Valeria Morelli

PhD

German Literary Studies

Image of Valeria Morelli
Image of Valeria Morelli

Valeria is a PhD candidate in German Literary Studies and a GR Teaching Fellow in ESL and Applied Linguistics at the School of Languages and Linguistics. She has a Master's degree in European and Pan-American Languages and Literatures (English and German) from the University of Bergamo, Italy. She is interested in the representation of memories of Germany's National Socialist past in contemporary literature. Her thesis focuses on the work of the contemporary German writer Uwe Timm. Valeria is also passionate about teaching and has experience in language teaching at various education levels.

Contact:

Thesis

Literary Memory of Nazism, the Second World War and Post-War Germany in Uwe Timm's Novels

Uwe Timm has been one of the most important voices since the 1970s on the German literary scene. Timm's literature deals with questions of enduring relevance to post-1945 German culture, including questions of collective guilt, individual responsibility, genealogies of National Socialism and its continued impact on German society and culture. Drawing on memory studies, narratology theories and research on historical fiction, this thesis examines how Timm deals with the Nazi legacy and negotiates different versions of memory in his writing. This project aims to contribute to the understanding of literary memory and reconstruction of the past in contemporary German literature.

Research interests

  • German Literature
  • Memory Studies
  • Literary Memory
  • Literary Criticism
  • Historical Fiction

Supervisors