Martin Klöker

Martin Klöker studied linguistics and literature at the University of Osnabrück, where he defended his MA degree in 1993, with a thesis entitled Reiner Brockmann und der Revaler Dichter- und Gelehrtenkreis im frühen 17. Jahrhundert (Reiner Brockmann and the circle of poets and scholars in Reval at the beginning of the 17th century). In 1993–1996 he held a scholarship from the the German Scientific Foundation in the University of Osnabrückʼs doctoral school “Education in the Early Modern Period” and defended his PhD in 2004 on the topic Literarisches Leben in Reval in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Literary life in Reval in the first half of the 17th century).

From 1996–2010 Martin Klöker worked as a researcher in an extensive project headed by Professor Klaus Garber, “Bibliography and Analysis of Personal Occasional Publications of the Early Modern Period” at the Chair of Modern German Literature at the University of Osnabrück. His research areas were Estonia and Latvia, and in 2003 and 2004 he published a total of six volumes on Tallinn, Tartu, and Riga in the series Handbuch des personalen Gelegenheitsschrifttums (Handbook of personal occasional writings). In addition, he played a major role in compiling bibliographical data for the volumes of the handbook.

From 2005–2013 Martin Klöker lectured at the University of Osnabrück on German literature of the early modern period and the 19th century, and in 2012 he was a visiting scholar at Tallinn University and the University of Tartu. From 2013 he has been working at the Under and Tuglas Literature Centre of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, focusing on German literary history in the Baltic countries; in 2014–2019 he was senior researcher in the project “Entangled Literatures: Discursive History of Literary Culture in Estonia”. In addition to the literature of the early modern period, his research areas have included bibliography, book culture and the history of libraries, and the history of education. To date he has authored 65 books scholarly publications and approximately 30 reviews. In 2018 Martin Klöker founded a book series Baltische literarische Kultur (Baltic literary culture) at the Lit Verlag Press in Münster (click here for books published to date) that he edits and publishes in cooperation with the Literature Centre.