ELISABETTA MENGALDO

Prof. Elisabetta Mengaldo
University of Padua
Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies
via Vendramini, 13
I - 35137 PADOVA
Tel.: +39 049 8279672
E-Mail: elisabetta.mengaldo@unipd.it


EDUCATION (school and university career)

July 1996: Classical secondary school diploma obtained at the “Tito Livio” grammar school and high school in Padua with a mark of 60/60. Foreign language studied at school: English.
October 1996-March 2003: Bachelor's Degree Programme in Foreign Languages and Literatures in the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Padua. Four-year language: German; three-year language: Russian.
March 2003: degree awarded with full marks and honours in modern foreign languages and literatures, with a dissertation entitled: “Den Stil verbessern – das heißt den Gedanken verbessern, und gar Nichts weiter!” Fenomeni stilistico-retorici nelle prime opere aforistiche di Friedrich Nietzsche. Supervisor: Prof. Emilio Bonfatti.
January 2004: award of the “Maria e Lina Meneghetti” degree dissertation prize of the University of Padua.
November 2003 – July 2007: PhD in Theory of Literature and Comparative Literatures at the Università di Siena, jointly supervised with the Universität Hildesheim (Germania). Title of the dissertation: Evoluzione e strutture nella lirica di Georg Trakl. Alcuni aspetti del suo percorso poetico. The dissertation defence took place on 3 July 2007 in Siena. Supervisors: Prof. Roberto Venuti (Università di Siena), Prof. Dr. Silvio Vietta (Universität Hildesheim). German assessment of the doctoral dissertation (the Italian side does not provide for a mark): 0 (= summa cum laude).
January 2013: obtained the qualification as associate professor (“seconda fascia”) in SSD L-LIN/13 (German Literature).
December 2023: renewal of the expired qualification as associate professor (“seconda fascia”) as well as attainment of the qualification as full professor (“prima fascia”) in SSD L-LIN/13 (German Literature).

SCIENTIFIC AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY CARRIED OUT IN ITALY AND ABROAD

March – August 1999: one semester of study, through the “Socrates-Erasmus” university exchange programme, at the Technische Universität di Dresda, at the Faculty of German Studies.
April – September 2001: one semester with a scholarship from the University of Padua spent at the Universität di Würzburg in order to carry out research for the degree dissertation.
July 2003: three weeks of seminar for young scholars of German studies, “Sommerschule Literaturwissenschaft”, at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv di Marbach am Neckar (Stuttgart), organised and directed by Prof. Christoph König (Literaturarchiv Marbach) and Prof. Renate Schlesier (FU Berlin).
October 2003 – March 2004: research assistant at the Italo-German centre “Villa Vigoni” (Menaggio, Como), with duties including conference organisation, guest assistance, editorial work for the “Quaderni di Villa Vigoni”, and translations.
April 2005 – October 2006: stay in Berlin within the framework of the jointly supervised doctorate in order to carry out research for the dissertation at the national library, and to attend classes and conferences at the University. Several stays in Hildesheim to work with Prof. Silvio Vietta, co-supervisor of my doctoral dissertation.
May and November 2006: participation in the seminars for young scholars of German studies of the “Peter-Szondi-Kolleg” in Osnabrück, directed by Prof. Christoph König.
May – August 2007: DAAD scholarship holder at the Freie Universität di Berlino, where I attended the Oberseminar (Kolloquium) of Prof. Winfried Menninghaus at the Peter-Szondi-Institut für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft.
September 2007: Participation in the Summer School 2007 of “eikones – NFS Bildkritik” within the module entitled Das lyrische Bild. Von Goethe bis Grünbein, held at the Università di Basilea.
November 2008 – February 2009: fellowship at the Institut für Deutsche und Niederländische Philologie of the Freie Universität di Berlino (with Prof. Peter-André Alt) to conduct research activities at the “Friedrich-Schlegel-Graduiertenschule für Literaturwissenschaft”.
1 April – 30 November 2009: postdoctoral scholarship funded by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung at the Institut für Deutsche und Niederländische Philologie of the Freie Universität di Berlino, with a project on the rhetoric of Minima Moralia by Th.W. Adorno, from which three published essays resulted.
December 2009 – December 2014: researcher in modern and contemporary German literature (Neuere deutsche Literatur und Literaturtheorie) at the Institut für Deutsche Philologie of Universität Greifswald.
February 2015 – March 2018: researcher in modern and contemporary German literature at the Deutsches Seminar of Leibniz Universität Hannover. Maternity leave from August 2016 to July 2017.
October 2018 – September 2021: RTD A researcher in German Literature at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies (DiSLL) of the University of Padua.
December 2021 – November 2024: RTD B researcher in German Literature at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies (DiSLL) of the University of Padua.
From 1 December 2024: associate professor of German Literature at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies (DiSLL) of the University of Padua.


PARTICIPATION IN AND/OR ORGANISATION OF PROJECTS FUNDED BY PUBLIC OR PRIVATE RESEARCH BODIES

April 2011: organisation, together with Uta Degner (Salisburgo), of the international conference Der Dichter und sein Schatten. Fallstudien zur modernen Einfluss-Dichtung at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald. For this conference we obtained funding from the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung and the DFG.
January 2012 – December 2014: participation in the three-year project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) „Wolfgang Koeppens Jugend – Nachlasserschließung, textgenetische Untersuchung, Digitalisierung und Edition“ (project director: Eckhard Schumacher), based at the Università di Greifswald and the Wolfgang Koeppen Archiv in Greifswald. The digital genetic edition of Jugend, which I co-edited, was published online by Suhrkamp in 2016 (see list of publications).
June 2018: organisation, together with Michael Bies (FU Berlin), of the international conference Marx konkret. Poetik und Ästhetik des „Kapitals“, which took place at the Literaturhaus in Berlin and for which we obtained funding from the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung.
June 2019 – December 2021: coordinator of the Small Departmental Project “Poetics and rhetoric of scientific discourse in modern European literatures”, funded by the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies of the University of Padua. Organisation of two study days within the project: one was held in October 2020, the other in October 2021. The volume containing the contributions from the two study days was published by Padova University Press in June 2023 (see publications).
October 2023-September 2025: participation in the PRIN Claudio Magris, intellettuale europeo. Ricognizione d’archivio, studio critico e valorizzazione del Fondo presso l’Archivio Bonsanti di Firenze (coordinators: Federico Fastelli, Università di Firenze; Luigi Marfé, DiSLL).

TEACHING
Università degli Studi di Trieste, academic years 2007/2008, 2008/2009 and 2009/2010: teaching contracts in German literature for the three-year undergraduate cycle (first-level degree) of the Bachelor's Degree Programme in Modern Languages and Cultures.
Universität Greifswald, from 2010 to 2014: seminars (one per semester, for a total of 60 hours per year) for Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes in German Literature.
St. Johann (Alto Adige), September 2011: together with Prof. Hania Siebenpfeiffer (Greifswald) I led an interdisciplinary working group on synaesthesia within the Summer School funded by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.
Universität Hannover, from 2015 to 2018: seminars (two per semester, for a total of 120 hours per year) for Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes in German Literature
University of Padua, from the 2018/2019 academic year onwards: German Literature courses for the second or third year of the three-year degree in Languages; in 2019/2020 also a German Literature course for the Master’s degree in Languages; in 2022/2023 also for the Master’s degree in Lettere. Teaching load of 63 or 84 hours per year.

LANGUAGES KNOWN
Italian: native speaker
German: near-native level
English: excellent knowledge
French: good knowledge
Russian: basic knowledge
Latin and Greek: basic knowledge