Secretary Emerita
Professor Henrike Lähnemann is Secretary Emerita of the Oxford Interfaith Forum. She holds Chair of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics at the University of Oxford and is Professorial Fellow at St Edmund Hall. She grew up in three medieval German towns that shaped her interest in medieval literature and religion: Münster, Lüneburg and Nürnberg.
Professor Lähnemann studied German literature, History of Art and Theology at the Universität Bamberg. After a PhD on late medieval didactic literature, she worked at the Universität Tübingen, where she gained her Venia legendi in German Philology with a study of the Book of Judith in German medieval literature, and edited an 11th century bilingual commentary on the Song of Songs by Williram of Ebersberg.
Professor Lähnemann spent a year as a Feodor Lynen Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and a semester as Visiting Professor at the Universität Zürich. Between 2006 and 2014 she held the Chair of German Studies at Newcastle University, and was also Head of the German Section in Newcastle’s School of Modern Languages. In 2009-2015, she chaired Women in German Studies.
Since 2015 she holds the Chair of Medieval German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford.
Professor Lähnemann’s current research focuses on devotional writing from northern Germany, especially the manuscripts of the convent of Medingen. She is External Senior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies of the University of Freiburg.