Birgit Lang

Birgit Lang is Professor in German in the School of Languages and Linguistics within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. She holds a PhD from the University of Oxford and a Masters (Coursework & Research) from the University of Vienna. Birgit Lang has published widely on the cultural history of German and Austrian refugees from National Socialism and their acculturation to and impact on the English-speaking world, in particular Australia. Her scholarship spans case studies, the history of sexuality and psychoanalysis, exile studies, migrant literature, cultural studies, gender studies, critical theory, and German studies. Lang's primary research interest is the history of sexuality.

Lang's key publications include co-authoring What is Translation History? A Trust-Based Approach (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), co-authoring A History of the Case Study: Sexology, Psychoanalysis, Literature (Manchester University Press, 2017), and co-editing Case Studies and the Dissemination of Knowledge (Routledge, 2015). Additional significant works are The Queer Cases of Psychoanalysis: Rethinking the Scientific Study of Homosexuality, 1890s–1920s (German History, 2016), Eugenics and the Origins of Autism (Pediatrics, 2017), Translators' Performance of Trustworthiness (The Translator, 2025), Normal Enough? Krafft-Ebing, Freud, and Homosexuality (History of the Human Sciences, 2021), and chapters such as 'Influencing Public Knowledge: Erich Wulffen and the Criminal Case of Grete Beier' (2015), 'Translation as Transposition: Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Darwinian Thought and German Sexual Modernity' (2015), and 'The Case of the Con Man: Criminal Writers, Legal Experts, and the Question of Culture' (2014). She has led major Australian Research Council projects, including 'Visual Evidence: Transforming Modern Sex Research (1880s-1930s)', 'Making the Case: The Case Study Genre in Sexology, Psychoanalysis, and Literature', 'Cross Examination: Sexology, Psychoanalysis, and the Interpretation of Literature', and 'Research Grant Support Scheme: The Invention of Autism'. In 2009, she was a Research Fellow at an international research center. Lang served as Assistant Dean for Equal Opportunity and Diversity in the Faculty of Arts from 2017 to 2019. Her ORCID ID is 0000-0003-4782-3138.

Professional Email: langb@unimelb.edu.au