Dr. Frederick is a scholar of German literature and film. He has written on moss, dust, antlers, furniture, puppets, trash, friendship, walking, babble, experimental animation, and—not necessarily last but by definition least—nothing.

His major publications include books on digression (Narratives Unsettled, Northwestern UP, 2012), collecting (The Redemption of Things, Cornell UP, 2021), and F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (Camden House, 2023). He has also co-edited books on Robert Walser (with Valerie Heffernan; Northwestern UP, 2018) and information aesthetics (with Michele Kennerly and Jonathan E. Abel; Columbia UP, 2021). With the poet Graham Foust, he has translated four volumes of poetry by Ernst Meister (Wave Books).

Dr. Frederick used to be preoccupied with questions of narrative but finds himself now drawn more to lyric poetry. He is currently writing about Georg Trakl and Hedwig Caspari. A book on “the art of failure” is gestating.

He still finds himself returning again and again to Robert Walser and Adalbert Stifter. He believes Der Nachsommer is the greatest novel written in German—and is willing to die on a hill for that conviction. He wishes more people would read Gerhard Meier and Gertrud Kolmar; prefers Hölderlin and Kleist to Goethe and Schiller; the first version of Der grüne Heinrich to the second; and a good Belgian ale to a glass of wine.

Dr. Frederick enjoys teaching both graduate and undergraduate students, in small and large classes. He loves it when students point out something he has never noticed before in a text or film—which happens regularly.

When he is not rereading Finnegans Wake or puzzling over the poems of Emily Dickinson, he likes to listen to music. His favorite albums include Trout Mast Replica by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, the live version of Enta Omri by Oum Kalthoum, and Cecil Taylor’s The Willisau Concert. His favorite compositions include J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Schubert’s first piano trio (opus 99), though currently he spends a lot of time listening to Giancinto Scelsi’s third string quartet. His favorite opera is Henry Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas, which may give you more insight into his aesthetic sensibilities than any of the above, though it should be added that he thinks The Shaggs are the greatest girl band of all time and that their Philosophy of the World is no laughing matter.

Current and Recent Courses:

• GER 592: The Sacred and the Profane
• GER 581: Brecht and Post-Brechtian Theater
• GER 561: German Realism and Its Other
• GER 189: German Film

Recent Publications:

• Ernst Meister: Uncollected Later Poems (1968-1979). Translated together with Graham Foust (Wave Books, 2023)
• The Last Laugh (German Cinema Classics) (Camden House, 2023)
• The Redemption of Things: Collecting and Dispersal in German Realism and Modernism (Cornell UP, 2021)
• Information Keywords. Co-edited with Michele Kennerly and Jonathan E. Abel (Columbia UP, 2020)
• Robert Walser: A Companion. Co-edited with Valerie Heffernan (Northwestern UP, 2018).