Karin Schutjer's research interests concern broadly the intersections of philosophy, religion, literature and social thought in late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century Germany. She is author of two monographs: Goethe and Judaism: The Troubled Inheritance of Modern Literature (2015), published in German translation in 2020 as Goethe und das Judentum. Das schwierige Erbe der modernen Literatur, and Narrating Community after Kant: Schiller, Goethe, Hölderlin (2002). At OU she regularly teaches both upper and lower-division German courses. Her teaching interests include German Jewish cultural history, German environmental culture, 18th and 19th-century German literature and culture, and Goethe’s Faust.
Schutjer is currently co-editor with Hester Baer of German Quarterly, the flagship journal of German studies in the US. She served six years as editor of the book series New Studies in the Age of Goethe published by Bucknell University Press. She is a member of the editorial boards of Nexus: Essays in German-Jewish Studies and the Goethe Lexicon of Philosophical Concepts. She has received major fellowships from the National Humanities Center/National Endowment for the Humanities, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and U.S. Fulbright Commission, and has been the recipient of the Max Kade Prize for the best article in German Quarterly, the Goethe Society of North America Essay Prize, and, at OU, the Cecil Woods Teaching Award. She served for fourteen years on the board of the Goethe Society of North America, including two terms as Executive Secretary. At OU, she is affiliated with the Schusterman Center for Judaic and Israel Studies, International and Area Studies, the Center for the Study of Nationalism, and the Center for Literary Studies.
