Beate I. Allert

About Me

Specialization

German and Comparative Literature, esp. 18th and 19th centuries, Enlightenment, Weimar Classicism, Romanticism, Hermeneutics, Critical Theory, Metaphor, Ekphrasis, Visual-Verbal Dynamics, Color Theories, Film studies

Prof. Dr. Beate Allert completed her M.A. and Ph.D. at the U of California Berkeley, her undergraduate studies at the Universität Tübingen, Germany, taught at Mills College (CA), Mount Holyoke College (MA), at University of Bordeaux, France, and at Universität in Freiburg, Germany where she directed the Purdue-Ohio- Indiana Universities Consortium. She teaches at Purdue University since 1991.

Among her publications are five books: (1) Die Metapher und ihre Krise: Zur Dynamik der Bilderschrift Jean Pauls (New York: Peter Lang, 1987), (2)  Languages of Visuality: Crossings between Science, Art, Politics, and Literature (Detroit Wayne State University Press, 1996); (3) Comparative Cinema (Lewiston NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008), (4) J.G. Herder: From Cognition to Cultural Science (Heidelberg: Synchron 2016); (5) Most recently her book G.E. Lessing: Poetic Constellations between the Visual and the Verbal (Heidelberg: Synchron, 2018) 424 pages (ISBN 978-3-939381-97-6) was published in December 2018 (www.synchron-publishers.com)."

She served for numerous years as Chair of German at Purdue U. During 2011-2013 she was Vice President and during 2013 – 2015 President of the International Herder Society; During 2017-2018 she served as Director of Graduate Studies for the School of Languages and Cultures and since August 2018 she directs the Purdue University Comparative Literature Program.

I enjoy literature literature, the visual and performing arts, music, and film and am happy that my profession allows me to work on these interests, especially including my passion for aspects related to visual-verbal dynamics. I also like biking, pilates, yoga, swimming, hiking, and bird-watching.

As director of the Comparative Literature Program in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University, I work with wonderful individuals from numerous cultural backgrounds and with multiple talents and help these students reach their amazing professional goals with an MA or even a PhD in Comparative Literature. There are great success stories of my students to tell which gives me immense pleasure!  As Professor of German and while working in the School of Languages and Cultures, I am also firmly rooted in German Literature to begin with, and take part in wonderful venues that are associated with that, such as our study abroad programs, teaching and lecturing here and abroad, creating and nurturing the Purdue -Freiburg University partnership, and working with Fulbright, ASECS, DAAD, Global Engineering, the Purdue GEARE Program, etc.

Five books- and many articles- published so far: 1) Die Metapher und ihre Krise: Zur Dynamik der “Bilderschrift” Jean Pauls (1987); 2) Languages of Visuality: Crossings between Science, Art, Politics, and Literature (1996); 3) Comparative Cinema (2008); 4) J.G. Herder: From Cognition to Cultural Science (2016) and most recently 5) G.E. Lessing: Poetic Constellations between the Visual and the Verbal (2018). Received a Global Synergy Grant for the International Herder Conference and served as vice president and as president of the International Herder Society from 2012-2016. Next larger project is a co-edited book on Alexander von Humboldt.