PD Dr. Philipp Löffler

Philipp Löffler teaches American literary and cultural history (revolution to present). His work focuses on the history and sociology of reading, literary patronage, the professionalization of authorship, and the history of US higher education. He has (co)-edited a number of books, most recently The Handbook of American Romanticism (2021) and How to Read the Literary Market (2021). His first monograph is Pluralist Desires: Contemporary Historical Fiction and the End of the Cold War (2015). His first monograph is Pluralist Desires: Contemporary Historical Fiction and the End of the Cold War (2015). His next book will be a cultural history of US literary professionalism in the nineteenth century, tentatively titled Publishing Scoundrels: American Literature and the Professionalization of Authorship, 1790-1915. Philipp Löffler also serves as the graduate advisor of the HCA’s MA program. 

• American Literary and Cultural History: Revolution to Contemporary
• Transatlantic Romanticism
• History and Practices of Reading 
• Theories of American Studies
• Pragmatism and Literary Studies

Since 2021: Heidelberg Center for American Studies
2021: Free University Berlin
2019 - 2021: University of Frankfurt
2019: Habilitation in American Studies, University of Heidelberg
2009-2019: University of Heidelberg, English Department
2012: University of Washington, Seattle, Visiting Assistant Professor
2011: PhD in American Studies, University of Heidelberg
2009: Visiting Scholar, Columbia University, New York (DAAD)
2007 - 2009: University of Mainz
2006: MA in American Studies, Modern German Literature, Rhetoric, University of Tübingen
2005: MA in German and Comparative Literature, Washington University, St. Louis

Participation in American Culture and Society. Ed. with Margit Peterfy, Natalie Rauscher, and Welf Werner. Heidelberg: Winter, 2024.
Institutions of Authorship: Publishing, Gatekeeping, and Patronage in the Modern Literary Field. Special Issue Authorship 11.4 (2022). Eds. Philipp Löffler and Tim Sommer.
Handbook of American Romanticism. Ed. with Clemens Spahr and Jan Stievermann. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021.
How to Read the Literary Market. Special Issue Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 68.1. (2021). Ed. with Dustin Breitenwischer and Johannes Völz.
Reading the Canon: Literary History in the 21st Century. Ed. Heidelberg: Winter, 2017.
Reading Practices. REAL Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature. Vol. 31. Ed. with Winfried Fluck and Günter Leypoldt. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2015.
Pluralist Desires: Contemporary Historical Fiction and the End of the Cold War. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2015.
Conceptions of Collectivity in Contemporary American Literature. Special Issue Amerikastudien/American Studies 57.2. (2012). Ed. with Clemens Spahr.

• Principal Investigator DFG Research Project „From Patronage to the Mass Market: Institutionalizing Literary Knowledge Cultures in the 19th-Century United States“ (DFG Project Number 522842143)
• Coordinator of the HCA MA Program
• Board Member of the Heidelberg School of Education (HSE)
• Committee Member North American Exchange Programs/Fellowships, University of Heidelberg