Department of Languages and Cultures

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Dr Simon Ryan is Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures. He teaches courses in German language, literature, European Studies, German cinema and digital culture. He studied German language and literature at the universities of Auckland, Tübingen, Graz and Cambridge. His recent publications include two books on the contemporary Austrian author and photographer Gerhard Roth, and articles on the spatiality and political economy of computer games; on neoliberalism and the fate of collectives in recent German cinema; assimilation in Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis' and on the international reception of 'The Metamorphosis'. He is currently investigating the aesthetic, intellectual, cultural and historical concepts and assumptions that constitute the organising principles of Roth’s second narrative cycle Orkus.
Email: simon.ryan@otago.ac.nz
Phone: +64 3 479 8691
Office: Third Floor 3C11, Arts Building, Albany Street, Dunedin
Mail: Head of Department, Department of Languages and Cultures, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, 9054, New Zealand

Selected Publications

‘Mission, reservation and recognition in the work of W. A. Collis’, in Angela Wanhalla and Erika Wolf (eds.) Early New Zealand Photography: Images and Essays, (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2011) 53 - 59 ISBN 978 187758168

‘A Selective Survey of the Reception of The Metamorphosis’, in The Metamorphosis. Critical Insights, J. Whitlark (ed.), (Pasadena: Salem Press, 2011) 99 – 116. ISBN: 978-1-58765-840-2

‘Transl(oc)ating the Player: Are Some Computer- and Video-Game Players Also Unpaid Workers in the Information Economy?’, in C. Prentice, V. Devadas and H. Johnson (eds.) Cultural Transformations: Perspectives on Translocation in a Global Age, (Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 2010) 307-320. ISBN 978-90-420-3003-9

Gespräche mit Gerhard Roth 1980 – 1982: Das Frühwerk bis zum Landläufigen Tod, Otago German Studies, August Obermayr (ed.), Vol. 24, Dunedin 2009. 231 pp. ISBN 0-9582716-4-X

With  B. Nicholls, ‘Gameplay as Thirdspace’, in The Pleasures of Computer Gaming, M. Swalwell and J. Wilson (eds.), (Jefferson N. Carolina: McFarland, 2008) 167-190 ISBN 978-0-7864-3595-1

‘Franz Kafka's Die Verwandlung: Transformation, Metaphor and the Perils Of Assimilation’, Seminar - A Journal of Germanic Studies, 43: 1 (February 2007) 3-20 ISSN 0037-1939. Reprinted in Harold Bloom (ed.) Franz Kafka: New Edition. Bloom's Modern Critical Views. Bloom’s Literary Criticism, (Infobase Publishing: New York, 2010) 197 – 216. ISBN: 9781604138061

‘Literacy and the “Cybertextual Machine” ‘, in Analele, Tomul XII, nr. 1 (Seria Filologie, 2006) 9-18 ISSN: 1584-2886

With  B. Nicholls, ‘Game, Space and the Politics of Cyberplay’. fineart forum 17: 8 (August 2003) Special Issue - DAC 2003 Conference Papers, http://www.msstate.edu/Fineart_Online/Backissues/Vol_17/faf_v17_n08/reviews/nicholls.html

Gerhard Roth and the Graz Literary Revival: The Emergence of an Austrian Author, Otago German Studies, Dunedin 2003. xiv + 217 pp. ISBN 0-9583726-8-3.

'"Ein Lichtpunkt von demanthaftem Feuer": Karl Wolfskehl's Visit to Dunedin.', in Exul Poeta. Leben und Werk Karl Wolfskehls im italienischen und neuseeländischen Exil 1933-1948. Beiträge zum Symposium anläßlich des 50. Todestages. Otago German Studies, Vol. 11, F. Voit and A. Obermayer eds. Dunedin: Department of German, 1999

'"Justiz" and "Verbrechen" in Gerhard Roth's Am Abgrund and Der Untersuchungsrichter', in Seminar. A Journal of Germanic Studies, 34:4, 1998: 388-409.