Kathrin Wittler was a Minerva Research Fellow at the Rosenzweig Center from April 2015 till November 2016. During her stay in Jerusalem, she completed her award-winning book “Morgenländischer Glanz. Eine deutsche jüdische Literaturgeschichte (1750-1850)”, which was published in 2019 in the "Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts".
Since 2017, Kathrin is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Peter Szondi Institute for General and Comparative Literature (Freie Universität Berlin). Her research focuses on literary multilingualism (German/Hebrew), the reception of the Bible, orientalism, book cultures, and literary solitude. Her second book will be a contribution to the field of comparative literature, exploring the genre aesthetics of solitude. In addition, Kathrin is involved in two historical projects in the field of Jewish Studies. Together with Uta Lohmann, she is preparing an edition of the maskil Joel Löwe's Breslau writings (1791-1801), funded by the DFG. Together with Johannes Czakai, she works on a biography of the poet and secret agent Joel Jacoby (1811-1863), funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung.
Kathrin’s publications include essays on 'Orientalist Body Politics. Intermedia Encounters between German and Polish Jews around 1800' (Central Europe, vol. 17, 2019), ‘Travelling Images and Orientalist Knowledge in Philippson’s Israelitische Bibel’ (Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, vol. 62, 2017), on the history of the appellation ‘Muselmann’ (Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, vol. 61, 2013), and on Heine’s German Jewish orientalism (Heine-Jahrbuch, vol. 49, 2010).