Guido Rings


Guido Rings is Professor of Postcolonial Studies, director of the Research Unit for Intercultural and Transcultural Studies, and Course Leader for the MA Intercultural Communication at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, United Kingdom. He was previously Reader in Intercultural Studies and Head of Modern Foreign Languages at the same institution, and he was Visiting Professor for Romance Literature and Film at the University of Düsseldorf and the University of Bayreuth, Germany.
Professor Rings is also co-editor of German as a Foreign Language and Interdisciplinary Mexico, the first fully refereed internet journals in Europe for their respective fields. He is member of the Higher Education Academy.

Academic career

After the completion of first degrees in Spanish, German and History and PGCE equivalents in these subject areas, Guido Rings received his PhD in Spanish Philology and his postdoctoral degree from the University of Trier in 1996 and 2005.
His professional career started with lectureships for FIAC in Barcelona and the IIK in Düsseldorf, before he went to Cambridge to teach German, Spanish and Intercultural Studies for Anglia Ruskin University. In 2000, he became Head of German and Reader in Intercultural Studies, and he co-founded the academic internet journal GFL. In 2007, he took on a Professorship in Postcolonial Studies, and he launched the research unit RUITS within the framework of the international conference ‘Neo-colonial mentalities in contemporary Europe?’ in London. The conference proceedings were published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing shortly afterwards.
In 2010, the German Academic Exchange Service invited Guido Rings to join the University of Düsseldorf where he delivered courses on ‘Identity and Otherness in contemporary Spanish cinema about migration’, ‘The Conquest of America in the new historical narrative of Spain and Latin American’ and ‘1910-2010: The other Mexico – from the Novel of the Mexican Revolution to Zapatist hypertexts’.
Back in Cambridge, Guido Rings co-founded the international journal iMex with colleagues from the University of Düsseldorf, and he took on consultancy roles for Cambridge University Press and Routledge.
Professor Rings has also been peer reviewer for the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences and several academic journals, including the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Current Issues in Language Planning and Iberoamericana. He has been external examiner for Birkbeck College, London, and consultant for the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Union.

Areas of expertise

Professor Rings' research outputs cover different areas of Postcolonial Studies, Intercultural Communication, European Languages and Cultural Studies. He publishes in English, German and Spanish language, and selected key works include:
Authored books
  • La Conquista desbaratada. Identidad y alteridad en la novela, el cine y el teatro hispánicos contemporáneos
  • Eroberte Eroberer
  • BBC-German Grammar
  • Erzählen gegen den Strich.
  • BBC-German Grammar
Edited volumes/special issues in journals
  • Identity and Otherness in contemporary Chicano cinema
  • Cultural Encounters in Contemporary German Cinema
  • La otra cara de la migración: Imágenes del inmigrante latinoamericano en el cine español contemporáneo
  • Neo-colonial mentalities in contemporary Europe. Language and discourse in the construction of identities
  • Bilderwelten – Textwelten – Comicwelten
  • European Cinema: Inside Out. Images of the Self and the Other in Postcolonial European Film
Refereed articles
  • ‘Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Transkulturalität in Gregory Navas “My family”’, in: Frank Leinen : México 2010. Düsseldorf: DUP, pp. 269-288.
  • ‘Robinson Crusoe today: Continuities and discontinuities from Daniel Defoe's literary work to Robert Zemeckis's “Cast Away”’, in: Anglistik 22/2, pp.119-136.
  • ‘Questions of identity: Cultural encounters in Gurinder Chadha’s “Bend it like Beckham”’, in: Journal of Popular Film and Television 39/3, pp. 114-123.
  • ‘Madrid: Neo-colonial spacing in contemporary Spanish cinema?’, in: Godela Weiss-Sussex, Katia Pizzi : Cultural Identities of European Cities, London: Lang, pp. 205–229.
  • ‘Unendliche Eroberung, unendlicher Widerstand? Das weibliche Körpergedächtnis in Gioconda Bellis “La mujer habitada”’, in: GRM 59/4, pp. 517-532.
  • ‘Blurring or shifting boundaries? Concepts of culture in Turkish-German Migrant Cinema’, in: GFL IX/1, pp. 6–39.
  • ‘Gebrochene Romantik – Töpffers “Les amours de M. Vieux-Bois” als Karikatur zeitgenössischer Tendenzen’, in: Frank Leinen, Guido Rings : Bilderwelten – Textwelten – Comicwelten. Munich: Meidenbauer, pp. 207–228.
  • ‘Imágenes de la Revolución. Perspectivas ateneístas en “El Águila y la Serpiente” y “Al filo del agua”’, in: Rafael Olea Franco : Agustín Yáñez: una vida literaria. México: El Colegio de México, pp. 197-226.
  • ‘En busca de nuevas formas barrocas: el cine español y latinoamericano contemporáneo’, in: Iberoamericana VI/21, pp. 191–209.
  • ‘Broken Orientalism. Using literary texts for intercultural training’, in: FLUL 35, pp. 136–149.
  • ‘Emotion und Kognition in Tom Tykwers „Lola Rennt” und Jean-Pierre Jeunets „Le Fabuleux Destin D’Amélie Poulain”’, in: Fabula 46, 3/4, pp. 197-216.
  • ‘Unschuldig schuldig? Zur Schuldfrage und Vermittlung von Schlinks „Der Vorleser” im DaF-Unterricht’ , in: GFL IV/2, pp. 80–110.
  • ‘Images of the Self and the Other in Postcolonial European Film’, in: Rings/Morgan-Tamosunas : European Cinema: Inside Out. Heidelberg: Winter, pp. 11–26.
  • ‘Antagonistic Perspectives. Turkish and European Official Discourse on Kurds’, in: Storia della Storiografia 43, pp. 98–124.
  • ‘Una retroperspectiva ficcional desapercibida acerca de 500 años de conquista. Entrevista de Guido Rings con el escritor argentino Lidio Mosca-Bustamante’, in: Revista Literaria Baquiana 19/20, pp. 1–7.
  • ‘Zum emanzipatorischen Potential zweier Fremder: Meursault, Duarte und die Destabilisierung herrschender Diskurse’, in: Frank Leinen : Literarische Begegnungen. Romanische Studien zur kulturellen Identität, Differenz und Alterität. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, pp. 130–152.
  • ‘Der konditionierte Fremde. Anmerkungen zu Selbst- und Fremdbetrachtungen in Camus’ „L’Étranger”’, in: Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 4, pp. 479–500.