Jan Söffner holds a PhD in Italian Studies. His ›Habilitation‹ (second, post-doctoral dissertation) in Comparative Literature and Romance Studies will be concluded with an inaugural lecture in November. From 1999 to 2007 he was research associate at the Department of Romance Studies at the University of Cologne; and from 2008 to 2010 he worked at the research project »Emotion and Motion« at the Centre for Literary and Cultural Research (Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung) in Berlin.