Ewout van der Knaap appointed professor of German literature and culture

As of 1 September, Ewout van der Knaap (Department of Languages, Literature and Communication) has been appointed professor of German literature and culture at the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. He teaches and researches in the fields of German-language literature, cultural memory and didactics of literature.

Van der Knaap studied in Utrecht, Kiel and Freiburg im Breisgau, worked in secondary and higher education, was Alexander von Humboldt research fellow at the R.W.T.H. Aachen and has been teaching at Utrecht University since 1995, where he was, among other things, a program coordinator for the Educational master.

Ewout van der Knaap is the compiler of a literature teaching catalog German, contributed to the text-critical edition of the poetry of Ernst Meister and was co-applicant of the project Erasmus + Lehrkompetenzentwicklung für Extensiven Leseunterricht (LEELU, Developing Teaching Competencies for Extensive Reading Programs).

Van der Knaap has published on, among other things, the culture of remembrance of the Holocaust (eg Nacht und Nebel. Gedächtnis und internationale Wirkungsgeschichte des Holocaust, 2008), literature teaching (Literatuur en film in het vreemdetalenonderwijs, 2019) and on poetry (Das Gespräch der Dichter. Ernst Meisters Hölderlin- und Celan-Lektüre, 1996).

His research falls within the university focus area Education for Learning Societies and within the strategic themes Dynamics of Youth and Institutions for Open Societies.

In 2019, Ewout van der Knaap received the Austrian cross of honor (Österreichisches Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst).