Gabrielle Reid

Gabrielle Reid is a PhD candidate whose work broadly focuses on cross-disciplinary theories and representations of reality. Her dissertation, Magnetism between Physics and Poetry: Schelling, Schlegel, and Ritter on the New Mythology, expands on the significance of magnetism across literary, philosophical, and scientific texts circa 1800 to challenge the centrality of polarity as a guiding motif of German Romanticism and Idealism. Reconstructing the often brushed over significance of magnetism beyond polarity in these three authors’ theories of nature, Gabrielle reads the literary function of the magnet in connection to its conjectured foundational place in nature itself. She argues that foregrounding magnetism establishes a connection between nature’s poetic self-construction and the interdisciplinary Romantic project, shedding light on the humanities’ relation to the environment and on the state of interdisciplinary studies today. 

Gabrielle‘s other interests include the study of diagrams, simulation, and other modeling practices from the 17th century to the present; dolls, puppets, and embodied AI; ecocriticism; and early 20th century foundations of math in relation to modernist literature. In her teaching, she is passionate about framing works and themes from across German studies within the context of current media and popular culture. 

Before joining Yale’s department in 2018, Gabrielle completed a BA with majors in Comparative Literature and Mathematics at NYU.