Veronika Fuechtner is an associate professor and the chair of German studies at Dartmouth College, where she also teaches comparative literature, Jewish studies, and women’s and gender studies. She also holds an appointment as adjunct associate professor in the department of medical education at the Geisel School of Medicine. Fuechtner earned her PhD at the University of Chicago and MA at Washington University in St. Louis, and began her studies at the Universität Marburg and Freie Universität Berlin. Fuechtner is the author of Berlin Psychoanalytic: Psychoanalysis and Culture in Weimar Republic Germany and Beyond (California, 2011) and co-editor of Imagining Germany, Imagining Asia (with Mary Rhiel, Camden House, 2013) and A Global History of Sexual Science 1880-1960 (with Douglas Haynes and Ryan Jones, California, 2017). Her work has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, American Psychoanalytic Association, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Social Science Research Council. Fuechtner has served on the national steering committee of Women in German, and currently serves on an LCC forum executive committee of the Modern Languages Association.
At the Academy, Fuechtner will complete her monograph on Thomas Mann’s Brazilian mother and his construction of “Germanness” and race. She writes, “Thomas Mann so shaped the idea of ‘Germanness’ in the twentieth century that he could claim that German culture was wherever he was.” Yet this iconic German writer had a Brazilian mother, whose traumatic experiences of immigration profoundly influenced his life and writing. While Mann’s work has been analyzed with regard to sexual difference and the construction of Jewishness, the critical potential of his Brazilian background remains unexplored. Based on international archival research and scholarship on race and migration in Portuguese, German, and English, Fuechtner argues that this story will radically alter the way we read not only Mann’s writing, but also his place within German literature. Ultimately, her aim is to undermine the very notion of canonic German literature and its unspoken assumption of racial and cultural homogeneity.
Meet Veronika Fuechtner
A short portrait filmed at the Hans Arnhold Center, introducing the work and ideas behind this semester in Berlin.
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 Brazilian Roots of the Mann Family
CANCELLED: This event was cancelled. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Veronika Fuechtner unearths Thomas Mann’s Brazilian roots.
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.
The Magician’s Mother: A Story of Coffee, Race, and German Culture
Veronika Fuechtner takes a closer look at Thomas Mann’s Brazilian mother, whose tragic immigration story had had a profound influence on her son’s writing.
Fellow Spotlight: Veronika Fuechtner
Veronika Fuechtner is looking at the life of Julia Mann (1851-1923), the Brazilian-born mother of one of Germany’s most German authors.
Explore Past Fellows
Hakim Abderrezak
Marco Abel
David Abraham
