Navigation auf uzh.ch

Suche

English Department

Dieter Bitterli

Dieter Bitterli, Prof. Dr.

  • Privatdozent für Englische Philologie
Phone
+41 44 6343551

Research Interests

  • Old English language and literature 
  • Anglo-Latin and Old English 
  • Medieval Latin literature 
  • Early Modern emblems

Short Bio

Dieter Bitterli has taught Old and Middle English language and literature at the Universities of Lausanne and Zurich, where he is a lecturer (Privatdozent) in the English Department. A graduate in English, German and Medieval Latin, he holds a PhD from the University of Zurich. Following his Habilitation at the UZH in 2005, he worked as a Senior Assistant and Lecturer in the English Department before being appointed Professor of English at the University of Teacher Education (Pädagogische Hochschule) Lucerne. 

Dieter Bitterli's three main areas of research are early English language and literature (including the interfaces between Old English and Anglo-Latin), medieval Latin literature and manuscript studies, and Early Modern emblems. He is the author of the monograph Say What I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009) and, most recently, an edition of the early medieval Bern Riddles (Die Berner Rätsel / Aenigmata Bernensia, Lateinisch-deutsch, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2024). 

Dieter Bitterli is a member of the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England (ISSEME) and The Society for Emblem Studies and has presented several papers at their conferences. 

Recent Activities

Among Dieter Bitterli’s current projects are an edition, translation and commentary of the Medieval Latin Liber lapidum (Book of Stones) by the poet and bishop Marbod of Rennes (d. 1123). He is also preparing a new edition and translation of the Old English Exeter Book Riddles. His recent papers and articles include: 

  • ‘Ingens est herbis virtus data, maxima gemmis – Marbod von Rennes und sein Steinbuch’, Seminar für Griechische und Lateinische Philologie der Antike, des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Universität Zürich, December 2024. 
  • ‘The Origin and Date of the Bern Riddles’, International Medieval Congress (IMC) Leeds (UK), July 2024. 
  • ‘Schiffsymbolik in der angewandten Emblematik der Schweiz’, Kolloquium der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Symbolforschung, Zürich, September 2023. 
  • ‘Zeit und Heimat der Berner Rätsel’, Codex Bernensis 611: Wissenshorizonte um 700, Burgerbibliothek und Universität Bern, June 2023. 

  • ‘Marvelling Curiosity in the Bern Riddles’, International Medieval Congress (IMC) Leeds (UK), July 2022. 

  • ‘Human/Non-Human Interaction in Exeter Book Riddle 62’, Biennial conference of the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England, University of Winchester (UK), June 2021. 

  • ‘Fluides Geschlecht und das Unheimliche im frühen England’, Ringvorlesung ‘Geschlecht im Mittelalter’, Universität Zürich, October 2020. 

  • ‘Exeter Book Riddle 95 (the “Sun”)’, International Medieval Congress (IMC) Leeds (UK), July 2019. 

  • ‘Spur, A New Solution to Exeter Book Riddle 62’, Notes and Queries 66 (2019), 343–47. 

  • ‘Exeter Book Riddle 95: “The Sun”, a New Solution’, Anglia 137 (2019), 612–38. 

  • ‘The One-Liners Among the Exeter Book Riddles’, Neophilologus 103 (2019), 419–34. 

Links