Bio

Petra Dierkes is a residential Undergraduate Advising Director in Academic Advising in the Vice Provost Office for Undergraduate Education and occasionally teaches courses in Comparative Literature and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Other roles Petra has held at Stanford are (most recently) Associate Director of Public Service and Inclusion and Diversity Education (directing the Emerson Fellowship Program for sophomores interested in social equity and public service leadership and intergroup communication) and Assistant Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives in the former Vice Provost Office for Teaching and Learning, where she directed the Year of Learning, a 2015-16 Stanford-wide presidential initiative.

Petra is passionate about literature, culture and interdisciplinary relationships among the arts culture (including visual arts, opera, dance, early film) of the 1880s-1920s, specifically Oscar Wilde and his circle as well as “forgotten” women writers and artists of the period; feminist and LGBTQ Studies, history and theory of genders and sexualities; digital pedagogy; and community-engaged teaching and learning in the humanities.

Current Role at Stanford

Undergraduate Advising Director

Honors & Awards

  • Leadership@Stanford program, Stanford University (2017-18)
  • Stanford Faculty Research Fellow, Clayman Institute for Gender Research (2015-16)
  • Honoree for education leadership in the San Francisco Bay Area, World Affairs Council (2015)
  • Teaching Excellence Award, Phi Beta Kappa Northern California (2015)

Education & Certifications

  • PhD, University of Pittsburgh, English (2003)
  • Erstes Staatsexamen, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet Bonn, Germany, English, German, Theology (1995)

Service, Volunteer and Community Work

  • Advisory Editor, boundary 2: An International Journal for Literature and Culture (Duke University Press)

    Location

    NC

  • Founding Editor, The Latchkey: Journal of New Woman Studies (2008 - 2014)

    Location

    UK

  • Editorial Board member, Rodopi-Brill (European publisher) (2011 - 2015)

    Location

    Amsterdam

  • Haas Center, Steering Committee Member, Stanford University (2017)

    Location

    Stanford

  • Special Advisor, Peace First (peacefirst.org)

    Location

    CA

Contact

  • Work
    petra.dierkes@stanford.edu
    University - Staff Department: Academic Advising Operations Position: Undergraduate Advising Director

Additional Info

  • Mail Code: 3085

2024-25 Courses

Professional Interests

Oscar Wilde and his circle

Literature, culture and interdisciplinary relationships among the arts culture (including visual arts, opera, dance, early film) of the 1880s-1920s, specifically Oscar Wilde and his circle as well as “forgotten” women writers and artists of the period

Feminist and LGBTQ Studies, history and theory of genders and sexualities

Digital Pedagogy, Digital Humanities

Professional Affiliations and Activities

  • Special Advisor to the CEO, Peace First (non-profit supporting young people, ages 13-25, with grants and mentorship opportunities) (2019 - Present)
  • Board member, Planet Word (museum, Washington DC) (2017 - Present)
  • Advisory Editor, Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies (2016 - Present)
  • Member, Vatican Arts and Technology Council (2015 - Present)
  • Blog, Literature Illuminations: Analog Literature and Digital Pedagogy. http://www.literatureilluminations.org (2012 - Present)

All Publications

  • Wilde's Other Worlds Routledge Studies in Nineteenth Century Literature edited by Davis, M. F., Dierkes-Thrun, P. Routledge. 2018
  • Wilde's Other Worlds An Introduction WILDE'S OTHER WORLDS Davis, M. F., Dierkes-Thrun, P., Davis, M. F., DierkesThrun, P. 2018: 1–15

    View details for Web of Science ID 000450213600001

  • Oscar Wilde, Rachilde, and the Mercure de France WILDE'S OTHER WORLDS Dierkes-Thrun, P., Davis, M. F., DierkesThrun, P. 2018: 220–41

    View details for Web of Science ID 000450213600011

  • Oscar Wilde in Context (Book Review) JOURNAL OF PRE-RAPHAELITE STUDIES-NEW SERIES Book Review Authored by: Dierkes-Thrun, P. 2016; 25: 97-101

    View details for Web of Science ID 000390981800008

  • Victoria Cross' Six Chapters of a Man's Life: Queering Middlebrow Feminism MIDDLEBROW AND GENDER, 1890-1945 Dierkes-Thrun, P., Ehland, C., Wachter, C. 2016; 62: 202-227

    View details for Web of Science ID 000386242000011

  • Performing Salome, Revealing Stories (Book Review) VICTORIAN STUDIES Book Review Authored by: Dierkes-Thrun, P. 2015; 57 (4): 715-717

    View details for DOI 10.2979/victorianstudies.57.4.16

    View details for Web of Science ID 000368513700016

  • “Decadent Sensuality in Rachilde and Wilde.” In Decadence and the Senses, ed. by Jane Desmarais and Alice Conde. Dierkes-Thrun, P. Oxford: Legenda. 2015
  • WILDE'S COMEDIC TAKES ON THE NEW WOMAN: A COMPARISON WITH IBSEN AND SHAW OSCAR WILDE'S SOCIETY PLAYS Dierkes-Thrun, P., Bennett, M. Y. 2015: 75-94

    View details for Web of Science ID 000387045300005

  • “Wilde’s Comedic Takes on the New Woman: A Comparison with Ibsen and Shaw.” Oscar Wilde's Society Plays, ed. by Michael Y. Bennett. Dierkes-Thrun, P. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.. 2015: 75–94
  • “’Sincere and Studied Triviality’: The Importance of Being Earnest as an Aestheticist Comedy of Manners.” Wilde in Earnest, ed. by Emily Eells. Dierkes-Thrun, P. Paris: Presses universitaires de Paris Ouest. 2015: 19–34
  • "Realism." The Fin-de-Siecle World. ed. by Michael Saler. Dierkes-Thrun, P. London: Routledge. 2015: 706–18
  • Comparatively Queer: Interrogating Identities across Time and Cultures (Book Review) GLQ-A JOURNAL OF LESBIAN AND GAY STUDIES Book Review Authored by: Dierkes-Thrun, P. 2013; 19 (2): 264-266

    View details for DOI 10.1215/10642684-1957240

    View details for Web of Science ID 000316089600009

  • “Salomé in the Comics: P. Craig Russell’s Intertextual Graphic Adaptation from Strauss and Wilde.” The Oscholars. Online. http://oscholars-oscholars.com/special-issues/contents/dierkes-thrun/ Dierkes-Thrun, P. 2013; Special issue. (Spring)
  • Salome's Modernity: Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetics of Transgression Dierkes-Thrun, P. Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press. 2011
  • "Aestheticist Comedies of Manners" A History of British Drama: Genres – Developments –Interpretations, ed. by Sibylle Baumbach, Birgit Neumann, and Ansgar Nünning. Dierkes-Thrun, P. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. 2011: 227–40
  • “’The Brutal Music and the Delicate Text’? The Aesthetic Relationship between Oscar Wilde’s and Richard Strauss’s Salome Reconsidered" Modern Language Quarterly Dierkes-Thrun, P. 2008; 69 (3): 367-89
  • “Salomé, C’est Moi? Salome and Wilde as Icons of Transgression.” Approaches to Teaching the Works of Oscar Wilde, ed. Philip E. Smith. Dierkes-Thrun, P. New York: Modern Language Association of America, . 2008: 171–79
  • “Arthur Symons’ Decadent Aesthetics: Stéphane Mallarmé and the Dancer Revisited." Decadences: Morality and Aesthetics in British Literature, ed. by Paul Fox. Dierkes-Thrun, P. Stuttgart: Ibidem. 2006: 33–65
  • “Incest and the Trafficking of Women in G.B. Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession: ‘It Runs In the Family’." English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 Dierkes-Thrun, P. 2006; 49 (4): 293-310