Uni-Tübingen

Prof. Dr. Angelika Zirker

Literary and Cultural Studies / English Department

Contact Details

angelika.zirker@uni-tuebingen.de

Wilhelmstraße 50

72074 Tübingen

Tel.: +49 7071 297 3260

 

About Ambiguity

As an associate member Prof. Dr. Angelika Zirker was part of the graduate training group on “Dimensions of Ambiguity” (2008-2011). There she started to do some interdisciplinary research on ambiguity in speaker-hearer interaction with the linguist Prof. Dr. Esme Winter-Froemel. She also encounters the topic of ambiguity in the field of English literature, for instance, in texts by Lewis Carroll and John Donne as well as in a research project she has launched with Dr. Esme Winter-Froemel on “Wordplay.”

 

Biography

After studying English, French and German at the universities of Saarbrücken, Metz und Cardiff, Angelika Zirker completed her PhD on Lewis Carroll in 2010 at Eberhard Karls Universität in Tübingen. She is currently writing her second book on “Stages of the Soul in Early Modern Poetry: Donne and Shakespeare.”

 

Research

Prof. Dr. Angelika Zirker is a member of several research projects at Tübingen University, among them RTG 1808. She also is part of project A2 “Interpretability in Context” of the Collaborative Research Center “The Constitution of Meaning” (SFB 833; Prof. Dr. Matthias Bauer and Prof. Dr. Sigrid Beck; (Homepage of SFB 833). She was one of the supervisors in the graduate programme “Sacred Texts.” Together with Prof. Dr. Esme Winter-Froemel she has recently launched an interdisciplinary research project on “Wordplay” http://www.wortspiel.uni-tuebingen.de/). Her research interests include Early Modern Literature, with a focus on poetry and Shakespearean theatre, the 19th century novel, children’s literature, and the relationship of literature and ethics. She is also particularly interested in the interdisciplinary interface of literature and linguistics as well as of religion and literature.

 

Teaching

In her teaching a focus of Angelika Zirker is on the literature of the Early Modern period and the 19th century. She is also very much interested in interdisciplinary connections, for instance, between religion and literature, linguistics and literature and literature and ethics. In a project on the annotation of literary texts (with Prof. Dr. Matthias Bauer), she aims at combining teaching and research (Webpage of the "Annotating Literature"-Project). Follow the link for an overview of her current teaching.

 

Other Activities

Together with Matthias Bauer, Inge Leimberg, and Burkhard Niederhoff, Angelika Zirker is the editor of Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate, which has been published since 1991. Connotations is an international, peer-reviewed journal focusing on the language of literature in a historical perspective. It was founded in order to provide a forum for exchanging ideas derived from the close reading of literature in English. In Connotations, critical debate is put into practice, for example, by the editors’ encouraging experts working on related subjects to submit responses to articles accepted for publication. Full open access is available at www.connotations.de.

 

Publications on Ambiguity

  • Books:

  • Zirker, Angelika (2019). William Shakespeare and John Donne: Stages of the Soul in Early Modern English Poetry. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2019.
  • Zirker, Angelika (2010). Der Pilger als Kind: Spiel, Sprache und Erlösung in Lewis Carrolls „Alice“-Büchern. Münster: LIT.
     

  • Editorship:

  • Potysch, Nicolas; Angelika Zirker (Hgg.) (2019). Ambige Helden. helden. heroes. héros. E-Journal zu Kulturen des Heroischen: Special Issue 6. doi: 10.6094/helden.heroes.heros./2019/AH.
  • Zirker, Angelika; Matthias Bauer; Olga Fischer; Christina Ljungberg (Eds.) (2017). Dimensions of Iconicity. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
  • Zirker, Angelika; Esme Winter-Froemel (Eds.) (2015). Wordplay and Metalinguistic / Metadiscursive Reflection. Authors, Contexts, Techniques, and Meta-Reflection. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015.
     
  • Articles:
     
  •  Zirker, Angelika (2021). "Rereading Through the Looking-Glass: Lewis Carroll's Ambiguities." Dickens Studies Annual: Essays on Victorian Fiction 52.2: 343-46.
  • Potysch, Nicolas; Angelika Zirker. „Ambige Helden: Einleitung.“ Ambige Helden. helden. heroes. héros. E-Journal zu Kulturen des Heroischen: Special Issue 6 (2019).: 3-9.
  • Zirker, Angelika (2019). “Some Notes on Ambiguity and the Hero: The Case of Mark Antony.” Ambige Helden. helden. heroes. héros. E-Journal zu Kulturen des Heroischen: Special Issue 6: 89-97.
  • Kirchhoff, Leonie; Miriam Lahrsow; Angelika Zirker (2018). “Students as Digital Annotators of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.” Digital English: A Handbook for the 21st Century. Eds. Naomi Milthorpe, Robert Clarke, Joanne Jones & Robbie Moore.
  • Zirker, Angelika (2018). “‘All About Fishes’? The Riddle of Humpty Dumpty's Song and Recursive Understanding in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There”. Victorian Poetry 56.1. 81-102.
  • Bauer, Matthias; Angelika Zirker (2017). “Subtle Medievalism: The Case of Charles Dickens.” Anglistentag 2016 Proceedings. Eds. Ute Berns & Jolene Mathieson. Trier: WVT. 91-101.
  • Bauer, Matthias; Angelika Zirker (2016). “Modern Debates: Christianity and Literature, Literature and Theology and Religion and Literature.” The Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion. Ed. Mark Knight. London: Routledge. 58-68.
  • Zirker, Angelika (2016). “‘If poetry could truly tell it backwards, / then it would’: Alternative Geschichtsentwürfe und Kontrafaktualität in zeitgenössischer englischer Dichtung zum Ersten Weltkrieg.” Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 57. 219-40.
  • Zirker, Angelika (2016). “Language Play in Translation: Character and Idiom in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Language Play and Language Contact. Eds. Maik Goth, Sebastian Knospe & Alexander Onysko. Berlin: de Gruyter. 283-304.
  • Zirker, Angelika (2016). “‘Oh make thy selfe with holy mourning blacke’: Aspects of Drama and Performance in John Donne’s Holy Sonnet ‘Oh My Black Soule.'” ZAA 64.3. 247-62.
  • Zirker, Angelika (2016). “Language Play in Translation: Character and Idiom in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Language Play and Language Contact. Eds. Maik Goth, Sebastian Knospe & Alexander Onysko. Berlin: de Gruyter. 283-304.
  • Winter-Froemel, Esme; Angelika Zirker (2015). “Wordplay and Its Interfaces in Speaker-Hearer Interaction: An Introduction.” Wordplay and Metalinguistic / Metadiscursive Reflection: Authors, Contexts, Techniques, and Meta-Reflection. Eds. Angelika Zirker & Esme Winter-Froemel. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. 1-22.
  • Winter-Froemel, Esme; Angelika Zirker (2015). “Ambiguity in Speaker-Hearer-Interaction: A Parameter-Based Model of Analysis.” Ambiguity: Language and Communication. Ed. Susanne Winkler. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. 283-339.
  • Bade, Nadine; Matthias Bauer, Sigrid Beck, Carmen Dörge & Angelika Zirker (2015). “Ambiguity in Shakespeare’s Sonnet.” Ambiguity: Language and Communication. Ed. Susanne Winkler. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. 89-138.
  • Bade, Nadine; Matthias Bauer, Sigrid Beck, Carmen Dörge, Burkhart von Eckartsberg, Janina Niefer, Saskia Ottschofski & Angelika Zirker (2015). “Emily Dickinson’s ‘My life had stood a loaded gun’ – An interdisciplinary analysis.” Journal of Literary Semantics 44.2. 115-40.
  • Bauer, Matthias; Angelika Zirker (2015). “Whipping Boys Explained: Literary Annotation and Digital Humanities.” Literary Studies in the Digital Age: An Evolving Anthology. Eds. Ray Siemens & Kenneth M. Price.
  • Zirker, Angelika (2014). “‘To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt’: Charles Dickens and the Ambiguous Ghost Story.” Texts, Contexts and Intertextuality: Dickens as a Reader. Eds. Norbert Lennartz & Dieter Koch. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 163-80.
  • Matthias Bauer; Angelika Zirker (2014). “Dickens and Ambiguity: The Case of A Tale of Two Cities.” Dickens, Modernism and Modernity. Eds. Christine Huguet & Nathalie Vanfasse. Paris: Editions du Sagittaire. 209-229.
  • Dietrich, Julia; Angelika Zirker (2012). “Noch nie war das Böse so clever: Iagos Soliloquien in Shakespeares Othello aus literaturwissenschaftlicher und ethischer Perspektive.” Noch nie war das Böse so gut: Die Aktualität einer alten Differenz. Eds. Franz Fromholzer, Michael Preis & Bettina Wisiorek. Heidelberg: Winter. 197-218.
  • Winter-Froemel, Esme; Angelika Zirker (2011). “Redundanz.” Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik. Bd. 10. E. Gert Ueding. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1044-1050.
  • Bauer, Matthias; Markus Bauer, Sigrid Beck, Carmen Dörge, Burkhard von Eckartsberg, Katja Riedel, Michaela Meder, Janina Zimmermann & Angelika Zirker (2010). “‘The Two Coeval Come’: Emily Dickinson and Ambiguity.” Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 158. 98-124.
  • Winter-Froemel, Esme; Angelika Zirker (2010). “Ambiguität in der Sprecher-Hörer-Interaktion: Linguistische und literaturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven.” Zeitschrift für Literatur­wissenschaft und Linguistik 158. 76-97.

 

Further Publications

For a full list of publications, click here.