Agnes Mueller is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina; she is also core faculty of USC’s Program in Jewish Studies and affiliated faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies. Mueller holds an MA in German and comparative literature from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, in Munich, and a PhD in German literature from Vanderbilt University. She has published extensively on topics related to Holocaust memory, German Jewish history and culture, German-American relations, and gender in contemporary German literature. Mueller is the author of The Inability to Love: Jews, Gender, and America in Recent German Literature (Northwestern, 2015), available in German translation as Die Unfähigkeit zu lieben: Juden und Antisemitismus in der Gegenwartsliteratur (Königshausen und Neumann, 2017); and German Jewish Literature after 1990 (Camden House, 2018), co-edited with Katja Garloff. At the University of South Carolina, she served as founding director of the Program in Global Studies. Prior to USC, Mueller taught at the University of Georgia and Vanderbilt University. She has served on the editorial board of German Quarterly and is currently on the editorial board of Nexus: Essays in German Jewish Studies.
Mueller’s Academy project, “Holocaust Migration,” will explore new literature in which today’s young German-based Jewish writers negotiate German-Jewish identity in a country where Holocaust migration history is but one of a variety of migration stories that shape their self-understanding. She considers this aspect against the competing identifiers of secular Judaism, post-Soviet heritage, new gender and race dynamics, and other marginalized cultures, especially Muslim identities. While in Berlin, Mueller will conduct in-person interviews with local writers such as Julia Franck, Olga Grjasnowa, Sasha Salzmann, and Lena Gorelik. She also plans on accessing archival collections at the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung at the Technische Universität Berlin, the Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien, and the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum in Potsdam.
Meet Agnes Mueller
A short portrait filmed at the Hans Arnhold Center, introducing the work and ideas behind fellows’ projects in Berlin.
Listen to the Podcast
Hear the full conversation, recorded live at the Hans Arnhold Center.
Upcoming events
Discover what’s coming up in the Academy’s public program this semester.
Past events
Lectures, readings, and conversations from the Academy’s public program.
The future of Holocaust memorialization
Vanishing direct testimony of the Holocaust affects how we think about migration, the environment, race, and class.
Berlin Journal Articles
Essays, interviews, and creative work published in the Academy’s annual magazine.
Books
Books written by fellows of the Academy, many begun during a semester in Berlin.
Videos
Lectures, readings, and conversations filmed at the Hans Arnhold Center.
Holocaust Migration: The Future of Memory
Agnes Mueller looks at contemporary German–Jewish fiction by young post-Holocaust-memory writers.
Fellow Spotlight: Agnes Mueller
Agnes Mueller explores new literature by young German-based Jewish writers and their relationships to migration and the Holocaust.
Podcasts
Recorded conversations from the Hans Arnhold Center.
Beyond the Lecture: Agnes Mueller
Literary scholar and spring 2025 Carol Kahn Strauss Fellow in Jewish Studies Agnes Mueller speaks to three prominent authors about the evolution of German-Jewish identity.
Explore Past Fellows
Hakim Abderrezak
Marco Abel
David Abraham
