Céline Trautmann-Waller studied at the École normale supérieure (Paris). Agrégée in German, she defended a thesis in Germanic Studies in 1995, and was then a lecturer at the Universities of Rennes 2 and Paris 8. Since 2005, she has been Professor of Germanic Studies at Université Sorbonne nouvelle-Paris 3, and a junior member of the IUF (2006-2011). Since 2006, she has directed the Centre d'études et de recherches sur l'espace germanophone (CEREG, Université Paris 3). Her research focuses on German cultural history, particularly the history of the humanities in the German-speaking world from the late 18th to the early 20th century.
His recent publications concern the history of Germanic anthropology and philology(Quand Berlin pensait les peuples. Anthropologie, ethnologie, psychologie 1850-1890 (dir.), 2004; Aux origines d'une science allemande de la culture. Linguistics and psychology of peoples at Heymann Steinthal, 2006; Ignác Goldziher: un autre orientalisme? (dir.), 2011, as well as formalist aesthetics in Central Europe and the transnational genesis of structuralism(Formalismes esthétiques et héritage herbartien. Vienna, Prague, Moscow (co-dir.), 2009; L'École viennoise d'histoire de l'art (dir.), 2011; Pëtr Bogatyrëv et les débuts du Cercle de Prague. Recherches ethnographiques et théâtrales (co-dir.), 2012).
