Profile picture for William Kelsey

Contact Information

LCLB 3112

Office Hours

Spring 2026 MTWR 12-12:50

Research Interests

Austro-Marxism

Environmental Humanities

Postcolonial Literature

Literature in the long nineteenth century

Memory Studies

Folklore

Research Description

My research focuses on the creation and maintenance of the modern state, specifically through an Austro-Hungarian lens. I am interested in the role that minority literatures played in the Austrian Crownlands following the Revolutions of 1848, specifically with an emphasis on Czech, Jewish, and Upper-Austrian national literature . 

Some key writers for my research are: Joseph Roth, Franz Kafka, Karl Krauss, Felix Salten, Franz Stelzhammer, Robert Musil, and Karel Toman.

My theoretical interests are grounded in the works of Austro-Marxists such as Otto Bauer, Karl Renner, and Max Adler. I am also interested in the theories of Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt School, Deleuze, Foucault, and Spivak.

Courses Taught

GER 103