Prof. Hallensleben (Ph.D. Free University Berlin) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies and was appointed Visiting Scholar at Nagoya City University and DAAD Lecturer at The University of Tokyo before joining UBC in 2004. His teaching and research interests cover 19th and 20th century German culture and literature, European avant-garde movements and aesthetics, and literary theory with a focus on theories of metaphor and performance. He is cofounder of a German-Japanese research group that investigates the discourses on terminology used in literary and cultural studies theory from an intercultural and interdisciplinary perspective, and currently investigates transcultural processes of image building as figurative and performative acts. His current research project is titled From Naturalism to Bio-Art: Body Figurations in 20th Century Avant-Garde Literature, Bio-Sciences, and Art Performances. Prof. Hallensleben is investigating the double bind-imagery of avant-garde aesthetics by analyzing body metaphors in literature, sciences, and art. This larger book project which is in its early stage is part of an interdisciplinary German-Japanese collaborative initiative in the field of Cultural Studies Theory. (Supported by Hampton Research Fund.)

Personal webpage: http://www.german.ubc.ca/web/000158.htm