Rate My Professor May Mergenthaler

May Mergenthaler is an Associate Professor in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at The Ohio State University, where she has served since 2007, initially as Assistant Professor and promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2013. She previously held a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Ithaca College from 2006 to 2007. Mergenthaler earned her Ph.D. in German Literature from Princeton University in 2007, M.A. in German Literature from Johns Hopkins University in 1998, and B.A. equivalent in German Literature, Philosophy, and Journalism from the University of Hamburg in 1995, with additional studies as a visiting student in Comparative Literature and Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin from 1997 to 1999. She currently serves as Director of Graduate Studies, affiliate faculty at the OSU Sustainability Institute since 2019, and Steering Committee member of the Umwelt Center for Germanic Studies and Environmental Humanities since 2023. Mergenthaler co-edits the international journal Zæsur.Poesiekritik, co-founded in 2025, and has held visiting positions including at the University of Bonn in 2018.

Her research specializes in German literature, culture, and intellectual history from the 17th century to the present, poetry and theory of poetry and literature, literary criticism and the cultural public sphere, Environmental Humanities and Nature Writing, Gender Studies, memoir, and cultural memory. Key publications include her monograph Zwischen Eros und Mitteilung: Die Frühromantik im Symposion der “Athenaeums-Fragmente” (Schöningh, 2012) and co-edited volume Cultural Transformations of the Public Sphere (Lang, 2015). Selected articles are “Hölderlin’s ‘Der Ister’ and Ecology in Rochelle Tobias’s ‘Untamed Earth’” (MLN, 2021), “Fridays for Future zwischen Ökologie und Gerechtigkeit” (Non Fiktion, 2021), “‘o heylsams Nichts’: Zur Funktion des Lichts in Brockes’ Naturlyrik” (Colloquia Germanica, 2021), “Mayröckers Scardanelli (2009) als Herausforderung an die Lyrikkritik” (Metzler, 2020), and “Zur Entstehung der Naturlyrik: Licht in Goethes ‘Mayfest’” (Germanic Review, 2019). She is completing a book on functions, concepts, and figures of light in German poetry from the 16th to early 19th centuries. Awards include the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (2020-2022), Ohio State Virginia Hull Award (2020), Arts and Sciences Research Award, and Women in German Best Article Prize (2009).