Matthew Handelman

Matthew is a sixth year grad student in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his BA from Hamilton College in mathematics and German Literature. His academic interests explore the literature and philosophy of the early 20th century, specifically focusing on the connections between literary, mathematical and German-Jewish thought. For the academic year 2011-2012 he studied and conducted research at the Goethe University, Frankfurt with the generous support of a DAAD research fellowship. Matthew will be in Philadelphia for the current academic year as a Leo Baeck Fellow. He has also received research grants from the Deutschces Literaturarchiv Marbach and the Udo Keller Foundation. Currently, he is working on his dissertation "Applied Mathematics: Rosenzweig, Kracauer, Scholem and the Possibilities of German-Jewish Philosophy".

His publications include: “The Forgotten Conversation: Five Letters from Franz Rosenzweig to Siegfried Kracauer,” in Scientia Poetica, Bd. 15 (December 2011); and “Mathematical Mythologies and the Dialectic of Enlightenment,” in Fiktum versus Faktum: Nicht-mathematische Dialoge mit der Mathematik, eds. Franziska Bomski and Stephan Suhr, (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2011).

  During his time at Penn, he has presented papers both in the US and abroad: "Das Ethos der Moderne: 'Prinzip' und 'Gott' in Siegfried Kracauers frühe Schriften" at the Marbacher Mittwoch Seminar. (Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach am Neckar, September 2011); “The Text is Landscape: Reading Marginality in Paul Celan’s Engführung," at the Emerging Scholars Day at “Margins, Borders and Peripheries.” (The Gesellschaft für europäisch-jüdische Literaturstudien. Antwerp, September 2011); “Reading between the Planes: Siegfried Kracauer’s Urban Geometry,” at the Roundtable on Writing City Spaces at Rutgers’ German House. (New Brunswick, April 2011); “The Future of Heimat – Deutschland 09 and the New New German Cinema.” at the Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference at the University of Washington: “Adaptation.” (Seattle, May 2010); and “Mathematical Mythologies and the Dialectic of Enlightenment.”Interdisciplinary Workshop. Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg: “Fiktum versus Faktum.” (Freiburg, April 2009).Matt also participated in the 4. International Marbacher Sommerschule "Menschen beschreiben" and returned to Marbach in the summer of 2010 to finish research in the DLA.