Simone Stirner joined the doctoral program in 2013 after receiving a B.A. and M.A. in Comparative Literature from LMU Munich. Her research focuses on German, Hebrew, and French poetry and prose, with a particular emphasis on minimalist and fragmentary forms of writing post-1945. Informed by her interest in aesthetic theory, affect theory, German-Jewish thought, intersectional memory studies, and theories of reading, she tries to understand the affective responses, forms of embodied attention, as well as the hermeneutic excesses produced by fragmented and abbreviated texts in response to historic crises.

She is associated with the Program in Critical Theory and the Center for Jewish Studies and serves as academic editor of the journal Qui Parle.