Nicola Mazzotti

His recent research projects focused on the works of the writer and Germanist Claudio Magris, particularly on the aesthetic proper times (Eigenzeiten) produced by the combination of now-time and non-contemporariness (Ungleichzeitigkeit) in his works. He also examined how certain texts of Magris reveal complex layers of time sedimented in murky landscapes, where the human and the non-human are inextricably intertwined.

A recipient of the 2024-2025 Whitney Fellowship for Environmental Humanities, Nicola intends to pursue further research on the relationship between humanity and the landscape, especially in the German-speaking area, an interest he already touched upon in his provious scholarly work. Specifically, he wants to investigate how the agency of the soil as a political and aesthetic metaphor formed new discourses in Germany after 1945, following the demise of the agrarian ideology Blut und Boden.

Department: Germanic Languages and Literatures