I have been teaching English and Comparative Literature at the University of Zurich since 1998. My recent research and seminars have focused on animals in literature and philosophy, on the relationship between science and the humanities, and on theories and representations of emotions.

From 1989 to 1994 I was Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins University and, from 2004 to 2009, Associate Fellow at the Collegium Helveticum, the joint Institute of Advanced Studies of ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, and the Zurich University of the Arts. From 1992 to 1996 I was Director of the Hochalpines Institut/Institut otalpin Ftan, a high school in the Engadine.

In addition to my academic work, I serve as a trustee of Careum, a foundation providing education and conducting research in the areas of health and care. In this role I am also Vice-Chairman of the Careum Bildungszentrum and a board member of the Careum Hochschule Gesundheit.

From 1996 until my retirement in 2023, I pursued a professional career in the financial services sector working for twenty-three years as Managing Director for Swiss Re, a reinsurance company (1996-2007; 2011-2023), and four years at Credit Suisse (2007-2011).

Books:

Joint Ventures: Authorship, Translation, Plagiarism (Bern and New York: Peter Lang, 2003).

Fragmentation by Decree: Coleridge and the Text of Romanticism (Zürich: Zentralstelle der Studentenschaft, 1990)

Selected Articles:

"Going Feral: Peter the Wild Boy among Royals, Natural Philosophers, and the London Literati," in Antoinina Bevan Zlatar et al., ed. Words, Books, Images, and the Long Eighteenth Century (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2021), 19-36.

"Leslie Fiedler: 'Why not, Then, Invent a New New Criticism, a Post-Modernist Criticism?'," in Thomas Fries and Sandro Zanetti, ed. Revolutionen der Literaturwissenschaft 1966-1971 (Zurich: Diaphanes, 2019), 241-255.

"Miltons Monster, romantisiert," in Paul Michel, ed. Spinnenfuß und Krötenbauch: Genese und Symbolik von Kompositwesen (Zurich: Pano, 2013), 317-29.

"'O True Apothecary! Thy Drugs Are Quick': Shakespeares Drogen," in: Elvan Kut and Martin Schmid, eds. Heilen - Gesunden: Das andere Arzneibuch (Zurich: Edition Collegium Helveticum, 2013), 37-41.

"Pygmalion: Von der Ästhetik als Modellierung der Gefühle“, in Johannes Fehr and Gerd Folkers, eds. Gefühle zeigen. Manifestationsformen emotionaler Prozesse (Zürich: Chronos, 2009), 215-42.

"Zwischen Ach und Ich: Kleists Alkmene als Übersetzerin“, in Aris Fioretos, ed. Babel. Für Werner Hamacher (Basel: Urs Engeler Editor, 2009), 218-25.

“Wenig Science, viel Fiction: James Whales Frankenstein (1931)“, in Rainer Egloff, Gerd Folkers und Matthias Michel, ed. Archäologie der Zukunft (Zürich: Chronos, 2007), 344-46.

„Taking Individualism at Face Value: Johann Caspar Lavater’s Physiognomische Fragmente”, in: David E. Wellbery et al., eds. A New History of German Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), 393-399.

„‘Quam cernis, imaginis umbra est‘/‘Was Du siehst, ist ein Schatten des Bildes‘: Spiegel und Schatten im Mythos des Narziss,“ in Paul Michel, ed. Präsenz ohne Substanz: Beiträge zur Symbolik des Spiegels (Zürich: Pano Verlag, 2003), 181-197.

„Physiognomik, Predigt, Okkultismus: Lavater und die Medien der Kommunikation im 18. Jahrhundert,“ in Ulrich Stadler and Karl Pestalozzi, ed. Im Licht Lavaters (Zürich: Verlag der NZZ, 2003), 117-140.

"The Genius as Compositor: Young’s Conjectures on Original Composition and the Imprimatur of Romanticism," in Imprints & Revisions: The Making of the Literary Text, 1759-1818, ed. Peter Hughes and Robert Rehder (Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1996), 15-37.

"The Worth of Werther: Goethe’s Literary Marketing," Modern Language Notes 110 (1995): 579-630.

"Dichtung. England: Mittelalter; Neuzeit," in Historisches Sachwörterbuch der Rhetorik, ed. Gert Ueding (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994), II: 727-736.

"Poedelaire: Translation and the Volatility of the Letter," Diacritics 22 (1992): 49-68.

"Wahl:Verwandtschaft. Benjamins Siegel," Modern Language Notes 106 (1991): 555-588.

"‘Misplaced ornaments’: Romantische Figurationen der Rhetorik bei Wordsworth," in Rhetorik zwischen den Wissenschaften, ed. Gert Ueding (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1991), 175-186.

"‘Endnessnessessity’: Zufall des Endes bei Sterne und Joyce," in Die Kunst zu enden, ed. Jürgen Söring (Bern: Peter Lang, 1990), 79-109.