Reingard M. Nischik (born in Herford, Germany) is a retired German university professor and literary scholar.
Nischik studied English and North American Literature as well as Social Sciences at the University of Cologne (Germany), taking the First State Examination in 1977. She spent one year of her doctoral studies on a scholarship from the Canadian Government at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 1978-79. In 1980 she obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Cologne with a thesis on single and multiple plotting in English-language literatures. Between 1984 and 1989 Nischik conducted postdoctoral studies at the University of Cologne (Germany) and the University of London (UK), on at the topic of mind style. Having worked as an assistant professor at the Chair for Anglo-American Literature at the University of Cologne from 1979 to 1986, Nischik took up a post as a Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Mainz (Germany) from 1988 to 1992. In 1992, Nischik moved to the University of Freiburg (Germany), where she served as an Associate Professor of North American Literature at the Institute of North American Studies, before she became Full Professor and Chair of North American Literature at the University of Konstanz (Germany) in 1994. Awarded many prizes, fellowships and grants through her career, during the academic year 2009/2010, Nischik was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Center of Excellence "Cultural Foundations of Integration" at the University of Konstanz, funded by the German Universities Excellence Initiative, and in 2014 was awarded the competitive "Freedom for Creativity" by the German Research Foundation (DFG).[1]
In both her teaching and her numerous publications, Nischik has focused on the literature and culture of the United States and Canada, with special emphasis on narratology, the short story, the work of Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, literature and gender, and literature and the visual media (see “Selected Publications”). Nischik is considered one of the pioneers and leading scholars of Canadian Studies in Germany and Europe, and is an expert on the works of Margaret Atwood. Her current focus is specifically on Comparative North American Studies.
Nischik has twice been the recipient of the Margaret Atwood Society Best Book Award (for Margaret Atwood: Works and Impact [2000] and for Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood [2009].[2]