Nicolas Pethes is Professor of German Literature at the University Of Cologne, Germany. His previous employments include visiting professorships at Stanford University, USA as well as appointments at the Universities of Hagen and Bochum, Germany. He completed his dissertation on the poetics of memory in the works of Walter Benjamin in 1999 and has since published on the media history of literature, the interrelations between literature and science, critical discourse on new media technologies, and popular culture.