Martin A. Hainz

Martin A. Hainz

Martin Andreas Hainz (born March 5, 1974, in Vienna, Austria) is an Austrian philologist, theorist and philosopher. He has taught at several universities in Europe and the United States, among them the universities of Vienna, Timişoara and Iaşi. He is a member of the Northeastern Language Association (NEMLA). His main interests are contemporary German and especially Austrian philosophy and literature. He is a scholar of Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler.

His works deal with Paul Celan and Rose Ausländer as well as Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock; he is also considered to be one of today's most important advocates of Jacques Derrida's deconstruction (cf.). His interdisciplinary work has often led to surprising insights; this is especially true concerning Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, who is an ambivalent thinker and poet between sensibility, belief and inspiration. Hainz has shown that, from a dialectical perspective, poetry is the rational awareness that is adequate to (Jewish-Christian) believing and faith ("Poesie ist also der dem Glauben angemessene Wachzustand").

Hainz' researches into some nearly forgotten, but nevertheless important authors and thinkers such as Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Alfred Margul-Sperber and Constantin Brunner are also of merit. He has done important research dealing with multiculturalism and its opportunities and history in Czernowitz, which is considered to be a paradigm for multicultural societies. These works have led Hainz to some research on translation and its theory; his volume Vom Glück sich anzustecken (Being affected by Luck or The Luck of Being Infected) has been discussed intensely. Vincent Kling in his review considered it to be "beyond praise".