Ann Schmiesing

Ann Schmiesing is Professor of German and Scandinavian Studies with research interests in 18th and 19th-century German and Norwegian literature and culture. She received an M.A. in comparative literature from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in German from Cambridge University (U.K.). Her book The Brothers Grimm: A Biography (Yale, 2024) won the American Folklore Society’s Wayland D. Hand Prize and the UK Folklore Society’s Katharine Briggs Award, and appeared on the New Yorker “Best Books of 2024,” New Statesman “Best Summer Reads 2025,” and History Extra “Best History Summer Reads of 2025” lists. She is also the author of the books Disability, Deformity, and Disease in the Grimms’ Fairy Tales (Wayne State, 2014) and Norway’s Christiania Theatre, 1827-1867: From Danish Showhouse to National Stage (Fairleigh Dickinson, 2006). Her publications in nationally and internationally peer-reviewed journals include articles on the Brothers Grimm, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Daniel Chodowiecki, Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Henrik Wergeland, and Johan Falkberget, and on issues pertaining to fairy tales, drama, narrative fiction, theatre history, book illustration, and disability studies. She has also published and/or presented papers on several issues in humanities pedagogy, including service learning, curriculum development, and the utilization of rare books collections in humanities teaching.