PatrickGreaney

  • Professor
  • GERMAN PROGRAM
Address
Office: McKenna 216
Office Hours

By appointment on Zoom

Patrick Greaney is a literary translator, curator, and scholar of modern and contemporaryliterature, art, and design.

He is the author of two scholarly monographs and the editor or translator of eleven additional books, including collaborative translations and co-edited volumes. His work has been reviewed in BOMB, Artforum, Art in America, and The Times Literary Supplement,and his articles have appeared in Critical Inquiry, New German Critique, Art History, South Atlantic Quarterly,and Nietzsche-Studien. He was a Resident Associate at the National Humanities Center (2022-2023) and the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2025-2026).

From 2012 to 2016, he was Adjunct Curator at Museum of ContemporaryArt Denver, and from 2014 to 2020, he edited a literary translation series for Les Figues Press in Los Angeles. He has curated exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Museum of Contemporary Art ǸԹ, DavidB. Smith Gallery, and Hache (Buenos Aires).

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:

Article: “Fassbinder, Functionalism, and the Beauty of Braun Design.”Critical Inquiry51.2 (Autumn 2024), 135-165.

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

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)

Peer-reviewed monographs:

Quotational Practices: Repeating the Future in Contemporary Art.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Reviews:Cultural Theory(2016), Visual Studies30.3(2015), Sprachkunst44.2 (2015), Review of Contemporary Fiction, ARTNews Magazineonline (“14 New Art History Books to Change Your Mind,” 6/24/14).

Untimely Beggar: Poverty and Power from Baudelaire to Benjamin.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Reviews: German Studies Review 32.1 (2009), German Quarterly 82.2 (2009), French Studies 63.4 (2009), H-France Review 9 (2009), and Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature 33.2 (2009), Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 127.4 (2008).

Edited and Translated Books:

(All translations from German unless otherwise noted)

Edited: Magic Episodes and Other Synchronicities: The Transhemispheric Correspondence of Scott Burton and Eduardo Costa, 1970–1989. Ugly Duckling Presse, 2025. Co-edited with David Getsy, with cowritten introduction. Book accepted for publication.

Edited and translated: Heimrad Bäcker, Documentary Poetry. Winter Editions, 2024. With an introductory essay. Reviews:Jewish Book Council (7 October 2024), Asymptote, Substack of Johanna Drucker, Textual Practice

Translated: Carlos Soto Román, 11. Ugly Duckling Presse, 2023. Translated from Spanish. Member of 7-member translation team. Selected reviews:Times Literary Supplement, The Brooklyn Rail,Asymptote,The Morning Star.

Edited and translated:An Austrian Avant-Garde. Co-edited and co-written introduction with Sabine Zelger. Translated by Patrick Greaney. Les Figues Press, 2020. Review: Journal of Austrian Studies, Caesura.

Edited:Guido Ignatti: Setup. MCA Denver, 2016. With essays by Andrea Giunta and Patrick Greaney and a foreword by Adam Lerner.

Edited:Conceptualism and Other Fictions: The Collected Writings of Eduardo Costa, 1965-2015. Les Figues Press, 2016. Reviews: Art in America and The Georgia Review. ReprintedinManuela Moscoso and Santiago Villanueva, eds., Eduardo Costa: las relaciones mentales.Mexico City: Museo Tamayo, 2017.

Translated: Heimrad Bäcker, SEASCAPE. Ugly Duckling Presse, 2013. Afterword by Charles Bernstein. Reviews:Raintaxi, Constant Criticblog, Journal of Artists’ Books, Poetry Foundationblog.

Translated: Urs Allemann, The Old Man and the Bench: A Five-Month Twaddle. Dalkey Archive Press, 2015. Afterword by Patrick Greaney. Reviews:Vice, The Times Literary Supplement, Words Without Borders, Full Stop.

Translated: Heimrad Bäcker, Documentary Poetry (No Press, 2014). Bilingual edition. Translated with Jacquelyn Deal. Chapbook. Reprint:Jacket2.

Edited:Heimrad Bäcker: Landscape M. (Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, 2013). With essays by Patrick Greaney, Martin Hochleitner, and Adam Lerner.

Translated: Heimrad Bäcker, transcript. Dalkey Archive Press, 2010. Afterword by Patrick Greaney. Translated with Vincent Kling. Reviews: The Times Literary Supplement, Bomb andon the web logs of the New York Review of Books (Charles Simic), Tablet, and Charles Bernstein; weekly selection in “Top Shelf: Recommended Reading” in The San Francisco Gate.

Exhibitions:

“Gilda Picabea: La intención del aire,” Hache Galería, Buenos Aires, March-June 2026.

“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. Reviews:X-Tra Art Quarterly, Artforum, The Denver Post, and the syndicated PBS program Arts District.

“Causalgia: Michael Merighi’s Photographs of VALIE EXPORT.” Counterpath Gallery, Denver, 2013.

“Vanessa Place: The Lawyer is Present.” Exhibition and performance. ǸԹ Museum of Contemporary Art, 2013.