Professor Tim Mehigan
FAHA
Deputy Director (January 2017-December2019)
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
Professorial Research Fellow
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
Researcher biography
PhD (Sydney)
Tim Mehigan is Professor of German and Deputy Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Previous appointments include Head of the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Queensland (2013–15), Professor of Languages and Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures at the University of Otago, New Zealand (2004–12), and Associate Professor of German at the University of Melbourne (1996–2004). He was educated at the University of Sydney, the University of Freiburg (Germany) and the University of Trier (Germany) and spent two years as Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Munich (Germany) in 1994–5. He was President of the German Studies Association of Australia from 2003 to 2007 and was elected to the Australian Academy of Humanities in 2003. In 2013 he was awarded the Research Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and is currently visiting professor at the University of Bonn in Germany under the auspices of this prize. In 2016 he was awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholarship for a project he undertook at the University of Chicago in 2017 and 2018.
Tim is the author of 60 articles and book chapters and 19 monographs, critical editions and edited volumes in the area of German and European literature and thought. Among recent book publications are, as editor, The Intellectual Landscape in the Works of J.M. Coetzee (Rochester, 2018), Raumlektüren: Der “Spatial Turn” und die Literatur der Moderne (Bielefeld, 2013), and Companion to the Works of J.M. Coetzee (Rochester, 2011), as author Heinrich von Kleist: Writing After Kant (Rochester, 2011) and, as translator, K.L. Reinhold: New Theory of the Human Capacity for Representation (Berlin, 2011).
Tim's current research focuses on hermeneutics and early German Romanticism.
Click here for a list of Tim Mehigan's engagement activities
Recent Appointments/Fellowships/Awards
- Fullbright Senior Scholarship 2017
- Humboldt Research Prize, October 2013
- Honorary Professor, School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, Australia, June 2011-December 2012
- Fellow, Australian Academy of Humanities, November 2003
- President, German Studies Association of Australia (GSAA), June 2003–September 2007
| Featured projects | Duration |
|---|---|
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Immanent Hermeneutics in Modern and Postmodern Literature Universities Australia - Germany Joint Research Co-operation Scheme |
2018–2019 |
PhD and MPhil Supervision
- View current and completed supervisions on UQ Researchers.
Find out more information on how to apply for a Research Higher Degree (MPhil or PhD). For all enquiries regarding research supervision, please contact us.
Publications
Books
Mehigan, Tim (2020). Robert Musil and the question of science: ethics, aesthetics, and the problem of the two cultures. Rochester, NY, United States: Camden House. doi: 10.2307/j.ctvrdf1b1
Mehigan, Tim (2014). Vereinigungen by Robert Musil. Stuttgart , Germany: Reclam Phillip Jun.
Mehigan, Tim (2013). Robert Musil: drei frauen. Stuttgart, Germany: Reclam.
Reinhold, Karl Leonhard , Mehigan, Tim and Empson, Barry (2011). Karl Leonhard Reinhold: Essay on a new theory of the human capacity for representation: translated by Tim Mehigan and Barry Empson. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.
Mehigan, Tim (2011). Heinrich von Kleist: Writing after Kant. Rochester, N.Y., United States: Camden House.
Mehigan, Timothy J. (2003). The critical response to Musil's "Man Without Qualities". Rochester, NY, United States: Camden House.
Mehigan, Tim (2001). Robert Musil. Stuttgart , Germany: Phillip Reclam Jun.
Mehigan, Timothy J. (1988). Text as contract: the nature and function of narrative discourse in the Erzahlungen of Heinrich von Kleist. Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers.
Book Chapters
Mehigan, Tim (2023). Coetzee and Kafka with Kleist (and Job): Debating the ‘Kohlhaasian Solution’. Heinrich von Kleist. (pp. 160-175) Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. doi: 10.1163/9789004686557_009
Mehigan, Tim (2023). Schiller and Early German Romantics (Kleist, Hölderlin, Goethe). The Palgrave handbook on the philosophy of Friedrich Schiller. (pp. 541-557) edited by Antonino Falduto and Tim Mehigan. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-16798-0_31
Mehigan, Tim (2023). Letters on the aesthetic education (1795). The Palgrave handbook on the philosophy of Friedrich Schiller. (pp. 231-246) edited by Antonino Falduto and Tim Mehigan. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-16798-0_13
Mehigan, Tim and Banki Peter (2021). Goethe's philosophy of nature. The Palgrave Handbook of German Romantic Philosophy. (pp. 375-397) edited by Elizabeth Millán Brusslan. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-53567-4_17
Mehigan, Tim (2021). Zur Frage einer politischen Hermeneutik bei Kleist : Am Beispiel der ›langen‹ Diskussion über Recht und Glauben in der Erzählung ›Michael Kohlhaas‹. Kleist-Jahrbuch 2021. (pp. 77-94) Berlin, Germany: J.B. Metzler. doi: 10.1007/978-3-662-64174-3_4
Mehigan, Tim (2021). Überlegungen zu einem möglichen „ethischen Weg“ der Kunst „nach Auschwitz“ Am Beispiel von Florian Henckel von Donnersmarcks Film Das Leben der Anderen. Wissen über Wissenschaft Felder - Formation - Mutation : Festschrift für Ryozo Maeda zum 65. Geburtstag. (pp. 227-238) edited by Manshu Ide, Haruyo Yoshida and Shizue Hayashi. Tübingen, Germany: Stauffenberg.
Mehigan, Tim (2020). Bridge Essay: Intimate Life and Romanticism. A Companion to World Literature. (pp. 2163-2168) edited by Ken Seigneurie. Hoboken, NJ, United States: Wiley-Blackwell.
Mehigan, Tim (2019). Posthumanist thinking in the work of Heinrich von Kleist. Posthumanism in the age of humanism: mind, matter, and the life sciences after Kant. (pp. 203-221) edited by Edgar Landgraf, Gabriel Trop and Leif Weatherby. New York, NY, United States: Bloomsbury.
Mehigan, Tim (2018). Introduction: Coetzee's intellectual landscapes. The intellectual landscape in the works of J.M. Coetzee. (pp. 1-21) edited by Tim Mehigan and Christian Moser. Rochester, NY, United States: Camden House.
Mehigan, Tim (2018). J.M. Coetzee on truth, skepticism, and secular confession in "The Age We Live In". The intellectual landscape in the works of J.M. Coetzee. (pp. 25-44) edited by Tim Mehigan and Christian Moser. Rochester, NY, United States: Camden House.
Mehigan, Tim (2017). Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus and the moral image of the world. J. M. Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus : the ethics of ideas and things. (pp. 165-186) edited by Jennifer Rutherford and Anthony Uhlmann. New York, USA: Bloomsbury Academic. doi: 10.5040/9781501318658.ch-008
Mehigan, Tim (2016). Musils Essayistik. Der Essay als Universalgattung des Zeitalters: Diskurse, Themen und Positionen zwischen Jahrhundertwende und Nachkriegszeit. (pp. 46-59) edited by Michael Ansel, Jurgen Egyptien and Hans-Edwin Friedrich. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Rodopi. doi: 10.1163/9789004324060_005
Mehigan, Tim (2016). The scepticism of Heinrich von Kleist. The Oxford handbook of European romanticism. (pp. 256-273) edited by Paul Hamilton. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696383.001.0001
Mehigan, Tim (2014). Nachwort. Robert Musil: Vereinigungen. (pp. 121-143) edited by Tim Mehigan. Stuttgart, Germany: Reclam Phillip Jun.
Mehigan, Tim (2014). From Kant to Schopenhauer: the philosophical discussion about science in Thomas Bernhard's 'Baroque' novel Das Kalkwerk. Thomas Bernhard. (pp. 67-85) edited by Paul Michael Lützeler, Erin McGlothlin and Jennifer Kapczynski. Tuebingen, Germany: Stauffenburg Verlag.
Mehigan, Tim (2013). Nachwort. Robert Musil: Drei Frauen. (pp. 135-157) edited by Tim Mehigan. Stuttgart, Germany: Reclam.
Mehigan, Tim (2013). The process of inferential contexts: Franz Kafka reading Heinrich von Kleist. Heinrich von Kleist: artistic and political legacies. (pp. 69-85) edited by Jeffrey L. High and Sophia Clark. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi. doi: 10.1163/9789401210300_008
Mehigan, Tim and Corkhill, Alan (2013). Vorwort. Raumlekturen: der spatial turn und die literatur der moderne. (pp. 7-21) edited by Tim Mehigan and Alan Corkhill. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript Verlag.
Mehigan, Tim (2013). Robert Musil: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (1930; 1933). Literatur und Wissen: ein interdisziplinares Handbuch. (pp. 395-400) edited by Roland Borgards, Harald Neumeyer, Nicolas Pethes and Yvonne Wubben. Stuttgart, Germany: J. B. Metzler.
Mehigan, Tim (2011). Some thoughts on autopoiesis in view of Kant's "Copernican Turn" and Two Essays by Heinrich von Kleist. Groteske Moderne, moderne Groteske : Festschrift für Philip Thomson = Festschrift for Philip Thomson. (pp. 263-284) edited by Franz-Josef Deiters, Axel Fliethmann and Christiane Weller. Germany: Rohrig Universitatsverlag.
Mehigan, Tim and Empson, Barry (2011). Introduction. Essay on a new theory of the human capacity for representation by Karl Leonhard Reinhold. (pp. ix-xxv) Berlin, Germany: de Gruyter.
Mehigan, Tim (2011). Der Donnerkeil des Mirabeau: Kleists Entdeckungen nach der Kant-Krise im Gebiete des Bewusstseins. Kleist. Relekturen. (pp. 271-288) edited by Branka Schaller and Roger Fornoff. Germany: Thelem.
Mehigan, Tim (2011). Slow Man (2005). A companion to the works of J.M. Coetzee. (pp. 192-207) edited by Tim Mehigan. Rochester, New York, USA: Camden House.
Mehigan, Tim and Fischer, Bernd (2011). Introduction. Heinrich von Kleist and Modernity. (pp. 1-8) edited by Bernd Fischer and Tim Mehigan. Rochester, New York: Camden House.
Mehigan, Tim (2011). The process of inferential contexts: Franz Kafka reading Heinrich von Kleist. Heinrich Von Kleist: Writing After Kant. (pp. 196-226) edited by Tim Mehigan. Rochester, NY, United States: Boydell & Brewer.
Mehigan, Tim (2011). Introduction. A companion to the works of J.M. Coetzee. (pp. 1-8) edited by Tim Mehigan. Rochester, New York, USA: Camden House.
Mehigan, Tim (2010). Robert Musil (1880-1942). Praktizierte intermedialitat. (pp. 87-103) edited by Fernand Hörner, Harald Neumeyer and Bernd Stiegler. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript Verlag.
Mehigan, Tim (2010). Legality as a "Fact of Reason": Heinrich von Kleist's concept of law, with special reference to Michael Kohlhaas. Recht und Literatur. (pp. 153-169) edited by Bernhard Greiner, Barbara Thums and Wolfgang Graf Vitzthum. Heidelberg, Germany: Universitatsverlag Winter.
Mehigan, Tim (2008). Kleist und die Tiere. Zur Frage des ausgeschlossenen Dritten in dem Trauerspiel Penthesilea. Penthesileas Versprechen: Exemplarische Studien über die literarische Referenz. (pp. 291-311) edited by Rüdiger Campe. Freiburg, Germany: Rombach Verlag.
Mehigan, Tim (2008). The space of perception. Frameworks, artworks, place : the space of perception in the modern world. (pp. 7-26) edited by Tim Mehigan. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Rodopi.
Mehigan, Tim (2007). The game of the narrative: Kleist's Fiction from a game-theoretical perspective. The play within the play : the performance of meta-theatre and self-reflection. (pp. 405-419) edited by Gerhard Fischer and Bernhard Greiner. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Mehigan, Tim (2007). "Die kuenftige Schule Europens": Reflections on K. L. Reinhold's Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermoegens (1789). Moderne begreifen: Zur Paradoxie eines sozio-ästhetischen Deutungsmusters. (pp. 311-324) edited by Christine Magerski, Robert Savage and Christiane Weller. Wiesbaden, Germany: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag. doi: 10.1007/978-3-8350-9676-9_23
Mehigan, Tim (2007). Towards another Modernity? Multicultural Discourse in German and Australian Film rom the 1970's to the 1990s. Polyculturalism and Discourse. (pp. 161-176) edited by Anja Schwarz and Russell West-Pavlov. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Mehigan, Tim (2007). Post-critical criticism: Robert Musil as an example. Literarische Wertung und Kanonbildung. (pp. 57-70) edited by Nicholas Saul and Ricarda Schmidt. Würzburg, Germany: Verlag Konigshausen & Neumann.
Mehigan, Tim (2007). Literature and the theory of games: Kleist's Verlobung in St Domingo as an example. In(ter)discipline: new languages for criticism. (pp. 188-198) edited by Gillian Beer, Malcolm Bowie and Beate Perrey. Hanover Walk, Leeds, United Kingdom: Legenda.
Mehigan, Tim (2006). Die lage der Germanistik in Australien: Eine Bestandsaufnahme. Tendenzen der Internationalen Germanistik. (pp. 42-51) edited by Axel Fliethmann, Christiane Weller and Stefanie Everke Buchanan. Sankt Augustin: Asgard-Verlag.
Mehigan, Tim (2005). Musil mit Luhmann: Das provlem des Vertrauens in Musils Mann ohne Eigenschaften. Musil anders: Neue Erkundungen eines Autors zwischen den Diskursen. (pp. 45-59) edited by Gunther Martens, Clemens Ruthner and Jaak De Vos. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.
Mehigan, TIm (2005). German Studies in Australia: A question of interdisciplinarity. New directions in German studies : a context of interdisciplinarity. (pp. 19-30) edited by Andrea Bandhauer, Bettina Boss, Kerry Dunne, Tim Mehigan, Martina Mollering and Maria Veber. Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago.
Mehigan, Tim (2003). "Betwixt a false reason and none at all": Kleist, Hume, Kant and the "Thing in Itself". A Companion to the Works of Heinrich von Kleist. (pp. 165-190) edited by Bernd Fischer. Rochester, NY, United States: Boydell & Brewer.
Mehigan, Tim (2003). Ernest Hemingway und die Deutschen: eine Sonne, die auch aufgeht. Dennoch leben sie. Verfemte Bücher, verfolgte Autorinnen und Autoren. (pp. 135-144) edited by Reiner Wild. Munchen, Germany: Richard Boorberg Verlag.
Mehigan, Tim (2001). Zur Frage der Selbstorganisation des Lebendigen in Goethes literarischem Experiment der "Wahlverwandtschaften". Roman und Asthetik im 19. Jahrhundert : Festschrift für Christian Grawe zum 65. Geburtstag. (pp. 13-31) edited by Tim Mehigan and Gerhard Sauder. Germany: Rohrig Universitatsverlag.
Mehigan, Tim (2000). Kleist, Kant und die Aufklaerung. Heinrich von Kleist und die Aufklärung. (pp. 3-21) edited by Tim Mehigan. Rochester, NY, United States: Boydell & Brewer.
Mehigan, Tim (2000). Amphitryon und das experimentum crucis des Gefuehls. Heinrich von Kleist und die Aufklärung. (pp. 113-126) edited by Tim Mehigan. Rochester, NY, United States: Boydell & Brewer.
Mehigan, Tim (1999). Robert Musil 1880-1942: Vereinigungen. Zwei Erzählungen; Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. Roman.; Nachlass zu Lezeiten. 20.Jahrhundert I. (pp. 323-332) edited by Frank R. Max and Christine Ruhrberg. Stuttgart, Germany: Phillip Reclam Jun.
Mehigan, Tim (1997). Violent orders in Robert Musil's "Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften" and Thomas Bernhard's "Kalkwerk". War, Violence and the Modern Condition. (pp. 300-316) edited by Bernd Hüppauf. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110817256.300
Journal Articles
Mehigan, Tim (2020). Schiller after Kant: the “unexpected science” of the Briefe über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen. Kant-Studien, 111 (2), 285-302. doi: 10.1515/kant-2020-0018
Mehigan, Tim (2019). Ways of Speaking and Living: A Philosophical Look at J.M. Coetzee. Australian Book Review (April 2019), 26-27.
Mehigan, Tim (2018). Zum multivariaten Korrespondenzprojekt Robert Musils: am Beispiel von Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften und Die Amsel. Doitsu Bungaku, 17 (1) 6, 105-123. doi: 10.11282/jgg.157.0_105
Mehigan, Tim (2016). Einfuhrung und Uberblick. Jahrbuch fur Internationale Germanistik, 47 (2), 81-84. doi: 10.3726/82052_81
Mehigan, Tim (2013). "der ganze Schmutz zugleich und Glanz meiner Seele". Die Briefe Heinrich von Kleists als Teil seines Werks. Monatshefte, 105 (3), 505-507.
Mehigan, Tim (2013). Kakanien als Gesellschaftskonstruktion. Robert Musils Sozioanalyse des 20. Jahrhunderts. Zeitschrift Für Germanistik, 23 (1), 176-178. doi: 10.3726/92138_150
Mehigan, Tim (2010). Art, science and the idea of Europe. Arena Magazine (104), 42-47.
Mehigan, Tim and De Burgh, Helene (2008). 'Aufklarung', freemasonry, the public sphere and the question of Enlightenment. Journal of European Studies, 38 (1), 5-25. doi: 10.1177/0047244107086798
Mehigan, Timothy (2007). Image, body, text: Situating the new German studies. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 43 (4), 379-384. doi: 10.3138/seminar.43.4.379
Empson, Barry and Mehigan, Tim (2007). Shaping space: Notes on the problem of space in art and philosophy. Double Dialogues (7).
Mehigan, Tim (2005). Lessing's Laokoon and the rhetoric of pain. Double Dialogues (6).
Mehigan, Tim (2003). The lie of the land: Nature and society in Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften. Journal of Language, Literature and Culture, 75-93.
Mehigan, Tim (2003). Pain and the sublime. Double Dialogues (4)
Mehigan, Tim (1995). Moral und Verbrechen. Einige Gedanken uber Robert Musils intellektuelle Position. Wirkendes Wort, 45 (2), 227-240.
Mehigan, Tim (1993). Whither Gernany? Or, nothing divides people more than unification. Quadrant, 37 (11), 45-49.
Mehigan, Tim (1993). Eichendorff's Taugenichts; or, The social education of a private man. The German Quarterly, 66 (1), 60-70. doi: 10.2307/408510
Mehigan, Tim (1989). Literature and language learning. Vox (3), 54-56.
Conference Papers
Mehigan, Tim (2020). Goethezeit oder Kantisches Zeitalter? Zum Problem literarischer und philosophischer Konvergenzen . Germanistik zwischen Divergenz und Konvergenz Asiatische Germanistentagung 2019, Sapporo, Japan, 26 - 29 August 2019. Munich, Germany: IUDICIUM.
Mehigan, Tim (2012). Technik als Kulturvermittlung? Zur Kulturkonzeption Goethes (in den,, Wahlverwandtschaften") und Robert Musils (im ,,Mann ohne Eigenschaften"). Asian Germanist Conference in Kanazawa 2008, Kanazawa, Japan, 26 - 30 August 2008. Munich, ermany: Iudicium Verlag.
Research Report
Mehigan, Tim (1988). Straw persons and devil's advocacy. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Goethe-Institut.
Data Collections
Mehigan, Tim , Kossew, Sue, Ackerley, Chris, James, David, Attridge, Derek, Marais, Mike, Weigl, Engelhard, Prentice, Chris, Worthington, Kim L., Kelly, Michelle, Drichel, Simone, Meffan, James, Johan, Johan and Clarkson, Carrol (2019). A Companion to the Works of J.M. Coetzee. UQ eSpace. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2019.774
Mehigan, Tim, Moser, Christian, Hayes, Patrick, Winkler, Markus, Woessner, Martin, Boletsi, Maria, Stockhammer, Robert, Clarkson, Carrol, Honold, Alexander, Aaltola, Elisa, During, Simon, Attridge, Derek, Attwell, David, Pippin, Robert B. and Leist, Anton (2019). The Intellectual Landscape in the Works of J.M. Coetzee. UQ eSpace. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2019.775
Mehigan, Tim , Fischer, Bernd, High, Jeffrey, Horn, Anette, Allan, Sean, Greiner, Bernhard, Nobile, Nancy, von Mücke, Dorothea, Pan, David, Schneider, Helmut, Meldrum Brown, Hilda, Schmidt, Ricarda, Chisholm, David, Horn, Peter, Barton, Peter, Gailus, Andreas, Marshall, Jonathan W. and Kittler, Wolf (2019). Heinrich von Kleist and Modernity (UQ306727_other.pdf). UQ eSpace. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2019.776
Mehigan, Tim , Corkhill, Alan, Endres, Martin , Deiters, Franz-Josef , Weber, Philipp , Niehle, Victoria , Milone, Giulia Ferro , White, Michael , Rehm, Stefan , Ledanff, Susanne , Shah, Mirah , Kerscher, Julia , Wagner, Moritz , Gramatzki, Susanne , Kinzel, Ulrich , Irsigler, Ingo and Neubauer-Petzoldt, Ruth (2013). Raumlektüren. UQ eSpace. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2019.772
Mehigan, Tim , Neumann, Gerhard, Schulz, Gerhard, Stephens, Anthony, Theisen, Bianca, Moser, Christian, Harms, Ingeborg, Blamberger, Günter, Roberts, David, Doering, Sabine, Meldrum Brown, Hilda, Brandstetter, Gabriele , Lü, Yixu and Marquardt, Hans-Jochen (2000). Heinrich von Kleist und die Aufklärung. UQ eSpace. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2019.771