Frauenbilder im Wandel

University of Cologne, since 2024

The habilitation project “Frauenbilder im Wandel” undertakes a comparative study of female figures in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Brazilian novels of the nineteenth century. Starting from the question of how and why female characters function as crystallization points for literary social critique, the project examines the narrative functions of different character types within the tension between bourgeois ideals and material realities. A transatlantic comparison makes it possible to identify similarities and differences in central aspects of women’s lived experience — such as work, marriage, education, sexuality, and public participation — and to relate them to historical discourses of emancipation.

Methodologically, the project draws on the critical literary and social analysis of Antonio Candido and Roberto Schwarz. The aim is to move beyond mere motif- or local-color-based research and to read the formal structure of the novels (narrative perspective, plot construction, style) as an expression of different social configurations. Particular attention is paid to the tension, described by Schwarz, between the adoption of European novelistic models and the specific social reality of Brazil.

Through the comparative analysis of a corpus of eight to fifteen novels — including works by Gustave Flaubert, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Eça de Queirós, and Machado de Assis — traditional canonical readings are not only relativized but critical theory itself is expanded through a gender perspective. A further central aim of the project is to include women authors such as George Sand, Fernán Caballero, and Júlia Lopes de Almeida, making visible their contribution to nineteenth-century literary discourse and opening up the view onto the diversity of female agency and literary creation.

Courses taught

• Summer semester 2026, advanced seminar: Romane von Frauen aus dem 19. Jahrhundert: Sand, Caballero und Lopes de Almeida (University of Cologne)
• Winter semester 2025/26, advanced seminar: Personagens femininas do romantismo ao realismo nas literaturas francesa, espanhola e brasileira (University of São Paulo)
• Winter semester 2025/26, introductory seminar: Das Leben der Frauen in den Romanen von Balzac, Clarín und Alencar (University of Cologne)
• Summer semester 2025, introductory seminar: Der Realismus bei Eça de Queirós, Émile Zola und Pardo Bazán (University of Cologne)
• Winter semester 2024/25, advanced seminar: Die weiblichen Protagonistinnen von Flaubert, Galdós und Machado de Assis (University of Cologne)