prof. dr. J.C. (Julia) Kühn

Julia Kühn holds the Chair in Modern English Literature and Culture at the University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts. Her research interests are in critical theory, travel writing (often with a China focus) and the literature and culture of the long nineteenth century. Here, she focuses specifically on issues of gender, Empire and travel, popularity and novel poetics. She has published monographs on the bestselling writer Marie Corelli, on colonial writing (about North Africa, the Middle East and India) between 1870 and 1920 and has edited a handful of essay collections on the poetics and politics of travel writing. She has published in international journals including English Studies, Victorian Literature and Culture, Victorian Review, Victorians Institute Journal, Studies in Travel Writing, The Journal of Popular Culture, and Frontiers: A Journal of Women Writing. Julia is currently finishing a comparative study of British and German realism in the nineteenth century and a short book on the poetics of the travel genre.

Julia holds Master’s degrees from Bonn and Oxford Universities, a PhD from London (Birkbeck College), and she completed the Habilitation at Bamberg University.

Prior to joining the University of Groningen in January 2024, Julia was Professor of English Literature at the University of Hong Kong. She has held various administrative portfolios at HKU, including that of Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) and Head of School, and she was involved in diverse academic and outreach projects there. She is a founding member of COEDA, the Coalition of English Departments in Asia which brings together staff and students from Hong Kong University, National University of Singapore, Seoul National University and National Taiwan University, as well as representatives from the University of Tokyo. She was also a Director (as well as Co-Chair) of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival (2016-22) – an annual 10-day event featuring established and emerging writers from around the world – and a Director of the Asian Literary Prize (2009-2015); an annual literary award given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English.

Julia currently serves as the (Co-)President of the UK-based Victorian Popular Fiction Association and is co-editor of the English section of the Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen which, founded in 1846, is the world’s oldest journal on modern philology still in print.