Alan Corkhill

Biography

Alan Corkhill was educated in the UK and in Sydney. He is an Associate Professor/reader in German Studies and Head of German in the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland, where he has been teaching and researching since 1974. He has published extensively on many aspects of German literature and culture, with a special emphasis on the interfaces between literature and the history of ideas. He is also a specialist in the history of German-Australian cultural relations. His more recent published work is concerned with conceptualisations and representations of happiness in European letters since the Enlightenment. His latest monograph is entitled Spaces for Happiness in the Twentieth Century German Novel (2012). Dr Corkhill has been a DAAD Fellow since the 1980s and held a German Research Foundation Professorship at the University of Essen in 1999-2000. He is the incoming Vice President of the German Studies Association of Australia Inc. and the long standing Australasian editor of Seminar. A Journal of Germanic Studies (University of Toronto Press). Dr Corkhill is a trained tenor and sings in two leading Brisbane choirs. His other hobbies include travel and bridge. He is married with three grown up children.