Ian Ellison is the holder of a DAAD PRIME fellowship during which he is affiliated with the Centre for Modern European Literature and Culture and the Goethe- Universität Frankfurt. In the autumn of 2019 he received his PhD in German and Comparative Literature from the University of Leeds and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach am Neckar funded by the ZEIT-Stiftung and the Deutsche Schillergesellschaft. Ian has been an international fellow of the Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform since his time as a DAAD-funded Visiting Researcher from 2017 to 2018. He also holds an MPhil in European Literature from the University of Bristol and a BA in Modern European Languages with distinction in French, German, and Spanish from the University of Liverpool.  

Research interests

Ian’s research interests encompass modern European literature, particularly in French, German, and Spanish. His first book Late Europeans and Melancholy Fiction at the Turn of the Millennium was published in 2022 by Palgrave Macmillan. His current postdoctoral research investigates conceptualisations of literary afterlife in European thought and culture, while undertaking a comparative examination of the literary afterlives of several modernist writers. Alongside numerous academic book reviews, Ian has also written for the Times Literary Supplement and Foundation.

Professional

In 2021 Ian was elected to the executive committee of the British Comparative Literature Association as an Early Career Researcher Representative, having previously served as a Postgraduate Representative between 2018 and 2020. From 2015 until 2017, he was a member of the organisational committee for the National Postgraduate Colloquium in German Studies and in 2018 he was also a member of the organisational committee for the annual conference of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland (AHGBI).

Publications

Books

Late Europeans and Melancholy Fiction at the Turn of the Millennium (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

Peer-reviewed Book Chapters

‘Medien und Presse’, in Provenienz: Materialgeschichte(n) der Literatur, ed. Stefan Höppner and Stefanie Hundehege (Göttingen: Wallstein, Marbacher Schriften, forthcoming 2023) 

‘The Cult of Sebald’, in Sebald in Context, ed. Uwe Schütte (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, forthcoming 2023)

‘Auf der Suche nach Übersetzung: Der “deutsche Proust” im Nachlass von Eva
Rechel-Mertens’, in Übersetzungen im Archiv: Potenziale und Perspektiven, ed.
Franziska Humphreys, Anna Kinder, Douglas Pompeu, and Lydia Schmuck
(Göttingen: Wallstein, Marbacher Schriften, forthcoming 2023)

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

‘The late arrival of “der deutsche Proust”: Translating A la recherche du temps perdu
into German’ (under review for 2023)

‘“Un hilo tenue de azares triviales”: Adaptive Imitation and Quixotic echoes in
Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad’, Romance Studies, 41:1 (forthcoming 2023)

‘La dominance de la mélancolie dans l’espace littéraire en Europe’, Revue de
littérature générale et comparée, 27 (2022). Available online:
https://journals.openedition.org/trans/6566

‘World Literature and Literary Afterlife’, The German Quarterly, 94:3 (2021), pp. 380-
382
‘Melancholy Cosmopolitanism: Reflections on a genre of European literary fiction’,
History of European Ideas, 47:6 (2021), pp. 1022–1037

‘“Un homme marche dans la rue”: Parisian flânerie and Jewish cosmopolitanism in
Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder’, Modern Language Review, 116:2 (2021), pp.
264–280

‘“Eine Märchenerzählung, die […] älter geworden ist mit der verflossenen Zeit”: W.
G. Sebald’s Austerlitz as a melancholy Kunstmärchen’, Oxford German Studies, 49:1
(2020), pp. 86–101

‘Borgesian and Shakespearean Allusions in Die Ringe des Saturn by W. G. Sebald’,
Literatur für Leser, 14:4 (2015), pp. 235–245

Cultural Commentary

‘In the mountain’s shadow: The impact of Thomas Mann’s magnum opus’, in Times Literary Supplement, 6254 (10 February 2023). Available online: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/manns-magic-mountain-karolina-watroba-book-review-ian-ellison/

‘Heaven and Earth: the spiritual and the material in Golden Age’, in Times Literary
Supplement, 6249 (6 January 2023), p. 25. Available online: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/incomparable-realms-jeremy-robbins-book-review-ian-ellison/

‘Hotels du Lac: Marcel Proust’s holidays to Lake Geneva’, in Times Literary
Supplement, 6234 (23 September 2022), p.24 . Available online: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/marcel-proust-am-genfer-see-jurgen-ritte-book-review-ian-ellison/

‘The Culture of “The Culture”: Utopian Processes in Iain M. Banks’s Space Opera
Series by Joseph S. Norman’, in Foundation, 142 (2022), pp. 96–99

‘To write good things: Brigitte Reimann’s many fresh starts’, in Times Literary
Supplement, 6132 (9 October 2020), p. 10. Available online: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/i-have-no-regrets-brigitte-reimann-review-ian-ellison/

Academic Book Reviews

‘Carolin Duttlinger, Attention and Distraction in Modern German Literature, Thought,
and Culture, in Forum for Modern Language Studies (forthcoming 2023)

‘Nora C. Benedict, Borges and the Literary Marketplace: How Editorial Practices
Shaped Cosmopolitan Reading’, in Modern Language Review, (forthcoming 2023)

‘Antoine Compagnon, La vie derrière soi: Fins de la littérature’, in Modern Language
Review, 118:2 (forthcoming 2023)

‘Uwe Schütte, W. G. Sebald: Leben und Literarisches Werk and Carole Angier,
Speak, Silence: In Search of W. G. Sebald’, in Gegenwartsliteratur 21 (2022), pp.
376–379

‘Giulia Agostini, Nach der Literature: Studien zu einer Theorie der Literatur’, in
Modern Language Review, 117:4 (2022), pp. 692–693

‘Emma Gee, Mapping the Afterlife: From Homer to Dante and Bart D. Ehrman,
Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife’, in Journal of European Literature, Arts
and Society, 2:4 (2022), pp. 233–236

‘Andrew Ginger, Instead of modernity: The Western canon and the incorporation of
the Hispanic’, in Modern Language Review, 117:3 (2022), pp. 511–512

‘Victoria Kahn, The Trouble with Literature’, in Comparative Critical Studies, 19:1
(2022), pp. 104–108

‘David Damrosch, Comparing the Literatures: Literary Studies in a Global Age’, in
Modern Language Review, 117:1 (2022), pp. 109–111

‘Gabriel Josipovici, Forgetting’, in Journal of European Studies, 51:3 (2021), pp.
356–357

‘T. J. Reed, Genesis: The Making of Literary Works from Homer to Christa Wolf’, in
Modern Language Review, 116:4 (2021), pp. 644–645

‘Saul Friedländer, Proustian Uncertainties: On Reading and Rereading In Search of
Lost Time’, in Journal of European Studies, 51:2 (2021), pp. 165–166

‘Peter Mack, Reading Old Books: Writing with Traditions’, in Modern Language
Review, 116:2 (2021), pp. 354–355

‘Sandra Richter, Eine Weltgeschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur’, in
Comparative Critical Studies, 18:1 (2021), pp. 102–107

‘Jesse Matz, Modernist Time Ecology and Christina Lupton, Reading and the Making
of Time in the Eighteenth Century’, in Journal of Contemporary European Studies,
29:2 (2021), pp. 298–300

‘Aleida Assmann, Is Time out of Joint? On the Rise and Fall of the Modern Time
Regime’, in Journal of European Studies, 51:1 (2021), pp. 17–18

‘Hannah Freed-Thall, Spoiled Distinctions: Aesthetics and the Ordinary in French
Modernism’, in Modern Language Review, 116:1 (2021), pp. 186–187

‘Anne Fuchs, Precarious Times: Temporality and History in Modern German
Culture’, in Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 29:1 (2021), pp. 150–151

‘Eric Griffiths, If Not Critical’, in Textual Practice (online 2020, DOI
10.1080/0950236X.2020.1854526)

‘Colin Burrow, Imitating Authors: Plato to Futurity’, in Journal of European Studies,
50:4 (2020), pp. 389–390

‘Thomas Baldwin, Roland Barthes: The Proust Variations’, in Modern Language
Review, 115:4 (2020), pp. 925–926

‘Walter Cohen, A History of European Literature: The West and the World from
Antiquity to the Present’, in Modern Language Review, 114: 4 (2019), pp. 848–849

‘B. Venkat Mani, Recoding World Literature: Libraries, Print Culture, and Germany’s
Pact with Books’, in Comparative Critical Studies, 16:1 (2019), pp. 132–136

‘Samuel O’Donoghue, Rewriting Franco’s Spain: Marcel Proust and the Dissident
Writers of Memory’, in Modern Language Review, 114:1 (2019), pp. 104–106

Reports

‘Tagungsbericht: Literature in the Nobel Era – Comparative, Theoretical, and
Archival Approaches to the Nobel Prize in Literature, 25.08.2021 – 27.08.2021 digital
(Marbach am Neckar)’, in H-Soz-Kult, 9 October 2021. Available online:
www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-9078

‘Comparative Literature Summer School: Principles, Practices, Perspectives’, co-
authored with Dominic O’Key, Centre of Modern European Literature, University of
Kent, 25–27 August 2018

‘Beyond Sebald: New Trajectories in Sebald Studies Workshop Report’, co-authored
with Dominic O’Key, in WRoCAH Journal, 1:4 (2018), pp. 39–42