Staff profile

Jonathan Long has published extensively on twentieth-century German and Austrian literature, including acclaimed monographs on Thomas Bernhard and W. G. Sebald, and articles on Bertolt Brecht, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Monika Maron, Gerhard Fritsch, Hans Lebert, Dieter Kühn, and others. In 2005 he was awarded a £50,000 Philip Leverhulme Prize in recognition of international research achievement and the Max Kade Prize for Best Article in Modern Austrian Literature. He was a founder member of the Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies, and is co-director of the Centre for Visual Arts and Culture (www.dur.ac.uk/cvac).

His current research focuses on three main areas. The first is the photographic book in the Weimar Republic. The profound social and political upheavals of Weimar are well-documented, as is the response to these upheavals in the cultural sphere. The photographic book, made possible in part by technical improvements in printing and image reproduction, was a significant cultural form by means of which Weimar photographers, artists, writers, and editors sought to address the problems facing Weimar society. While many producers of photographic books are canonical figures in Weimar cultural history (Moholy-Nagy, Kurt Tucholksy, Ernst Jünger, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Erich Mendelssohn, and August Sander, to name just a few), the genre has itself received little scholarly attention, but provides uniquely illuminating insights into the culture and politics of inter-war Germany.

The second, linked to the above, is an investigation of acceleration as a social phenomenon, with particular reference to the visual culture of the Weimar Republic.

The third is German literature and photography from Peter Altenberg to the present. Looking at writers who have not merely thematised photography but have incorporated it physically into their work, the project seeks to read a series of works by writers such as Tucholsky, Jünger, Brecht, Kluge, and Maron as responses to the changing social function of photography over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

After a three-year secondment as Deputy Head of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities for postgraduates (2010-13) Jonathan took up the position of Consortium Director of the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership (www.northernbridge.ac.uk). This is an AHRC-funded doctoral training consortium with the University of Newcastle and Queen's University Belfast.

Jonathan invites inquiries from prospective postgraduates seeking to study the following fields:

Photography since 1900

German and Austrian literature since 1945

Photography history and theory

Literary theory

Cultural responses to social acceleration

Conferences Organised

 

March 2013: Faster than Light? (with Anne Fuchs). Interdisciplinary conference on Acceleration and Modernity, University of Warwick

January 2013: Doing Phhotography (with Andrea Noble). International Conference at Durham University

June 2011: Weimar Photography. One-day symposium at Durham University.

September 2009: Humanising Photography (with Andrea Noble and Edward Welch). International Conference at Durham University.

June 2007: Locating Photography: Between the Regional, the National, and the Global (with Andrea Noble and Edward Welch). International Conference at Durham University.

July 2005: Thinking Photography - Again (with Andrea Noble and Edward Welch). International Conference at University of Durham.

March 2004: Photography and Conflict (with Andrea Noble and Edward Welch). Workshop at the University of Durham.

July 2002: Fakes and Forgeries, Conmen and Counterfeits (with Peter Knight, University of Manchester). Interdisciplinary conference at Durham Castle

• Twentieth-century German literature
• Writers and photography
• Literary theory
• Theory of photography and visual culture
• Photography in the Weimar Republic

• 2017: Member of Selection Committee, Banting Postdoctoral Research Fellowsips, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada:
• 2014: External assessor for Austrian Science Foundation :
• 2014: Member of the Doctoral Awards Committee, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada :
• 2011: Member of Editorial Board of Modern Austrian Literature (US), 2008-11:
• 2010: External assessor for research grants, Centre for Advanced Study, University of Oslo :
• 0000: Assessor for Government of Ireland Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships:
• 0000: External assessor for o periodic review of MA in Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies :
• 0000: Member of AHRC Panel D:
• 0000: Member of the AHRC Peer Review College:
• 0000: Member of the European Science Foundation peer review body:

Authored book

• Long, J. J. (2007). W. G. Sebald: Image, Archive, Modernity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2001). The Novels of Thomas Bernhard: Form and its Function. Rochester, New York: Camden House.

Chapter in book

• Long, J. J. (2017). Photography and the First World War. In The Edinburgh Companion to the First World War and the Arts. Einhaus, Ann-Marie & Baxter, Katherine Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press. 385-401.
• Long, J. J. (2017). Reisen. In W. G. Sebald-Handbuch: Leben-Werk-Wirkung. Oelschlaeger, Claudia & Niehaus, Michael Metzler. 158-166.
• Long, J. J. (2016). Snapshot, Composite, Blur: Photography and Speed in the Weimar Republic. In Time in German Literature and Culture 1900-2000: Between Acceleration and Slowness. Fuchs, Anne & Long, J. J. Palgrave MacMillan. 131-53 and 237-41.
• Long. J. J. (2011). “Perfume from a Dress” On not getting to the point. In Textual Wanderings: The Theory and Practice of Narrative Digression. Atkin, Rhian Legenda. 1-14.
• Long, J.J. (2010). Bernhard, Frost. In Landmarks in the German Novel (2). Hutchinson, Peter & Minden, Michael Oxford et al.: Peter Lang. 7-24.
• Long, J.J. (2010). W. G. Sebald: The Anti-Tourist. In The Undiscover'd Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel. Zisselsberger, Markus Rochester, NY: Camden House. 63-91.
• Long, J. J. (2010). From Das Antlitz des Weltkrieges to Der gefährliche Augenblick: Ernst Jünger, Photography, Autobiography, and Modernity. In German Life-Writing in the Twentieth Century. Dahlke, Birgit, Tate, Dennis & Woods, Roger Camden House.
• Long, J.J. (2009). W. G. Sebald: The Ambulatory Narrative and the Poetics of Digression. In W. G. Sebald: Schreiben ex patria/ Expatriate Writing. Fischer, Gerhard Amsterdam: Rodopi. 61-71.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2006). Thomas Bernhard's Die Macht der Gewohnheit. In Landmarks in German Comedy. Hutchinson, Peter Bern: Lang. 211-226.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2006). Disziplin und Geständnis: Ansätze zu einer Foucaultschen Sebald-Lektüre. In W.G. Sebald. Politische Archäologie und melancholische Bastelei. Öhlschläger, Claudia & Niehaus, Michael Berlin: Erich Schmidt. 217-237.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2006). The Austrian Novel since 1945. In A History of Austrian Literature. Kohl, Katrin & Robertson, Ritchie Rochester, New York: Camden House. 223-245.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2006). Monika Maron's Pawels Briefe: Photography, Narrative, and the Claims of Postmemory. In German Memory Contests: The Quest for Identity in Literature, Film and Discourse since 1990. Fuchs, Anne., Cosgrove, Mary. & Grote, Georg. Rochester, New York: Camden House. 147-165.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2005). Von Gesellschaftskritik zur Darstellungskritik: Frauengestalten in den biografischen Texten Dieter Kühns. In Frauenbiographik: Lebensbeschreibungen und Porträts. von Zimmermann, Christian & von Zimmermann, Nina Tübingen: G. Narr. 323-335.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2002). Ungleichzeitigkeiten: Class Relationships in Thomas Bernhard's Fiction. In Companion to Thomas Bernhard. Konzett, Matthias Rochester, New York: Camden House. 187-208.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2002). The Lost Gender Politics of Katharina Blum; or, Wie Gewalt entstehen und wie sie verführen kann. In Rethinking Violence and Patriarchy for the New Millennium. Schwartz, Agatha & de Diego, Fernando Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. 45-61.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2000). Bernhard Schlink's Der Vorleser and Binjamin Wilkomirski's Bruchstücke: Two Best-Selling Responses to the Holocaust. In German Language Literature Today: International and Popular?. Parkes, Stuart, Preece, Julian & Williams, Arthur Berne: Peter Lang. 49-66.
• Long, Jonathan J. (1999). Dieter Kühn and the Speculative Biography: N, Die Präsidentin, Josephine. In German at the Millennium. Thomas, Neil E. Durham: Durham Modern Languages Series. 243-269.
• Long, Jonathan J. (1999). Jean Améry; Dieter Hildebrandt; Wolfgang Hildesheimer and Dieter Kühn. In Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture. Sandford, John London: Routledge.
• Long, Jonathan J. (1998). History as Biography as Fiction: Wolfgang Hildesheimer's Marbot: Eine Biographie. In Whose Story? Continuities in Contemporary German-language Literature. Parkes, Stuart,, Preece, Julian & Williams, Arthur Bern: Peter Lang. 31-50.

Edited book

• Long, J. J. & Fuchs, Anne (2015). Time in German Literature and Culture 1900-2015: Between Acceleration and Slowness. Palgrave Studies in Modern European Literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Long, J. J., Noble, Andrea & Welch, Edward (2009). Photography: Theoretical Snapshots. Abingdon: Routledge.
• Long, J. J. & Fuchs, Anne (2007). W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of History. Königshausen und Neumann.
• Long, Jonathan J. & Knight, Peter (2005). Fakes and Forgeries, Conmen and Counterfeits. London: Cambridge Scholars Press.
• Long, Jonathan J. & Whitehead, Anne (2004). W. G. Sebald: A Critical Companion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Edited Journal

• Long, Jonathan J., Musolff, Andreas, Manz, Stefan & Saric, Liljiana (2004). Discourses of Identity in Britain, Germany and Eastern Europe. 5&6 Multilingual Matters.

Journal Article

• Long, J. J. (2017). Taking Time: Paul Kranzler and the Photography of Slowness. Oxford German Studies 46(3): 329-343.
• Long, J. J. (2017). Faces. Antlitz and Gesicht in the Weimar Republic Photobook. Monatshefte 109(2): 201-214.
• Long, J. J. (2012). Photography/Topography: Viewing Berlin, 1880/2000. New German Critique 39(2_116): 25-45.
• Long, J. J. (2011). In the Contact Zone: W.G. Sebald and the Ethnographic Imagination. Journal of European Studies 41(3-4): 413-430.
• Long, J.J. (2008). Paratextual Profusion: Photography and Text in Bertolt Brecht's War Primer. Poetics Today 29(1): 197-224.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2004). Intercultural Identities in Norbert Gstrein's Die englischen Jahre and W. G. Sebald's Die Ausgewanderten. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25(5&6): 512-528.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2003). Casual Brutalities: Hans Lebert's Die Wolfshaut, Gerhard Fritsch's Fasching, and Austrian Collective Memory. Austrian Studies 11(1): 85-101.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2003). History, Narrative, and Photography in W. G. Sebald's Die Ausgewanderten. Modern language review 98(1): 117-137.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2002). 'Die Teufelskunst unserer Zeit?' Photographic Negotiations in Thomas Bernhard's Ausloschung. Modern Austrian Literature 35(3/4): 1-17.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2001). Compensation for History? Dieter Kühn's Beethoven und der schwarze Geiger. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik 54: 111-127.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2001). Resisting Bernhard: Women and Violence in Das Kalkwerk, Ja and Auslöschung. Seminar 37(1): 33-52.
• Long, Jonathan J. (2001). Power, Desire, Performance: Narrative Exchanges in Wolfgang Hildesheimer's Masante. Neophilologus 85(4): 601-619.
• Long, Jonathan J. (1999). Time and Narrative: Wolfgang Hildesheimer's Tynset and Masante. German Life and Letters 52(4): 457-474.
• Long, Jonathan J. (1997). Einsamer alter Vulkan: Versuch über Wyndham Lewis und Die Rache für Liebe. Sprache im technischen Zeitalter 35: 382-392.
• Long, Jonathan J. (1996). Veracity, Mendacity, Absurdity: Form and its Function in Thomas Bernhard's Der Stimmenimitator. Forum for Modern Language Studies 32(4): 343-353.

Translated Chapter in Book

• Long, Jonathan J. (trans.) (1998). Ujma, Christina, 'Der Stille und der schwärmende Ton: Notes on Block and Brecht in the Twenties and Thirties (Der Stille und der schwärmende Ton.)'. In Bertold Brecht Centenary Essays. Giles, Steve & Livingstone, Rodney (ed.). Amsterdam: Rodopi.