Instructor of writing, literature, and cultural studies at Burlington College, presented a paper in September at the 2007 Biennial International Robert Musil Conference at Lancaster University, Lancaster England. Grill’s contribution, “Metaphor as Extratemporal Moment in Musil’s The Man Without Qualities and Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past,” explores the use of metaphor as a means to suspend time and to undermine normal reality within the lengthy non-linear narratives of these two revolutionary experimental novels.

Papers by Grill and other scholars from Germany, Austria, England, Italy, Switzerland, England, Poland, and the United States explored Robert Musil (1880-1942) the Modernist novelist, author of The Man Without Qualities (1930-1942), and his connections to strands of international thinking in experimental literature, philosophy, and science.

Grill’s chapter, “Robert Musil and Mysticism,” appears in the recently published Companion to the Works of Robert Musil (Camden House, 2007). She is now working on a book-length exploration of Musil’s use of metaphor, time, and narrative, and the Austrian author’s place within the complex realm of European Modernism.