Annette Volfing

Annette Marianne Volfing FBA (born 5 February 1965) is a Danish literary scholar and poet. Since 2008, she has been Professor of Medieval German Literature at the University of Oxford.

Annette Volfing FBA
Born	Annette Marianne Volfing (1965-02-05) 5 February 1965 (age 60) Copenhagen, Denmark
Nationality	Danish
Occupation(s)	Literary scholar and poet
Title	Professor of Medieval German Literature
Academic background
Alma mater	St Edmund Hall, Oxford
Thesis	A commentary on Der meide kranz by Henrich von Mügeln (1993)
Doctoral advisor	Nigel F. Palmer
Academic work
Discipline	German literature
Sub-discipline	Middle High German literature Christian devotional literature
Institutions	Oriel College, Oxford

Academic career

Volfing completed her undergraduate degree at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating in 1985; she returned there to carry out her doctoral studies; her DPhil was awarded in 1993 for her thesis "A commentary on Der meide kranz by Heinrich von Mügeln". Her thesis was supervised by Nigel F. Palmer.^[1] She was elected to a fellowship at Oriel College, Oxford, the following year, alongside a lectureship at the University of Oxford (where she was promoted to reader in 2006 and Professor of Medieval German Literature two years later).^[2][3][4]

According to her university profile, Volfing is a "medievalist with particular interest in later medieval religious, mysical, philosophical or allegorical writing";^[3] her British Academy adds that her research focuses on "mysticism; allegory; learned discourse (vernacular reception of the artes); didacticism; courtly romance; orientalism; discourses of gender and violence" in medieval German literature.^[5]

Media work

Volfing has contributed reviews of books examining medieval literature and culture to the Times Literary Supplement.^[6]

Honours and awards

In 2015, Volfing was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.^[5]

Poetry

Alongside her academic career, Volfing has published two pamphlets of poetry: Ecliptic with Black Light Engine Room in 2016 and Learning Finnish with Paekakariki Press in 2021. Her poems have also appeared in magazines such as Magma Poetry.^[7]

Personal life

Originally from Copenhagen, Volfing has lived in the United Kingdom since 1982 and obtained British citizenship in 2017.^[8]

Publications

• Heinrich von Mügeln: >Der meide kranz<. Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters 111 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1997).
• John the Evangelist and Medieval German Writing: Imitating the Inimitable (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
• Medieval Literacy and Textuality in Middle High German. Reading and Writing in Albrecht’s Jüngerer Titurel (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
• (Co-editor with Burhhard Hasebrink, Hans-Jochen Schiewer and Almut Suerbaum) Innenräume in der Literatur des deutschen Mittelalters. XIX. Anglo-German Colloquium Oxford 2005 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2008).
• (Co-editor with Sarah Bowden) Punishment and Penitential Practices in Medieval German Writing, King's College London Medieval Studies (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2018).