Fields of Study
- Europe (Northern or Western)
- Literature & Linguistics
- Manuscript Studies & Textual Cultures
- Religion
Areas of Interest
- Middle High German language and culture
- Medieval Mystical and Devotional Cultures
- Medieval Reading Cultures
- Medievalism and Popular Culture
- Critical Theory
Name of Postdoctoral Fellowship
Description
This project examines the historical role of the fictional reader in the hermeneutic, media-technological, and aesthetic developments of medieval German literature. I analyze scenes of reading and other representations of reading within medieval texts to examine this evolving cultural practice during the technological, cultural, scientific, and religious transformations of the European Middle Ages. Amid the digitalization of our modern reading practices and reading cultures, my research into the literary representations of reading demonstrates how, historically, reading practices, developments in media and technology, and imaginative literature have shaped the practice of reading as well as its function in society.
Publications
A Composite Image of a Reading Mystic: Margaret Ebner’s Revelations and Henry of Nördlingen’s Letters (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: forthcoming)
Literarische Texte müssen richtig gelesen werden: Eine Hinterfragung des kritischen Lesens (Transcript Verlag: 2024)
Sensuous Reading in the Legatus divinae pietatis (Postmedieval, vol. 12, 2021, 219-236)
Biography
Landon Reitz is a Faculty of Arts & Science Postdoctoral Fellow in the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. He specializes in the medieval language, literature, and culture of the German-speaking European lands. Before coming to U of T, he held a Visiting Assistant Professorship at the University of Cincinnati and studied and researched at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, and the University of Cologne. His research has been supported by the Fulbright Association and the German Academic Exchange Program (DAAD).
Read more about Landon in the September MMXXIV issue of the Chronica (pg 6).