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Bram Mertens
Lecturer in German, Faculty of Arts
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Biography
I studied English and German at the University of Leuven in Belgium before studying for an MPhil in English at Keele University. I gained my PhD in German and English from the University of Nottingham in 2001, and have been working at the University ever since, first as a postdoctoral research fellow and later as a Lecturer in German and Dutch.
Expertise Summary
Areas of interest include Flemish literature since 1945 as well as the history, politics, culture and society of Belgium in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Teaching Summary
I have taught at all levels in Dutch and German Studies. Past modules have included Jewish Intellectuals in Germany 1830-1940, History of the Low Countries, Culture and Society of the Low Countries,… read more
I have taught at all levels in Dutch and German Studies. Past modules have included Jewish Intellectuals in Germany 1830-1940, History of the Low Countries, Culture and Society of the Low Countries, The Second World War in Modern Dutch Fiction and Post-War Belgian Cinema. I also convene the Department's first-year core module, Introduction to German Studies, as well as the final-year dissertation modules.
Past Research
My doctoral thesis Das Denken der Lehre: Walter Benjamin, Franz Joseph Molitor and the Jewish Tradition (2001) examined the influence of the Jewish tradition on the work of Walter Benjamin, mediated through the writings of the nineteenth-century catholic kabbalist Franz Joseph Molitor, notably his four-volume magnum opus Philosophie der Geschichte (1827-1853). I have since published a book, Dark Images, Secret Hints (2007), and a series of articles on the role of Judaism in the work of Walter Benjamin and the influence of his friendship with Gershom Scholem.
My next project focused on the history and memory of the Second World War and its aftermath in the Low Countries. I published several of articles on the construction of narratives surrounding wartime collaboration and its legal sanctioning after the war in Belgium, and on the same themes in the novels of Hugo Claus and Erwin Mortier.