German Annolied in the 1639 Edition of Martin Opitz (Scottish Papers in Germanic Studies vol. 11), Glasgow: SPIGS, 2003. ISBN 0-90740-911-3 [pp. 189].
4. Modern Cross-Cultural Literature
5. Various
6. Reviews
Colette van Kerckvoorde, A Descriptive Grammar of Jan Yperman's Cyrurgie, New York etc.: Peter Lang, 1994. In: Germanistik, 1995.
Burton Raffel, The Art of Prose Translation, University Park PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1994. In: Germanistik, 1995.
Manuel Stoffers (ed.), De middeleeuwse ideeënwereld 1000-1300, Hilversum: Verloren, 1994. In: Germanistik, 1995.
Scott Troyan, Textual Decorum: a Rhetoric of Attitudes in
Medieval Literature, New York and London: Garland, 1994. In: Germanistik,
1995.
Hans Martin von Erffa, Ikonologie der Genesis, II, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1995. In: Germanistik, 1996.
Marco Mostert, Rudi Künzel, A. Demyttenaere (ed.), Middeleeuwse cultuur: Verscheidenheid, spanning en verandering, Hilversum: Verloren, 1994. In: Germanistik, 1996.
Pieter Obbema, De middeleeuwen in handen, Hilversum: Verloren, 1996. In: Germanistik, 1996.
Robert Stein, Politiek en historiografie: Het onstaansmilieu
van Brabantse kronieken in de eerste helft van de vijftiende eeuw,
Leuven: Peeters, 1994. In: Germanistik, 1996.
Marianne Kalinke, The Book of ReykjahólarReykjahólar:
The Last of the Great Medieval Legendaries, Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1996. In: Germanistik, 1997
Joan A. Holladay, Illuminating the Epic: The Kassel Willehalm Codex and the Landgraves of Hesse in the Early Fourteenth Century, Seattle & London: University of Washington Press, 1996. In: The Medieval Review [online] July 2000.
Mary Howard (ed.), Interkulturelle Konfigurationen. Zur deutschsprachigen Erzaehlliteratur von Autoren nichtdeutscher Herkunft, Munich: iudicium, 1997. In: Modern Languages Review, 2000.
Winder McConnell (ed.) A Companion to the Nibelungenlied, Camden, in: Modern Languages Review, 2000.
Monika Schwabbauer, Profangeschichte in der Heilsgeschichte:
Quellenuntersuchungen zu den Incidentien der "Christherre-Chronik",
Bern etc: Peter Lang, 1997. In: Germanistik, 2000.
Brian Murdoch, Adam's Grace: Fall and Redemption in Medieval Literature, Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 2000. In: Germanistik, 2001.
James A. Schultz (ed./tr), Sovereignty and Salvation in the
Vernacular, 1050-1150. Das Ezzolied, Das Annolied, Die Kaiserchronik vv.247-667,
Das Lob Salomons, Historia Judith. (= Medieval German Texts in Bilingual
Editions vol. 1), Kalamazoo MI: Western Michigan University Press, 2000.
In: Germanistik, 2001.
John Greenfield, Das Nibelungenlied: Actas do Simpósio Internacional 27 de Outubro de 2000, Porto: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, 2001, and Jan-Dirk Müller, Das Nibelungenlied, Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2002. In: Modern Languages Review, 2003.
Kenneth Kitchell Jr & Irven Michael Resnick (tr./ed.), Albertus Magnus on Animals: a Medieval Summa Zoologica (2 vols), Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1999. In: Modern Languages Review, 2003.
Stephan Müller, Vom Annolied zur Kaiserchronik: Zur Text- und Forschungsgeschichte einer verlorenen deutschen Reimchronik, Heidelberg: Carl Winter 1999. In: Modern Languages Review, 2003.
Nicola McLelland, Ulrich von Zatzikhoven’s Lanzelet: Narrative Style and Entertainment, Cambridge: Brewer, 2000. In The Medieval Review [online], May 2003.
Brian Murdoch and J.A. Tasioulas, The Apocryphal Lives of Adam and Eve Edited from the Auchinleck Manuscript and from Trinity College Oxford MS 57, Exeter: Exeter UP 2002. In The Medieval Review [online], April 2003.
Neil Thomas, Diu Crône and the Medieval Arthurian Cycle,
Cambridge: Brewer 2002. In The Medieval Review [online],November
2003.
Francis G. Gentry (ed.), A Companion to Middle High German Literature to the 14th Century, Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2002. In: Germanistik, 2004.
Wolfgang-Valentin Ikas, Martin von Troppau (Martinus Polonus), O.P. (+1278) in England, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2002. In: IASL [online], August 2004.
Brian Murdoch, The Medieval Popular Bible: Expansions of Genesis in the Middle Ages, Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 2003. In: Modern Languages Review, 2004.
James A. Rushing (ed./tr.), Ava’s New Testament Narratives: "When the Old Law Passed Away" (= Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions vol. 2), Kalamazoo MI: Western Michigan University Press, 2003. In: Germanistik, 2004.
Michael Schwarze, Generische Wahrheit: Höfischer Polylog im Werk Jean Froissarts, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2003. In: Le Moyen Âge, 110 (2004) 437-9.
Gabriel Viehhauser, Die Darstellung König Salomos in der mittelhochdeutschen Weltchronistik , Vienna: Edition Praesens, 2003. In: IASL [online], May 2004.
Gerhard Wolf, Von der Chronik zum Weltbuch: Sinn und Anspruch
südwesdeutscher Hauschroniken am Ausgang des Mittelalters, Berlin,
New York: de Gruyter, 2003. In Modern Languages Review, 2004.
Manfred Kern & Alfred Ebenbauer, Lexikon der antiken Gestalten in den deutschen Texten des Mittelalters, Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2003. In Modern Languages Review, in press.
Christoph König, Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800-1950 (3 vols), Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2003. In Modern Languages Review, in press.
Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, Historiography in the Middle Ages, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2003. In: Modern Languages Review, in press.
Horst Brunner & Werner Williams-Krapp, Forschungen zur deutschen Literatur des Spätmittelalters: Festschrift für Johannes Janota, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2003. In Modern Languages Review, in press.
Eva Haverkammp, Hebräisch Berichte über die Judenverfolgungen während des Ersten Kreuzzugs, (= MGH hebräische Texte vol 1), Hahn, Hanover 2005. In The Medieval Review [online], in preparation.
Friedrich Ohly, transl. Kenneth Northcott, Sensus Spiritualis: Studies in medieval Significs and the Philology of Culture, University of Chicago Press, 200. In The Medieval Review [online], in preparation.
Ralf Plate, Metamorphosen der Bibel (= Vestigia Bibliae 24/25), Peter Lang, 2003/4. In Das Mittelalter, in preparation.
Herbert Ernst Wiegand, The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages (2 vols), Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 2002. In Modern Languages Review, in preparation.
Hildegard Elisabeth Keller, Jakob Ruf, ein Zürcher Stadtchirurg und Theatermacher im 16. Jahrhundert, Chronos. In Perspicuitas (online), in preparation.