Frank Mehring

Frank Mehring (born 29 December 1970 in Alsfeld) is a German Americanist and professor at Radboud University Nijmegen.

Life and work

Frank Mehring at the German premiere of the Marshall Plan opera La Sterlina Dollarosa (2018)

Mehring earned his M.A. at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, focussing on English Romantic Literature and American Transcendentalism. He received a doctorate in English and American Studies in 2001, exploring the manifestation of transcendentalist ideas in the music of Charles Ives and John Cage. His postdoctoral thesis, The Democratic Gap, examines the transcultural confrontations between German immigrants and the American promise of freedom. Mehring premiered the first performance of the Marshall Plan opera La Sterlina Dollarosa by Alfred Friendly in Germany. He held a three-year visiting professorship at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies in Berlin. In 2012, Mehring became Professor of American Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen. Mehring also serves as an honorary museum director.

Main research areas

Mehring's research focuses on the intersection of culture, media and politics in order to trace transfer processes between Europe and North America. His work on the transcultural confrontation of German immigrants such as Charles Follen, Ottilie Assing, Winold Reiss, Kurt Weill, Hans J. Massaquoi, and Hannah Arendt received the European Rob Kroes Award in Transnational American Studies.

Mehring's work is informed by foci on intermediality in popular culture and cultural mobility in transatlantic contexts. The CD Poe-Attic-Lies-Sense (1999) emerged from his book on Sight & Sound with poems of English and American Romanticism set to music, followed by recordings of Dutch liberation songs in the book on Soundtrack van de Bevrijding (Soundtrack of Liberation) (2015), also published as video clips as part of the Canadian Tulips Festival. Concerts with pianist Jens Barnieck, with whom he produced the sound installation The Mexico Diary based on diary entries by Winold Reiss.

Mehring wrote the German biography of the German-American freedom fighter and abolitionist Charles Follen (2004) and published a selection of Follen's works in 2007. He helped erecting a commemorative plaque in the city of Romrod where Follen was born. In Berlin, he organized the first international symposium on the German-American artist, teacher and designer Winold Reiss at the Free University of Berlin. He published an overview of Reiss`s work in the book The Multicultural Modernism of Winold Reiss (1886–1953) – (Trans)National Approaches to his Work (2022.)

Together with Tatiani Rapatzikou and Stefan L. Brandt, he founded the journal AmLit (American Literatures) and the EAAS Digital Studies Network. Mehring volunteers as director of the Museum Forum Arenacum on the subject of art, culture and history in the Lower Rhine region.

Publications (selection)

As author

• Sight & Sound: Naturbilder in der Englischen und Amerikanischen Romantik. Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2001 [with CD], ISBN 3-8288-8324-9
• Sphere Melodies: Die Manifestation Transzendentalistischer Ideen in der Musik von Charles Ives und John Cage. Metzler, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 978-3-476-45311-2
• Karl/Charles Follen: Deutsch-Amerikanischer Freiheitskämpfer. (Studia Giessensia 12). Universitätsverlag Ferber, Giessen 2004, ISBN 978-3-932917-55-4
• The Democratic Gap: Transcultural Confrontations of German Immigrants and the Promise of American Democracy. Winter, Heidelberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8253-6170-9
• De Soundtrack van de Bevrijding: Swingen, Zingen en Dansen op Weg naar Vrijheid. Vantilt, Nijmegen, 2015 [with CD].
• BEUYS LAND. Gerd Ludwig. Lammerhuber, Wien, 2024.

As editor

• Between Natives and Foreigners. Selected Writings of Karl/Charles Follen (1796–1840). With an introduction by Frank Mehring. (New Directions in German-American Studies) Lang, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-8204-9732-7
• Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment in the New Millennium. With Winfried Fluck, Stefan Brandt. Narr, Tübingen 2010.
• Politics and Cultures of Liberation: Media, Memory, and Projections of Democracy. With Hans Bak, Mathilde Roza. Brill, Amsterdam 2018, ISBN 978-90-04-29200-0
• Sound and Vision: Intermediality and American Music. With Erik Redling. In European Journal of American Studies. 12 (4 ), 2017, ISSN 1991-9336 doi:10.4000/ejas.12384
• The Multicultural Modernism of Winold Reiss (1886–1953) – (Trans)National Approaches to his Work. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2022. ISBN 978-3-422-98052-5
• Electronic Wastelands? Information Management, Cultural Memory, and the Challenges of Digitality. With Stefan Brandt and Tatiani G. Rapatzikou. AmLit – American Literatures. 3.1 (2023). doi:10.25364/27.2:2022.2.0

Museum Director

Frank Mehring serves as the honorary museum director of the Museum Forum Arenacum in Rindern. The museum, with a focus on Roman and Franconian history, is a vital center for understanding the formative years of artist Joseph Beuys. Under Mehring's guidance, the museum has initiated the "art and climate change" project which uses art to read landscape through an ecological lens.

In 2021, Mehring initiated the photographic landscape installation Beuys Land, featuring the work of German-American photographer Gerd Ludwig, to explore the connection between art and climate change in the unique natural landscape of Beuys' youth between Kleve in Germany and Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Exhibitions (selection)

• 2021: Joseph Beuys: Kindheit und Jugend in Rindern, Forum Arenacum, Rindern
• 2021: Bäume, Beuys & Brüx. Forum Arenacum, Rindern
• 2022: Retro: Von Brüx bis Brüx 1902–2002, Forum Arenacum, Rindern
• 2023: Industrie-Fotografie: Josef Hintzen, Forum Arenacum, Rindern
• 2023: Resonanz: Fritz Poorten – Wasserburg-Kapelle in Rindern

External links

• Literature by and about Frank Mehring in the German National Library catalogue
• Radboud University faculty profile
• Frank Mehring at perlentaucher.de – das Kulturmagazin (in German)
• Songs of Liberation