Research
I am interested in how storytelling in the broadest sense acts as an interface between humans and the more-than-human environment, in particular how we view and identify with landscapes and animals. My current research project combines literary close readings with methods of cultural geography to show how German fantastical literature in particular has shaped landscape identities transnationally, thus highlighting the impact of traded stories on practises such as tree planting and the reintroduction of species.
My research background is in Romanticism, fairy tales, and women’s writing, which continue to inform my research practice; my upcoming monograph with De Gruyter considers how German women writers of the nineteenth century conveyed their sociopolitical views through fairy tales.
I am currently working to deepen my understanding of women’s Romanticism from an ecocritical point of view while also working on several projects investigating human-animal relationships; upcoming articles include insights from the “Re-telling the Urban Fox” project which I conducted at SAS as an Inclusion, Participation and Engagement Fellow, and a reading of how the bark beetle epidemic in the Harz National Park is instrumentalised by the far right.
I am also interested in expanding my experience of policy research; previously, I have worked on BA-commissioned research assessing language skills in researchers.
Teaching
At Oxford, I teach all undergraduate years in translation from and into German. I also teach papers III and IV (prelims), and the FHS papers VIII and X. I hold regular lectures on ETA Hoffmann, Romanticism, and the German Picaresque novel. I am open to supervising undergraduate dissertations within my fields of expertise (Romanticism, women’s writing, ecocriticism, transdisciplinary methods).
Selected publications
Rekeszus, Anja. German Women Writers’ Fairy Tales of the 19th Century: Transcultural Tales, Political Agendas. Under contract with De Gruyter. Expected publication date: March 2026.
Rekeszus, Anja. “Bark Beetle Devastation and Far-Right Support in the German Harz Region.” In: Arboreal Nationalisms in the Global North, edited by Jodie Asselin, Damiano Benvegnù, and Agata Konczal. Expected publication date: January 2026.
Rekeszus, Anja. “Fox Tales, Community Concerns: Why Collaborative Storytelling Matters.” In Literature for Change: The Case for Literary Research Across Languages and Cultures, edited by Godela Weiss-Sussex et al. Expected publication date: December 2025.
Rekeszus, Anja. “Reclaiming the Female Storyteller in the 19th Century: Strategies of Adaptation and Resistance in the Works of Laura Gonzenbach and Carmen Sylva.” Publications of the English Goethe Society 92, no. 3 (October 2023): 185-200.
Rekeszus, Anja. “Das Schreiben in die Hand nehmen: ‘Femmes de Lettres’ im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Tagung in Berlin, 7.–8.10.2021).” Zeitschrift für Germanistik 32, no. 2 (2022): 478-480.
Rekeszus, Anja. “Three forgotten women who wrote fairytales which subverted the Grimms’ gender norms.” The Conversation. August 7, 2024. https://theconversation.com/three-forgotten-women-who-wrote-fairytales-which-subverted-the-grimms-gender-norms-233931.
Rekeszus, Anja. “Weibliche Autorschaft und transkultureller Diskurs: Karoline von Woltmanns ‘Volkssagen der Böhmen’.” In Femmes de Lettres: Europäische Autorinnen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, edited by Marina Hertrampf, 405-424. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2020.
