Till Greite
London
Host: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Till Breyer
Institut für deutsche Sprache und Literatur I
01.05.–30.06.2026
Research Project
Liberalism in Exile: A Cartography of the History of Ideas and Literature.
In collaboration with the WAG of the LBI Germany.
Post-1933 Britain was one of the most important places of refuge for people persecuted by the Nazis. Its significance in the history of exile is linked to a distinctive feature of the history of ideas that has scarcely been examined to date. For it was in London that the escape routes of numerous German-speaking, mostly Jewish intellectuals converged, and it was there, in exile, that they set about renegotiating the foundations of a free society. The decisive influence of the British mindset is exemplified by a remark by Karl Mannheim: he noted that the ‘overall stance’ of his new studies lay in the fact ‘that the author has for some time been living in a country where liberal democracy continues to exist almost undisturbed. This has enabled him to observe at close quarters how its principles play out.’
This astonishment among many bourgeois or left-liberal exiles at the unexpected resilience of British liberalism led many of them, reinforced by the alienating experience of exile, to a shift in perspective regarding the fate of liberal society: Quite a few harboured the hope of achieving a new balance between freedom and solidarity in the bloody ‘Age of Extremes’ (E. Hobsbawm).
With English liberalism before their eyes and the experience of fascism on the horizon, a multitude of political-sociological as well as literary-poetic, and above all essayistic, works of exile emerged
Vitae
Dr Till Greite has been a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, since 2024 and is a member of staff at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (ILCS) there. At the ILCS, he is conducting research on German-Jewish exile in the UK under the title ‘The Legacy of Exile’.
Previously, he completed his PhD at Humboldt University in Berlin, where he was a research assistant at the Institute for German Literature (Chair of Prof. Joseph Vogl) and a member of the PhD network ‘Das Wissen der Literatur’ until 2023. In addition, he collaborated on Prof. Joel B. Landes’ (Princeton) Goethe project ‘Vagantenweistheit’ until 2025. Visiting fellowships include: Princeton University, University College Dublin, DLA Marbach and the Moses Mendelssohn Centre, Potsdam. Main research interests: 19th/20th-century literary history, metropolitan cultures, exile studies and comparative literature, as well as phenomenology/hermeneutics.
Key area of Research
- Literary history (19th/20th centuries)
- Metropolitan cultures (particularly Berlin and London)
- Exile studies and comparative literature (UK and German-speaking world)
- History of Ideas and Literary Theory
- Phenomenology/Hermeneutics and Philosophical Anthropology
- Metaphorology/Image Theory
- Aesthetics of Production/critique génétique
Selected Publications
with Erhard Schütz (Hrsg.): Die lange Stunde Null: Beiträge zu Literatur und Film einer Übergangszeit um 1945. Berlin-New York, 2026 (im Erscheinen).
Die leere Zentrale. Berlin, ein Bild aus dem deutschen Nachkrieg. Eine literaturgeschichtliche Begehung. Göttingen 2024 (Rezensionen in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 11/1/2025, 10; Welt am Sonntag, 2/3/2025, 6; Oxford German Studies 54, No. 2, 284-287; Scientia Poetica 29/2025, H 1, 326-333; H-Soz-Kult, 9/1/2026; Zeitschrift für Germanistik 1/2026, 216-217).
Hilde Domin, Michael Hamburger: ‘Von diesem neuen Volk der Displaced Persons’. Briefwechsel (1963-68), in Sinn und Form 2/2026, 209-230.
Von fahrender Habe und unbeweglichen Dingen: Berliner Fluchtlinien des Eingedenkens (Benjamin, Tergit, Hamburger), in: Jahrbuch für Exilforschung 43, hrsg. v. Doerte Bischoff et. al. Berlin-Boston 2026, 131-157.
with Joel B. Lande: Ironische Selbstbehauptungen. Zur Poetik des Romans nach Hans Blumenberg, in: Anja Lemke, Nikolaus Largier (hrsg.). Hans Blumenberg und der Roman. Berlin 2025, 133-167.
A Place of Disturbance. Ingeborg Bachmann and Witold Gombrowicz in Postwar Berlin, in: Austrian Studies Vol 32/2024: Reading Bachmann Now. Hrsg. v. Andrea Capovilla et. al. Cambridge 2025, 190-207.
Das Unvergessliche im Kleinen: Georg Hermanns Großstadtminiaturen und die Poetik des Okkasionellen, in: Christian Klein (hrsg.). ‘Vom gesicherten und ungesicherten Leben.’ Neue Perspektiven auf das Werk von Georg Hermann. Göttingen 2024, 65-84.
Weltzugänge, Weltverluste: Max Schelers Phänomenologie als Herausforderung für den späten Robert Musil, in: Arthur Boelderl, Barbara Neymeyr (hrsg.). Robert Musil im Spannungsfeld zwischen Phänomenologie und Psychoanalyse. Berlin 2023, 13-36.
Berlin, a ‘Hollow Shell’ or a City as a ‘Laboratory Study’. Report on the Ford Foundation’s Cultural and Artistic Projects in Post-War Berlin in the 1960s, in: Rockefeller Archive Center Research Reports Sep. 2022, 24 S.
Gadamers Berliner Vortrag. Von der Korruptibilität des Menschen, in: Philosophische Rundschau. Vol. 66/2019, 14-24.
Contact
Dr. Till Greite
Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (formerly IMLR)
School of Advanced Study | University of London
Senate House | Malet Street | London WC1E 7HU
Erich Auerbach Institute for Advanced Studies
E-Mail:till.greite(at)sas.ac(dot)uk