Waltraud is professor of German and teaches courses on German literature and culture. She has authored Hexen  – Huren – Heldenweiber. Bilder des Weiblichen in Erzähltexten über den Dreißigjährigen Krieg, which examines the representation of women and femininity in a wide range of narrative texts from the seventeenth century to the present that retell the Thirty Years War. Maierhofer also coedited Women Against Napoleon: Historical and Fictional Responses. Out of her interest in the connections of literature and art, Maierhofer has completed critical editions of letters by the painter Angelica Kauffmann, a travel book on Florence by Adele Schopenhauer, as well as a bilingual edition of the opera libretto Circe with the translation by Goethe and Christian August Vulpius.