Headshot of Dr.Kurt Beals

Dr. Kurt Beals

Visiting Associate Professor of German Studies/ Humanities Fellow in Literary Translation
  • Profile

    Kurt Beals is Visiting Associate Professor of German and Humanities Fellow in Literary Translation. His research focuses on experimental movements in 20th-century and contemporary German literature, as well as media theory and translation. He is the author of Wireless Dada: Telegraphic Poetics in the Avant-Garde (Northwestern University Press, 2020) and of articles about authors including Max Bense, Paul Celan, Ferdinand Kriwet, and Regina Ullmann. He has translated a wide range of works from German into English. His translation of Jenny Erpenbeck’s speech and essay collection Kein Roman (Not a Novel) was included in World Literature Today’s 75 Notable Translations of 2020. Most recently, he has published new translations of Hermann Hesse’s classic novel The Steppenwolf (Norton, 2023) and Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war classic All Quiet on the Western Front (Norton/Liveright, 2025).

  • Selected Publications
    Books

    Monograph

    Wireless Dada: Telegraphic Poetics in the Avant-Garde (Northwestern University Press, 2020)

    Translations

    Erich Maria Remarque

         All Quiet on the Western Front, W.W. Norton/Liveright (2025)

    Hermann Hesse

         The Steppenwolf, W.W. Norton (2023); Norton Critical Edition forthcoming (2025)

    Jenny Erpenbeck

         Things That Disappear (forthcoming, 2025)

         Not a Novel: Essays and Speeches, 1999-2018, New Directions (2020)

    Journal Articles

    “Information Poetics: Communication and Combinatorics in Concrete Poetry,” Culture, Theory and Critique 65 (July 2024): 1-14.

    “What is an Artificial Author?” Poetics Today 5, no. 2 (June 2024): 243-250. German translation: “Was ist ein künstlicher Autor?” Text+Kritik (October 2024): 133-141.

    “Canon Fire: Dada’s Attack on National Literature,” in Transnational Framings: The German Literary Field in the Age of Nationalism, ed. Kurt Beals and Lynne Tatlock (2023).

    “The Steppenwolf and the Dadaist,” in Interkulturelle Dialoge: Exil- und Gegenwartsliteratur, Europa- und Kunst-Diskurse. Festschrift für Paul Michael Lützeler zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Michael Kessler (2023)

  • In the News

    ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Review: War Beyond Words
    Fri., Jan. 17, 2025

    The Modern Voice of War Writing
    Wed., Feb. 5, 2025

  • Links
    Personal Website