ABOUT Tim Mehigan
Tim ranges widely in his research, teaching and administration across many areas of the humanities. Much of his research is developed from a focus on connections between literature and philosophy. In German literature, where this focus is particularly prominent, Tim has published, among other things, several monographs and collections on Heinrich von Kleist and Robert Musil and provided the first English translation of K.L. Reinhold’s Essay on the Human Capacity for Representation (1789).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INCLUDE:
Research Prize of the Humboldt Foundation (Germany, 2013)
Fulbright Senior Scholarship (USA, 2017)
DAAD-UA Research Exchange project grant (2017)
ARC Discovery (2003–5)
Recent studies and collaborations have been devoted to Schiller and Goethe and to extensive project-focused work on hermeneutics and literary ethics (e.g. Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Friedrich Schiller and Hermeneutics between Berlin and Paris: The Search for Ethics, forthcoming). Other work includes two collections on the South African-Australian writer J.M. Coetzee. A monograph on Coetzee and a co-edited collection on Schiller’s philosophical writings are in preparation.
Guest attachments/appointments to the University of Bonn (2014–19; 2022-3), the University of Chicago (2017–18) and the University of Queensland (2012).
Elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities in 2003.
President of the German Studies Association of Australia (2003–7).
Measures of Esteem and Contributions to the Field
Awards and Nominations
University of Bonn travel grant, Nov-Dec. 2022
Humboldt Foundation Research Prize 2013, University of Bonn, Germany 2014–19; reinvitation 2022
DAAD-Universities Australia Cooperative Exchange Research Grant 2018–19
Fulbright Senior Fellowship, University of Chicago 2017–18
DAAD (USA) Project Grant, Conference on Ethics and Hermeneutics at Washington D.C. 2018
ARC Discovery Project (large grant), Chief Investigator and Lead CI: “Saving the Appearances: The Problem of Vision in the European Enlightenment” 2003–5
DAAD Research Fellowship, University of Munich 2000
Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship, University of Munich, Germany 1994–95
DAAD Research Fellowship, University of Munich, Germany 1991
DAAD Research Fellowship, University of Freiburg, Germany 1985–6
Further Collaborative Activities and International Linkages
Organizer of Hermeneutics and Early German Romanticism Research Groups: to date 5 conferences – at the GSA (San Diego 2016; Atlanta 2017), ACLA (Utrecht 2017) and at UQ (external offices in Washington, DC 2018 and at St. Lucia, Brisbane 2019)
Project Co-Lead and Organizer, Research Team Project on Literary Ethics (based at University of Bonn, Germany)
Journal Editorial Boards and Manuscript Review
Coordinating Editor, "Modern German Classics" book series, De Gruyter (Berlin), 2021-
Editor (with Richard Millington, Victoria U of Wellington, NZ), Australian and New Zealand Studies in German Language and Literature, Peter Lang (Oxford): 2011–
Editorial Board: Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies (University of Toronto), Otago German Studies (U of Otago, Dunedin, NZ), Journal of European Studies (University of Kent, UK, 2005–13)
Regular manuscript reviewer: Colloquia Germanica (USA), German Quarterly (USA), Gegenwartsliteratur (USA), Studies in 20th Century Literature (USA), Modernism/Modernity (UK), Literature Compass (US), Intellectual History Review (Australia), Sprachkunst (Austria), The Australian Review of Books (Australia), The Explicator (UK).
Grant reviews and research assessment for: Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) in New Zealand, European Commission, Austrian Council of Scientific Research, American Association of Learned Societies (Guggenheim Fellowship, Berlin Prize), German Research Council (Excellence Strategy: evaluation as expert panelist of the University of Freiburg in 2019)
Research Leadership
Mehigan currently leads two international research groups, one on “Hermeneutics and Early German Romanticism” (20 established researchers in the USA, UK and Australia), the other, with Christian Moser, on “Hermeneutics and Ethics” (10 established researchers from Germany and Australia).
He currently supervises 5 PhDs as Principal (on Nietzsche's life philosophy, on the problem of nihilism, Hamann's hermenutics, and Coetzee’s ethics [two projects]). Completed supervisions:
• 13 PhDs (8 as principal)
• 5 MA/MPhil (research) as principal
• 26 BA (hons) projects as principal
The completed projects mentioned above range widely across European intellectual history from the Enlightenment to the present, consider film studies and theory as well as literature and thought in both English and German since 1750 (from J.G. Hamann and Heinrich von Kleist to Thomas Bernhard and Cormac McCarthy).
Education
1994-95
1982–87
1985–86
1981–82
1978–81
PhD in German literature, University of Sydney, Australia
(PhD published under the title Text as Contract 1988)
DAAD Doctoral Fellowship, University of Freiburg i. Br., Germany
DAAD Semester Scholarship, University of Trier, Germany
BA (Hons, First Class), University of Sydney, Australia
Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Munich, Germany