I am a Fellow in Modern Languages (German) and Professor of Modern German and Comparative Culture in the University’s Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics. My research and teaching interests cover various aspects of German and comparative culture, including literature, film, psychoanalysis, urban studies and identity issues. I am also one of the University’s Equality Champions (for lgbt+).

My books include a study of the European Avant-garde (Polity Press, 2004), and a cultural topography of Berlin in the twentieth century (Cambridge University Press, 2008). I also translated one of the volumes of the new Penguin edition of Freud and led a major project for a digital edition of works by the Austrian Modernist, Arthur Schnitzler, whose literary estate is held by the University Library. I am currently working on a co-authored study of German filmmaker, Christian Petzold.