Credit: Alexandra Lowles
Prof. Dr. Maria Kraxenberger
Junior Professor
University of Mannheim
L 10, 11–12 – Room 309
68161 Mannheim
L 10, 11–12 – Room 309
68161 Mannheim
Research
Maria Kraxenberger is junior professor of Interdisciplinary English Studies in the Department of English. Her research interests include aspects of sound and emotion in literary texts and contemporary reading and writing phenomena. She uses qualitative and quantitative methods as well as statistical analysis.
Biographic Information
Maria Kraxenberger studied Comparative Literature at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and the University of Seville. She received her doctorate from the Freie Universität Berlin with an empirical dissertation on “Sound-Emotion Associations in Poetry”. She has conducted research at Stanford University (2013–2014), the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (2014–2018), and the University of Basel (2019). From 2020 to 2025, she was a research assistant at the Institute for Literary Studies at the University of Stuttgart.
Publications
- Kraxenberger, M. & Lauer, G. (2022). Wreading on online literature platforms. Written Communication, 39(3), 462–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/07410883221092730
- Knopp, C. A., Blohm, S., Kraxenberger, M. & Menninghaus, W. (2021). How perfect are imperfect rhymes? Effects of phonological similarity and verse context on rhyme perception. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 15(3), 560–572. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000277
- Kraxenberger, M., Knoop, C. A. & Menninghaus, W. (2021). Who reads contemporary erotic novels and why? Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(Article 96), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00764-3
- Rebora, S., Boot, P., Pianzola, F., Gasser, B., Herrmann, J. B., Kraxenberger, M., Kuijpers, M. M., Lauer, G., Lendvai, P., Messerli, T. C. & Sorrentino, P. (2021). Digital humanities and digital social reading. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities : DSH, 36(Suppl. 2: Digital Humanities 2019: Complexities = special issue), ii230–ii250. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqab020
- Kraxenberger, M. (2019). Zum Stil einer digital geprägten Leserealität : Eine Untersuchung der Fifty Shades of Grey-Trilogie mittels Dargestelltem und Darstellung. Orbis Litterarum, 74(3: Style = special issue), 205–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/oli.12219
- Kraxenberger, M., Menninghaus, W., Roth, A. & Scharinger, M. (2018). Prosody-based sound-emotion associations in poetry. Frontiers in Psychology, 9(Article 1284), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01284
- Kraxenberger, M. & Menninghaus, W. (2017). Affinity for poetry and aesthetic appreciation of joyful and sad poems. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(Article 2051), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02051
- Ullrich, S., Aryani, A., Kraxenberger, M., Jacobs, A. M. & Conrad, M. (2017). On the relation between the general affective meaning and the basic sublexical, lexical, and inter-lexical features of poetic texts — A case study using 57 poems of H. M. Enzensberger. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(Article 2073), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02073
- Aryani, A., Kraxenberger, M., Ullrich, S., Jacobs, A. M. & Conrad, M. (2016). Measuring the basic affective tone of poems via phonological saliency and iconicity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 10(2), 191–204. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000033
- Kraxenberger, M. & Menninghaus, W. (2016). Emotional effects of poetic phonology, word positioning and dominant stress peaks in poetry reading. Scientific Study of Literature, 6(2), 298–313. https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.6.2.06kra
- Kraxenberger, M. & Menninghaus, W. (2016). Mimological reveries? Disconfirming the hypothesis of phono-emotional iconicity in poetry. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(Article 1779), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01779
- Kraxenberger, M. (2014). Jakobson revisited: Poetic distinctiveness, modes of operation, and perception. Rivista italiana di filosofia del linguaggio : Rifl, 8(1), 10–21.
- Blohm, S., Kraxenberger, M., Knoop, C. A. & Scharinger, M. (2021). Sound shape and sound effects of literary texts. In D. Kuiken & A. M. Jacobs (eds.), Handbook of empirical literary studies (S. 7–38). Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110645958-002
- Herrmann, B. & Kraxenberger, M. (2021). Panel: Weder Fail noch Lobgesang: Nicht-eindeutige Wertung von Literatur im digitalen Raum. In C. Plien & E. Topalović (eds.), Mehrdeutigkeiten (S. 350–351). Göttingen: V & R Unipress.
- Kraxenberger, M. & Lauer, G. (2021). Die Plattform als Bühne – Zur Inszenierung von wreaders. In P. Ajouri & U. Schneider (eds.), Inszenierung des Buchs im Internet (S. 99–117). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
- Kraxenberger, M. & Knoop, C. A. (2020). Grundriss der empirischen Literaturwissenschaft : eine Gebrauchsanweisung. In Y. Sakamoto, F. Jäger & J. Tanaka (eds.), Bilder als Denkformen : bildwissenschaftliche Dialoge zwischen Japan und Deutschland (S. 215–220). Berlin ; Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110582406-018
- Kraxenberger, M. (2019). Erotic romances: An emerging subgenre succeeding Fifty Shades. In A. Brock, J. Pflaeging & P. Schildhauer (eds.), Genre emergence : developments in print, TV and digital media (S. 13–28). Berlin [u. a.]: Peter Lang.
- Kraxenberger, M. (2019). Klang und Emotionsperzeption in Gedichten: Drei empirische Beispielstudien. In P. Nicklas (eds.), Literatur und Musik im Künstevergleich : empirische und hermeneutische Methoden (S. 17–34). Berlin [u. a.]: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110630756-002
- Kraxenberger, M. (2018). Gelesen wie gesprochen : Überlegungen zur Gedichtrezeption als prosodisches (Text-)Gerede im Inneren. In D.-C. Assmann & N. Menzel (eds.), Textgerede : Interferenzen von Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit in der Gegenwartsliteratur (S. 147–160). Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink.
- Kraxenberger, M. & Menninghaus, W. (2018). Mimologische Träumereien? Über ikonische Assoziationen von Klang und Gefühlswahrnehmung in Gedichten. In D. Scherf & A. Bertschi-Kaufmann (eds.), Ästhetische Rezeptionsprozesse in didaktischer Perspektive (S. 72–88). Weinheim: Beltz Juventa.
- Kraxenberger, M. (2012).
Angst im Anschluss an 9/
11. In J. Stubenböck & L. Waldhof (eds.), Nine eleven (S. 51–72). Innsbruck: Studia.