Friedrich Ulfers - Biography

Fred (Friedrich) Ulfers (b. 1934) was the Dean of Media and Communications and Friedrich Nietzsche Professor at the European Graduate School EGS in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he taught an intensive Summer Seminar on Nietzsche and 20th-Century Thought. He is a professor of philosophy, as well as a Senator and Secretary of the American Council for the school. Professor Fred Ulfers is a noted scholar with an emphasis on Friedrich Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, and the interdependence of literature, philosophy and science in the 20th century.

A native of Germany, Friedrich Ulfers moved away from his homeland to the metropolis of New York, where he attended the City College of New York. After completing his bachelor's degree at City College, he attended New York University, where he received an MA in 1961 and a Ph.D. in 1968 with an emphasis on 19th- and 20th-Century German Literature. He is a noted scholar on German literature, in particular German Romanticism and the 20th-Century German novel. Friedrich Ulfers is also highly interested in French poststructuralist theory, which he incorporates into his literary scholarship. Friedrich Ulfers has served numerous academic positions throughout the years, including as Chair of the Nietzsche Conference at NYU.

Friedrich Ulfers is Associate Professor of German at New York University. Over the years he has served a variety of administrative functions, such as the Department's Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of the NYU in Berlin summer program, and, most recently, Director of Deutsches Haus at NYU. Winner of NYU's Distinguished Teaching Medal and Great Teacher Award, and three times winner of the College of Arts and Science's Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in Teaching, he has taught not only in the German Department but also in NYU's interdisciplinary programs, offering courses that engage a range of interdisciplinary interests, including literary theory, continental philosophy, and the relationships between science, literature, and philosophy. His specific teaching and research interests are German Romanticism and 19th/20th German literature (with particular emphasis on Nietzsche and Kafka).

Fred Ulfers has written widely on 20th-century authors for a variety of venues and journals. His publications include the books Das Doppelgängermotiv in der deutschen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts (The Double in Modern German Literature), Essays on Günter Grass The Flounder, and numerous articles. A few of the articles he has written are 'Kafka's Das Urteil, Kierkegaard and Kafka: The Dialectic of Suffering, The Image of Androgyny in Musil's Man without Qualities, Feminism and the Feminine in Annette von Droste-Hülshof, and The Rose and the Wound: Images of Writing. Friedrich Ulfers is also the author of the forthcoming book Nietzsche in the Light of Post-classical Science and Post-structuralist Aesthetics.

Friedrich Ulfers was an instrumental member of the European Graduate School faculty since its inception. Until 2009 Fred Ulfers served as Dean of the Media and Communications division of the European Graduate School.