Staff profile

General Editor, Legenda Books

Director of the Centre for Visual Arts and Culture

 

Jonathan Long has published extensively on twentieth-century German and Austrian literature, including acclaimed monographs on Thomas Bernhard and W. G. Sebald, and articles on Bertolt Brecht, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Monika Maron, Gerhard Fritsch, Hans Lebert, Dieter Kühn, and others. In 2005 he was awarded a £50,000 Philip Leverhulme Prize in recognition of international research achievement and the Max Kade Prize for Best Article in Modern Austrian Literature. He was a founder member of the Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies, and is Director of the Centre for Visual Arts and Culture

His current research focuses on the photography of the inter-war period, with a particular interest in the photographic book in the Weimar Republic. The profound social and political upheavals of Weimar are well-documented, as is the response to these upheavals in the cultural sphere. The photographic book, made possible in part by technical improvements in printing and image reproduction, was a significant cultural form by means of which Weimar photographers, artists, writers, and editors sought to address the problems facing Weimar society. While many producers of photographic books are canonical figures in Weimar cultural history (Moholy-Nagy, Kurt Tucholksy, Ernst Jünger, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Erich Mendelssohn, and August Sander, to name just a few), the genre has itself received little scholarly attention, but provides uniquely illuminating insights into the culture and politics of inter-war Germany.

He also works on German literature and photography from Peter Altenberg to the present. Looking at writers who have not merely thematised photography but have incorporated it physically into their work, the project seeks to read a series of works by writers such as Tucholsky, Jünger, Brecht, Kluge, Volker Braun, Sebald, and Maron as responses to the changing social function of photography over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Jonathan has held a number of senior leadership roles, serving as Deputy Head of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities for postgraduates (2010-13) before taking up the position of Consortium Director of the AHRC-funded Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership. He was Head of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures from 2018-21, and is currently Faculty Lead for Culture, Creativity, and Heritage.

Jonathan invites inquiries from prospective postgraduates seeking to study the following fields:

Photography since 1900

German and Austrian literature since 1945

Photography history and theory

Literary theory

Cultural responses to social acceleration

https://theviifoundation.org/resource/monumental-photography-investigating-representations-of-colonialism-and-nationalism/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m00MoJecKg

• Literary theory
• Photography in the Weimar Republic
• Theory of photography and visual culture
• Twentieth-century German literature
• Writers and photography

• 2017: Member of Selection Committee, Banting Postdoctoral Research Fellowsips, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada:
• 2014: Member of the Doctoral Awards Committee, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada:
• 2014: External assessor for Austrian Science Foundation:
• 2011: Member of Editorial Board of Modern Austrian Literature (US), 2008-11:
• 2010: External assessor for research grants, Centre for Advanced Study, University of Oslo:
• 2000: Member of the European Science Foundation peer review body:
• 2000: Member of the AHRC Peer Review College:
• 2000: Member of AHRC Panel D:
• 2000: External assessor for o\tperiodic review of MA in Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies:
• 2000: Assessor for Government of Ireland Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships:

Authored book

• Long, J. (2007). W. G. Sebald: Image, Archive, Modernity. Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748633876.001.0001
• Long, J. J. (2001). The Novels of Thomas Bernhard: Form and its Function. Camden House

Chapter in book

• Long, J. J. (2024). KriegsErklärung: Volker Braun’s Cold War Camera. In Violence Elsewhere 1: Imagining Distant Violence in Germany 1945-2001 (81-103). Camden House. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.6380569.9
• Long, J. J. (2024). Word as Image: The Verbal in the Photograph. In Where Words and Images Meet (175-85). Bloomsbury Academic
• Long, J. J. (2020). Writing the History of the Photographic Book: Architecture in Weimar Germany. In Writing Visual History (110-132). Bloomsbury Academic
• Long, J. J. (2018). Rezeption in den englischsprachigen Ländern. In Bernhard-Handbuch: Leben, Werk, Wirkung (500-504). Springer
• Long, J. (2017). Photography and the First World War. In A.-M. Einhaus, & K. Baxter (Eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to the First World War and the Arts (385-401). Edinburgh University Press
• Long, J. (2017). Reisen. In C. Oelschlaeger, & M. Niehaus (Eds.), W. G. Sebald-Handbuch: Leben-Werk-Wirkung (158-166). Metzler
• Long, J. (2017). Photography. In C. Duttlinger (Ed.), Franz Kafka in Context (117-127). Cambridge University Press
• Long, J. (2016). Snapshot, Composite, Blur: Photography and Speed in the Weimar Republic. In A. Fuchs, & J. Long (Eds.), Time in German Literature and Culture 1900-2000: Between Acceleration and Slowness (131-53 and 237-41). Palgrave Macmillan
• Long., J. (2011). “Perfume from a Dress”: On not getting to the point. In R. Atkin (Ed.), Textual Wanderings: The Theory and Practice of Narrative Digression (1-14). Legenda
• Long, J. (2010). W. G. Sebald: The Anti-Tourist. In M. Zisselsberger (Ed.), The Undiscover'd Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel (63-91). Camden House
• Long, J. (2010). From Das Antlitz des Weltkrieges to Der gefährliche Augenblick: Ernst Jünger, Photography, Autobiography, and Modernity. In B. Dahlke, D. Tate, & R. Woods (Eds.), German Life-Writing in the Twentieth Century. Camden House
• Long, J. (2010). Bernhard, Frost. In P. Hutchinson, & M. Minden (Eds.), Landmarks in the German Novel (2) (7-24). Peter Lang
• Long, J. (2009). W. G. Sebald: The Ambulatory Narrative and the Poetics of Digression. In G. Fischer (Ed.), W. G. Sebald: Schreiben ex patria/ Expatriate Writing (61-71). Rodopi
• Long, J. J. (2006). The Austrian Novel since 1945. In K. Kohl, & R. Robertson (Eds.), A History of Austrian Literature (223-245). Camden House
• Long, J. J. (2006). Monika Maron's Pawels Briefe: Photography, Narrative, and the Claims of Postmemory. In A. Fuchs, M. Cosgrove, & G. Grote (Eds.), German memory contests : the quest for identity in literature, film, and discourse since 1990 (147-165). Camden House
• Long, J. J. (2006). Disziplin und Geständnis: Ansätze zu einer Foucaultschen Sebald-Lektüre. In C. Öhlschläger, & M. Niehaus (Eds.), W.G. Sebald. Politische Archäologie und melancholische Bastelei (217-237). Erich Schmidt Verlag
• Long, J. J. (2006). Thomas Bernhard's Die Macht der Gewohnheit. In P. Hutchinson (Ed.), Landmarks in German Comedy (211-226). Lang
• Long, J. J. (2005). Von Gesellschaftskritik zur Darstellungskritik: Frauengestalten in den biografischen Texten Dieter Kühns. In C. von Zimmermann, & N. von Zimmermann (Eds.), Frauenbiographik: Lebensbeschreibungen und Porträts (323-335). G. Narr
• Long, J. J. (2002). Ungleichzeitigkeiten: Class Relationships in Thomas Bernhard's Fiction. In M. Konzett (Ed.), Companion to Thomas Bernhard (187-208). Camden House
• Long, J. J. (2002). The Lost Gender Politics of Katharina Blum; or, Wie Gewalt entstehen und wie sie verführen kann. In A. Schwartz, & F. de Diego (Eds.), Rethinking Violence and Patriarchy for the New Millennium (45-61). University of Ottawa Press
• Long, J. J. (2000). Bernhard Schlink's Der Vorleser and Binjamin Wilkomirski's Bruchstücke: Two Best-Selling Responses to the Holocaust. In S. Parkes, J. Preece, & A. Williams (Eds.), German Language Literature Today: International and Popular? (49-66). Peter Lang
• Long, J. J. (1999). Dieter Kühn and the Speculative Biography: N, Die Präsidentin, Josephine. In N. E. Thomas (Ed.), German at the Millennium (243-269). Durham Modern Languages Series
• Long, J. J. (1999). Jean Améry; Dieter Hildebrandt; Wolfgang Hildesheimer and Dieter Kühn. In J. Sandford (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture. Routledge
• Long, J. J. (1998). History as Biography as Fiction: Wolfgang Hildesheimer's Marbot: Eine Biographie. In S. Parkes, J. Preece, & A. Williams (Eds.), Whose Story? Continuities in Contemporary German-language Literature (31-50). Peter Lang
• Long, J. J. (1998). Der Stille und der schwärmende Ton: Notes on Block and Brecht in the Twenties and Thirties. In S. Giles, & R. Livingstone (Eds.), Bertold Brecht Centenary Essays. Rodopi

Edited book

• Long, J., & Fuchs, A. (Eds.). (2015). Time in German Literature and Culture 1900-2015: Between Acceleration and Slowness. Palgrave Macmillan
• Long, J., Noble, A., & Welch, E. (Eds.). (2009). Photography: Theoretical Snapshots. Routledge
• Long, J., Noble, A., & Welch, E. (Eds.). (2008). Photography: Theoretical Snapshots. Routledge
• Long, J., & Fuchs, A. (Eds.). (2007). W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of History. Königshausen und Neumann
• Long, J. J., & Knight, P. (Eds.). (2005). Fakes and Forgeries, Conmen and Counterfeits. Cambridge Scholars Press
• Long, J. J., & Whitehead, A. (Eds.). (2004). W. G. Sebald: A Critical Companion. Edinburgh University Press

Journal Article

• Long, J. (2017). Taking Time: Paul Kranzler and the Photography of Slowness. Oxford German Studies, 46(3), 329-343. https://doi.org/10.1080/00787191.2017.1345436
• Long, J. (2017). Faces. Antlitz and Gesicht in the Weimar Republic Photobook. Monatshefte (Madison, Wis. 1946. Online), 109(2), 201-214. https://doi.org/10.3368/m.109.2.201
• Long, J. (2012). Photography/Topography: Viewing Berlin, 1880/2000. New German Critique: An Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies, 39(2_116), 25-45. https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033x-1550845
• Long, J. (2011). In the Contact Zone: W.G. Sebald and the Ethnographic Imagination. Journal of European Studies, 41(3-4), 413-430. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047244111413706
• Long, J. (2008). Paratextual Profusion: Photography and Text in Bertolt Brecht's War Primer. Poetics Today: International Journal for Theory and Analysis of Literature and Communication, 29(1), 197-224. https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-2007-023
• Long, J. J. (2004). Intercultural Identities in Norbert Gstrein's Die englischen Jahre and W. G. Sebald's Die Ausgewanderten. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 25(5&6), 512-528
• Long, J. J. (2003). Casual Brutalities: Hans Lebert's Die Wolfshaut, Gerhard Fritsch's Fasching, and Austrian Collective Memory. Austrian Studies, 11(1), 85-101
• Long, J. J. (2003). History, Narrative, and Photography in W. G. Sebald's Die Ausgewanderten. Modern Language Review, 98(1), 117-137
• Long, J. J. (2002). 'Die Teufelskunst unserer Zeit?' Photographic Negotiations in Thomas Bernhard's Ausloschung. Modern Austrian literature, 35(3/4), 1-17
• Long, J. J. (2001). Power, Desire, Performance: Narrative Exchanges in Wolfgang Hildesheimer's Masante. Neophilologus, 85(4), 601-619. https://doi.org/10.1023/a%3A1011876823062
• Long, J. J. (2001). Resisting Bernhard: Women and Violence in Das Kalkwerk, Ja and Auslöschung. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 37(1), 33-52
• Long, J. J. (2001). Compensation for History? Dieter Kühn's Beethoven und der schwarze Geiger. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik, 54, 111-127
• Long, J. J. (1999). Time and Narrative: Wolfgang Hildesheimer's Tynset and Masante. German Life and Letters, 52(4), 457-474. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0483.00146
• Long, J. J. (1997). Einsamer alter Vulkan: Versuch über Wyndham Lewis und Die Rache für Liebe
• Long, J. J. (1996). Veracity, Mendacity, Absurdity: Form and its Function in Thomas Bernhard's Der Stimmenimitator. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 32(4), 343-353. https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/xxxii.4.343