Rainer Nägele (August 2, 1943 – May 12, 2022) was an American literary scholar whose research primarily focused on modern German and comparative liteture. He was the author of several books, including Reading after Freud: Essays on Goethe, Hölderlin, Habermas, Nietzsche, Brecht, Celan, and Freud. Nägele was the Alfred C. & Martha F. Mohr Professor Emeritus of German Language and Literature at Yale University.