martinso

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martinso@arizona.edu
Martinson, Steven D
Professor Emeritus

Dr. Steven Martinson was born in Washington State and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. He earned his B.A. in German and Political Science at Seattle Pacific University. That program of study included a year at the University of Heidelberg. He was awarded both the M.A. and the Ph.D. in Germanics with a minor in Linguistics from the University of Washington. Before coming to The University of Arizona, in 1988, he held appointments at Northwestern University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Martinson’s publications include numerous articles and books on modern German literature and culture. He has published five edited volumes and four single-authored books, among them a critical edition of J. E. Schlegel's Vergleichung Shakespears und Andreas Gryphius (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1984), Between Luther and Münzer: The Peasant Revolt in German Drama and Thought (Heidelberg: Winter, 1988), A Companion to the Works of Friedrich Schiller (Rochester: Camden, 2005), Projects of Enlightenment: The Work of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Cultural, Intercultural, and Transcultural Perspectives (Heidelberg: Synchron, 2013), and an edition of the poetry of Thomas Kunst, The Art of Kunst (2016). His book, Harmonious Tensions: The Writings of Friedrich Schiller (Newark: UP Delaware, 1996), received a "Choice Award" as an outstanding academic title in the United States (1997). He has published numerous journal articles on writers such as Friedrich von Canitz and Johann von Besser, J. E. Schlegel, Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, Herder, J. F. Schink, J. M. R. Lenz, Karoline von Günderrode, Ernst Toller, Georg Lukacs, Richard Schaukal, Günter Eich, Martin Walser, Thomas Kunst, the art of Michael Shipman, and Transcultural German Studies. Martinson is a recipient of a research fellowship, resumption, and summer stipends from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (1990-1991 [Marbach], 1999 [Heidelberg], 2005 [Leipzig], 2016 and 2023 [Leipzig]). His fifth single-authored book, Nietzsche's Early Literary Writings and "The Birth of Tragedy," will appear in 2022 with Camden House. Martinson has received two Superior Teaching Awards from the Humanities Seminars Program, the most recent, in 2016, for his course on "Faust." Before retiring in 2018/19, he was Director of the UA B.A. Program in World Literature. He now lives in Lutz, Florida.