Patrick Greaney
Professor
German Program
Office: McKenna 216

Patrick Greaney’s research focuses on literature, design, and modern and contemporary art.

He also works as a literary translator, editor, and curator. He has curated exhibitions of contemporary art at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and the Museum of Contemporary Art Boulder. From 2014 to 2020, he edited a literary translation series for Les Figues Press in Los Angeles.

Professor Greaney received a BA in comparative literature from Yale University and an MA in German Studies and a PhD in comparative literature from Johns Hopkins University. He also studied at the University of Konstanz, the Charles S. Singleton Center for Italian Studies in Florence, the University of Buenos Aires, and the École normale supérieure (rue d’Ulm) in Paris.

Recent and forthcoming publications:

Translated and edited book: Heimrad Bäcker, On Documentary Poetry (Winter Editions, 2024)

Article: “Fassbinder, Functionalism, and the Beauty of Braun Design.” Critical Inquiry 51.2 (Winter 2025), Article accepted for publication.

Co-edited book: Magical Episodes and Other Synchronicities: The Transhemispheric Correspondence of Scott Burton and Eduardo Costa, 1970-1989 (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2025), co-edited with David J. Getsy

Book chapter: “A Pavilion for a Counterpublic: Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl’s Invitation of the Soft Machine and Her Angry Body Parts,” in Agustín Corti, ed., Alles inszeniert? Leben, Identität, Geschichte (LIT Verlag, 2023)

 

Representative publications:

Monographs:

Quotational Practices: Repeating the Future in Contemporary Art (University of Minnesota Press, 2014)
Untimely Beggar: Poverty and Power from Baudelaire to Benjamin (University of Minnesota Press, 2008)

 

Edited books:

Co-edited with Sabine Zelger, An Austrian Avant-Garde (Les Figues Press, 2020)
Conceptualism and Other Fictions: The Collected Writings of Eduardo Costa, 1965-2015  (Les Figues Press, 2016)
Guido Ignatti: Setup (Museum of Contemporary Art, 2015)
Heimrad Bäcker: Landscape M (Museum of Contemporary Art, 2013)

 

Exhibitions:
“Guido Ignatti: Setup.” Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, 2016.
“Guido Ignatti: Tapiados.” David B. Smith Gallery, Denver, 2016.
“Heimrad Bäcker: Landscape M.” Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, 2013-2014.
“Causalgia: Michael Merighi’s Photographs of VALIE EXPORT.” Counterpath Gallery, Denver, 2013.
“Vanessa Place: The Lawyer is Present.” Exhibition and performance. Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, 2013.

 

Translated books:
Greaney and Zelger, eds., An Austrian Avant-Garde (Les Figues Press, 2020)
Urs Allemann, The Old Man and the Bench: A Five-Month Twaddle (Dalkey Archive Press, 2015)
Heimrad Bäcker, SEASCAPE (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2013)
Heimrad Bäcker, transcript (Dalkey Archive Press, 2010). Translated with Vincent Kling.