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Department Newsletter
Autumn 1998

Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
The Ohio State University

Editor: Professor John Davidson

• Letter from the Chair.
• Feature: Notes from an Emerita.

Conference Reports

• International Conference on Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation.
• German Linguistics Annual Conference at Ohio State.
• Graduate Student Workshop.
• Panel Discussion on Victor Klemperer.

• German Study Abroad: From Hamburg to Freiburg.
• Lectures 1997-98.
• Faculty News.
• Graduate Student News.
• Undergraduate Student News.
• Alumnae/i News.

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THE ANNUAL DEPARTMENT THEATER PRODUCTION: FRIEDRICH DRRENMATT'S 'DER BESUCH DER ALTEN DAME' A PHOTO REPORT.

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Letter from the Chair

The department looks back at a successful and, at times, challenging academic year 1997-98. We hosted three well attended conferences: a graduate student workshop on (Re)presenting the Holocaust, the Annual Conference of the Germanic Linguistics Society, and, in collaboration with the Jagiellonian University, an international conference on Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation in Krakow, Poland. We also hosted the annual meeting of CIC Chairs and Undergraduate Program Directors and invited a large number of engaging lecturers. We were very pleased to welcome Jutta Osinski from the University of Marburg as our 1998 Distinguished Max Kade Visiting Professor. Professor Osinski taught a course on the German drama from Lessing to Goethe and presented us with her thought-provoking ideas on the Catholic turn and dissolution of German Romanticism. In collaboration with the Department of Philosophy, we have invited Eckart Frster from the University of Munich as our next Distinguished Max Kade Visiting Professor. Prof. Frster will be with us in Winter Quarter 1999. In autumn we will welcome Hannelore Scholz from the Humboldt University, Berlin for a one-quarter visiting appointment, sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service. Professor Scholz will teach a graduate course on post-unification German literature and an undergraduate course on current political and cultural debates in the Federal Republic.

On a sad note, Dagmar Lorenz has accepted a position at the University of Illinois, at Chicago. As most of you know, Dagmar has been a very central force in our graduate and undergraduate programs and one of the Department's most prolific scholars. Faculty and students alike will dearly miss her. On a much happier note, Marilyn Blackwell was promoted to the rank of Full Professor and appointed to the Vorman-Anderson Professorship for Scandinavian Studies. The position has been permanently endowed with funds from the Vorman-Anderson estate. We were able to hire a new tenure track assistant professor for fall 1998: Kai Hammermeister. Kai received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and specializes in intellectual history and gender studies. He will play an important role in our efforts to increase our offerings in culture studies and General Education courses. We were also able to hire two visiting assistant professors: Andy Spencer, who has already taught for us in 1997-98 and directed our summer program at the Technical University Dresden; and Agnes Risko, who finished her dissertation on medieval midwifery in Spring 1998. Finally, we welcome Brenda Hosey as the Department's new Office Administrative Associate. Brenda comes to us from Comparative Studies and has been with the University for more than twenty years. We are very fortunate to have her.

Barbara Becker-Cantarino was honored with the University's 1997 Distinguished Lecture Award. In addition, she has been awarded a Senior Fulbright Fellowship and will spend the fall and winter in Berlin and Dresden. Anna Grotans has just returned from a productive Fulbright year at the University of Munich, where she also prepared the groundwork for a student exchange between OSU and the Ludwig Maximilian University that will be initiated this fall. Gregor Hens also returned from a successful year as director of the IU-Purdue-OSU overseas study program at the University of Hamburg. 1997-98 was the three universities' last year in Hamburg. Beginning in August 1998, the consortium will offer a new study abroad year at the University of Freiburg. Once again the Department's graduate and undergraduate students put on memorable theater production, this time of Friedrich Drrenmatt's Der Besuch der alten Dame. Many thanks to all participants for an enjoyable event.

In the Autumn Quarter the Department will begin a search for the Ohio Eminent Scholar in German Studies, a position that has been permanently endowed with funds from the Ohio Eminent Scholars program and the Ohio State University. Additional hires are expected in the following year--and none too soon, as there lies much work ahead of us. The reform of our undergraduate program will enter into a decisive phase this coming year, followed by the development of culture-studies courses on the graduate level. We will continue to put much of our resources into preparing our Individualized Instruction Program and selected classroom courses for interactive multi-media applications. As we gear up for our move to the cutting-edge technological environment that is currently being developed for the University's new Hall of Languages, Hagerty Hall, more and more courses will be scrutinized for implementing innovative technology assisted teaching methods.

For further details on the past year, I invite you to read the following pages and recommend that you also visit our Web site: www.germanic.ohio-state.edu.

Bernd Fischer

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Feature Notes from an Emerita

--Gisela Vitt

So, what's life like, when you retire after having served on the German Department Faculty for more than 28 years? I could not have told you in 1992--the year I retired--what my expectations were. Because you have to live the "new condition" for a while before some sort of style develops, or before you get a genuine sense for that greatly altered existence. And, of course, the process is different for every retiring person. But now I don't mind sharing some of my thoughts and activities with the readers of our Newsletter, quite of few of whom have probably known me--and I them--many years ago.

The question I was asked most frequently in 1992, and which I found most difficult to react to, was: "well, what are your plans and projects going to be now?" I guess these people could not realize that the most basic state of mind I found myself in, contemplating retirement, was the relief and serenity of not having to plan or concoct projects... And that is exactly what I did for a while. I just absorbed ideas that came my way and contemplated the suggestions and stimulation that crossed my path, unhurriedly and without commitment. They filled me with a taste of liberating freedom and openness. And soon that openness would take on some structure. It eventually developed into specific projects--some more personal, some more professional--which I then began pursuing and have been ever since.

The first one is what I call the "Sister-Project." It is the personal version of a professional type of project. I have five sisters, and the six of us were born in Germany during singularly dismal times, between 1933 and 1944. The idea of facilitating the production of an oral history of these six women's recollection of their lives struck me as a personal way of reconnecting with my family's past, hoping that my sisters would share my feeling somehow. As it turned out, they did, each for different reasons, which is exactly as it should be. The first interview, conducted by a close friend, was my own, because I felt I first had to tell my own story, unencumbered, before hearing all of theirs. I conducted the other five interviews during visits to Germany. The arduous task of transcribing these interviews is taking considerable time and is still keeping me busy. The results so far are quite fascinating, revealing in very individualistic voices and narrative styles stories about family life during and after the war in places like Berlin, Freiburg, Frankfurt--with memories of fear, pain, deprivation, but also a good deal of joy.

Teaching was my vocation, and the arts have always been my delight. So I gladly accepted the invitation of the Wexner Center for the Arts to become a volunteer docent in their large and diverse educational program. The provocative architecture of Eisenmann's building has long fascinated me, and the contemporary art exhibited at the Center provides quite a challenge to a person whose own research interests were mostly among the arts of the 19th century. The diversity of our exhibits is only matched by the diversity of visitors: from elementary school students to senior citizens. This program represents the ideal kind of outreach program to the community which I have always felt universities should provide and support. The Center is pleased that I also conduct tours in German to OSU students, to German visitors and executives from Germany, and once even to a group of German parliamentarians from all 15 German States. It takes time and energy to go through training, about every three months, for new exhibits, but the experience is a teacher's dream in creative informality.

Already during my tenure at OSU I had served as Study Leader, or Lecturer, on several Smithsonian Study Tours to Germany and Austria. Now they offer me such tasks more often because I have more time. On these first-class trips to special sites--cities, rivers, country-sides--I give lectures on topics of my own choice that are intended to enrich the guests' experiences historically or artistically. In recent years I have lectured on at least six Smithsonian and OSU Alumni Tours. Aside from site-specific topics like Roman Culture on the Rhine, or Baroque Art in Austria, those seasoned travelers are also interested in political and social questions like German Nationalism or who are the Germans in Post-Unification-Germany?

When you look around, there are virtually countless volunteer opportunities, which give a teacher a chance to apply her experience. Like joining the Adult Literacy Council or other public school Reading Programs which provide individuals the help they need to improve vital reading skills. I am as busy as I want to be; however, in all these activities the essential difference from "work" lies in the fact that they are not a job but rather a choice.

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CONFERENCE REPORTS

Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation

--David Miller

From May 26-29 1998, a distinguished list of international scholars gathered in Krakw, Poland, for a conference on "Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation." The conference took place on the campus of the Jagiellonian University -- Poland's premier university -- and at the Jewish Cultural Center in Kazimierz (Kuzmir), historic center of Jewish life in Krakw. This was the among the largest Jewish Studies conferences in Central or Eastern Europe since the Holocaust and the largest anywhere devoted to the Ashkenazic Studies as a scholarly discipline. The conference featured a banquet that was strictly Kosher and was the largest kosher meal served in Krakw in decades. Rabbi Sacha Pecaric supervised the proceedings, which necessitated the purchase and kashering of dinner service for one hundred.

The importance of this scholarly gathering is reflected in the attention it gained from prominent political voices. Conference participants received greetings from President Bill Clinton, Ohio Governor George V. Voinovich, and Columbus Mayor Greg Lashutka, as well as Ohio State Interim President Sisson, College of Humanities Dean Kermit Hall, and the Rector of the Jagiellonian, A. Koj. The conference brought together over seventy scholars from some eighteen countries in North and South America; Western, Central, and Eastern Europe (the latter including Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Kazakhstan), and the Middle East (Israel and Turkey).

The participants in "Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation" represented many fields within Jewish Studies: literature, linguistics, history, philosophy, art history, architecture, folklore, anthropology, and even human genetics. The conference was path-breaking in that it integrated all these diverse fields of research into a single field -- that of Ashkenazic Studies. Ashkenazic Studies places the rich and varied studies of Central and Eastern European Jewry into the context of its historical European homeland, which the Jews call "Ashkenaz." Ohio State is at the forefront of a worldwide restructuring of Jewish Studies in which Ashkenaz is now being studied as a cultural, religious, and national whole.

"Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation" was sponsored jointly by the Yiddish and Ashkenazic Studies Program at The Ohio State University and the Institute of Sociology at the Jagiellonian University, with the support and co-sponsorship of numerous academic units at each university (including, at Ohio State, the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures). Conference co-coordinators were Professor David Neal Miller, Yiddish Program Director in Ohio State's Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and Dr. Annamaria Orla-Bukowska, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology at the Jagiellonian University. They benefited from the assistance of the Conference Committee members Professors Bernd Fischer, Dagmar C. G. Lorenz, Neil G. Jacobs, and Przemyslaw Piekarski.

Fourth Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (GLAC4)

--Neil Jacobs

The Department hosted the Fourth Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (GLAC4) at the Fawcett Center of The Ohio State University, April 17-19, 1998. GLAC4 was organized by GLL Professors Neil G. Jacobs, Gregor Hens, and Anna Grotans; Mr. Nikhil Sathe, a graduate student in GLL, served as conference coordinator. GLAC, the annual conference of the Society for Germanic Philology, has become the main conference in North America devoted to Germanic linguistics and philology. GLAC4 attracted a large number of participants, with over fifty refereed papers. In addition, there were four invited keynote speakers: Charles Fillmore (University of California, Berkeley), Hubert Haider (Universitt Salzburg), David Lightfoot (University of Maryland, College Park), and Peter Nelde (Katholieke Universiteit Brussel).

GLAC4 received conference support from the following sponsoring units at Ohio State: College of Humanities; Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures; Department of Linguistics; Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies; Foreign Language Center; Department of English; Melton Center for Jewish Studies; Department of History; Center for Cognitive Science. GLAC4 sponsors outside Ohio State included the following: The Max Kade Foundation; Nederlandse Taalunie; Austrian Cultural Institute; Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany (Detroit).

(Re)Presenting the Holocaust:

An Interdisciplinary Workshop and Colloquium for Graduate Students

--Nikhil Sathe

On February 15 and 16, 1998, the Ohio State Hillel Foundation hosted a conference organized by graduate students from our department: "(Re)Presenting the Holocaust: An Interdisciplinary Workshop and Colloquium for Graduate Students." The inspiration for the conference came from Professor Dagmar Lorenz, who encouraged the students of her seminar on the Holocaust in Literature and Film to organize a forum to present their class papers. As other graduate students became involved, the conference slowly began to take shape. The months prior to the conference were spent soliciting financial support, securing facilities and catering, and selecting participants from a large pool of submitted abstracts. Having anticipated only participation from Midwest students, the organizers were pleased to include presenters from across the country and Canada.

By all accounts, the conference was a great success. The events began with a screening and presentation of the East German/Bulgarian production Sterne. This was followed by presentations on pedagogical strategies on the Holocaust and a panel discussion featuring members of our faculty -- Professors Jacobs, Lorenz and Miller -- as well as Professor Alan Beyerchen from OSU's Department of History and Professor David Scrase from the University of Vermont's Department of German. The lively debates begun at this panel continued at the conference reception held later that evening at the Max Kade German House. On the second day of the conference a wide variety of papers were presented with topics ranging from historical debates and inquiries into the Holocaust to representations of the Holocaust in literature, film, visual art, and popular culture. In addition to organizing the conference, several of our graduate students presented papers and/or chaired individual conference sessions. With high attendance from the students and faculty of our department and the university community at large, the conference was a valuable opportunity for all participants to present their scholarship and exchange ideas.

Although a number of our graduate students collaborated in making "(Re)Presenting the Holocaust" happen, Jennifer William deserves particular commendation for her instrumental role in all aspects of planning and organization. Without her initiative and dedicated leadership, the conference would not have been such a successful and professional enterprise.

Panel Discussion on Victor Klemperer

On June 4, 1998, an international panel held an open forum on the recent publication of Victor Klemperer's Dresden Diaries, 1933-45. Andy Spencer provided those gathered biographical information about Klemperer, who was the son of a rabbi, cousin of conductor Otto Klemperer, First World War veteran, and Professor of Romance Languages at the Technical University of Dresden from 1920-1935. He survived the Nazi regime in part due to his marriage to the non-Jew Eva Schlemmer. Though she stood by him throughout the Third Reich, Klemperer was scheduled for "deportation" to a concentration camp, where he would certainly have been murdered. Ultimately, it was the Allied bombing of Dresden in February, 1945, that saved him from that fate. He published his acclaimed LTI. Language of the Third Reich in 1947 and again took up university posts in Dresden, Greifswald, Halle, and Berlin between 1945 and 1960.

When Klemperer's diaries chronicling the national-socialist years were published in Berlin's Aufbau Verlag in 1995, they became the publishing sensation of the post-wall era. For the first time the day-to-day ordeals of a Jewish intellectual during National Socialism were laid bare for all to see. Ren Strien, head of Aufbau Verlag, related the publication history of the diaries, sketched out the parameters of reception, and announced the impending publication of Klemperer Diaries in translation. Helen Fehervary, who organized the event, then read poignant passages from the 1933-45 diaries. The final panelist, Robert Holub, started a spirited discussion by pondering what meaning the publication and reception of these diaries at this time might have. The hotly contested question was whether the mechanism at work here is one of disarming a dangerous topic through empathy with an exemplary (near) victim, who aligns himself far more closely with the great German cultural tradition than with Jewishness, however defined. Though no conclusive answer to this question was provided, the Panel Discussion on Victor Klemperer's Dresden Diaries continued the vital tradition in OSU's Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures of seeking an understanding of German-Jewish relations in our century.

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Study Abroad in Germany

--Gregor Hens

After eight cold and rainy, yet exciting years in the northern German city of Hamburg, the Ohio State study-abroad program is moving its operations to Freiburg, capital of the Black Forest and site of one of Germany's most prestigious universities. As the long association with Hamburg University, which for our consortium partners Indiana University and Purdue University reaches back all the way to the 1960s, is coming to an end, a group of six Ohio State students is preparing to explore an area of cultural diversity, historical significance, and economic and political muscle in the south of Germany. The students will enroll at an institution that builds on a long tradition of academic excellence, while also aggressively carving out a new role for itself in a modern, European context.

Feelings of gratefulness prevailed over an initial sense of disappointment when this year's students realized that they would be the last ones to enjoy Hamburg and its surroundings. As resident director, I -- with the help of the students -- did my best to ensure that we would be remembered fondly by all the teachers, administrators, and friends of the program who assisted us for so many years. We wish to thank all those who accompanied the program in one way or another over the years.

Our group this year did not hesitate to embrace the city and the life it has to offer. They quickly mastered the complex public transportation system, with little help from their pedestrian program director. They enjoyed the cultural offerings of the city --which has two of the finest theaters in the country, as well as a brand new Museum of Modern Art--; they took advantage of a large offering of courses at the university, from "The History of Northern German Organ Building" to "Buddhism and Vegetarianism" to "The Pragmatics of Modern German", and they relaxed in the quaint atmosphere of the North Sea islands, even venturing on a lengthy mud-walk in the tidal areas of the North Friesian coast. Everyone in their own way found a way to relate to the culture and the people of Germany, and everyone returned with vastly improved linguistic skills. Three of the returnees are now living in the Max Kade German House, where they undoubtedly add a sense of authenticity and hopefully spark an interest in the study-abroad experience in their friends and peers.

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Departmental Lectures 1997-98

Two events deserve special mention at the outset of our report on visiting lectures from the last year. First, the Department is especially pleased to congratulate our own Professor Barbara Becker-Cantarino, who was named last year's University Distinguished Lecturer. She presented "The Witch: Fiction and Fact in Early Modern German Culture" as the University Distinguished Lecture.

Second, the Department helped sponsor a speaker series initiated by the College of Humanities Interdisciplinary Theory Group, "The Object of Study," which began in Winter 1998 and will continue through the coming academic year. In this series, scholars from different disciplines delivered public lectures on the shape and future of the Humanities from both institutional and intellectual viewpoints, and then joined in an informal roundtable discussion with students and faculty in their own field. Last year's speakers were editor of Social Text, Professor Bruce Robbins (English, Rutgers), Professor Victor Mair (East Asian, Penn), and Professor Robert Holub (German, UC Berkeley). Thanks to Rick Livingston of Comparative Studies for spearheading that initiative.

Once again, we benefited from the expertise of a slew of scholars and artists from other institutions, thanks in large part to the efforts of the Lecture Committee: Barbara Becker-Cantarino (Chair), Marilyn Blackwell, Helen Fehervary, Neil Jacobs, Yogini Joglekar,and Johanna Ries. During 1997-98 the Department was fortunate to welcome

Max Kade Visiting Professor Trude Ehlert (U of Wuerzburg), Germany, who delivered "Body Language and Gender Differences in Medieval German Literature and "Cookbooks in Medieval Germany: Their Transmission, their Intertextuality, and their Function";

Professor Matti Bunzl (Chicago), who spoke on "The Development of a New Jewish Intellectual Community in Vienna";

Max Kade Visiting Professor Jutta Osinski (Marburg),reading "berlegungen zur Sptromantik" and "Frhromantische Poetik: C.D. Friedrich und Ph.O. Runge";

Professor Barbara Bauer (Marburg), who deliberated on "Was ist Aufklrung? Bemerkungen zu Kant und Mendelssohn";

Professor Helen Watanabe O'Kelly (Oxford), who presented "Court Culture in Seventeenth-Century Dresden" (cosponsored by CMRS and DAAD;

Author Thomas Brussig, who read from his best-selling Wenderoman Helden wie wir at the Max-Kade German House, and discussed Wasserfarben in a seminar on post-Wall literature;

Jill Beppler (Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbttel), who took us "From Public Event to Publishing Event: Funerals and the Print Medium at the Courts of the Empire in the Early Modern Period" (Cosponsored by CMRS and DAAD; and,

Professor Robert Holub (UC Berkeley), who grilled up a storm, but also mused on "Nietzsche and Colonialism."

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News from the Faculty

Barbara Becker-Cantarino published reprint editions with an introduction of Sophie von La Roche's Mein Schreibetisch (1799) (Karben/FrankfurtPetra Wald Verlag, 1997); Briefe ber Mannheim (1791) (Karben/FrankfurtPetra Wald Verlag, 1997); and Tagebuch einer Reise durch Holland und England (Karben/FrankfurtPetra Wald Verlag, 1997). Her text edition of Sophie La Roche, Geschichte des Fruleins von Sternheim (1771) (Stuttgart: Reclam) originally published in 1983 was updated and re-issued in 1997. She published "Frauenzimmer Gesprchspiele. Geselligkeit, Frauen und Literatur," Geselligkeit und Gesellschaft im Barockzeitalter. Ed. Wolfgang Adam. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1997) 17-41; "'O Komdiantinnen, ich htte euch doch kennen sollen!' Weiblichkeitsentwrfe und Frauen in Lessings Dramen," 35. und 36. Kamenzer Lessing-Tage, Ed. Dieter Fratzke(Lessing-Museum, Kamenz. 1997) 33-60; "'Die edlen Rosen leben so kurtze Zeit.' Zur Rosen-Metaphorik bei Gryphius, Gngora und den Quellen," Studien zur Literatur des 17. Jahrhunderts, Ed. Hans Fege, (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997): 11-33; and "Schriftstellerinnen und ihre Texte: Zur Bedeutung der Edition in der literarhistorischen Frauenforschung," Die Funktion von Editionen in Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft, Ed. Hans-Gert Roloff(Berlin: Weidler) 277-302. She also published the entry "Sophie von La Roche (1730-1807)" in Women Writers in German Speaking Countries. Ed. Elke Frederiksen (Greenwood Press. 20 pp); and the essay (assisted by Gregory Wolf) "Caroline Pichler (1769-1843)" Major Figures of Nineteenth-Century Austrian Literature, Ed. Donald Daviau, (Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press) 417-435. She published a review essay of Uta Fleischmann, Zwischen Aufbruch und Anpassung. Untersuchungen zu Werk und Leben der Sophie Mereau, (Frankfurt a. M.: Lang, 1989); Katharina von Hammerstein, Sophie Mereau-Brentano: Freiheit - Liebe - Weiblichkeit. Trikolore sozialer und individueller Selbstbestimmung um 1800, (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1994); Gisela Schwarz, Literarisches Leben und Sozialstrukturen um 1800. Zur Situation von Schriftstellerinnen am Beispiel von Sophie Brentano-Mereau geb. Schubart, (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 1991); and, Sophie Mereau, Amanda und Eduard. Ein Roman in Briefen, herausgegeben und mit einem Nachwort versehen von Bettina Bremer und Angelika Schneider, (Freiburg: Kore Verlag, 1993), in Jahrbuch fr Internationale Germanistik 28,2 (1996), 170-73. She also reviewed Sigrid Lange, Spiegelgeschichten. Geschlechter und Poetiken in der Frauenliteratur um 1800, (Fankfurt:Ulrike Helmer Verlag, 1995) in The German Quarterly 70, 3 (1997): 300-301; Margrit Langner, Sophie von La Roche - die empfindsame Realistin, (Heidelberg: Universittsverlag C.Winter, 1995) and Gudrun Loster-Schneider, Sophie La Roche. Paradoxien weiblichen Schreibens im 18. Jahrhundert, (TbingenGunter Narr Verlag, 1995) in The German Quarterly 70, 4 (1997): 415-16; Elisabeth Bronfen (ed.), Die schne Seele. Erzhltexte von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich von Kleist, E.T.A. Hoffmann und anderen, (Munich: Goldmann , 1992); and Robert E. Norton, The Beautiful Soul: Aesthetic Morality in the Eighteenth Century, (Ithaca,: Cornell UP, 1995) in Colloquia Germanica 30,2 (1977): 192-94. She presented the following invited lectures in Germany: "Autorinnen, LeserInnen und Editionen," at the Ringvorlesung: Die Funktion von Editionen in Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft, Free University of Berlin, June 1997; "Renaissance oder Reformation? Zur Literarisierung der Frauen im Zeitraum der Mittleren Deutschen Literatur," at the conference Das Berliner Modell der Mittleren Deutschen Literatur, Kloster Zinna/Berlin, September, 1997; "Opitz, der Dreiigjhrige Krieg und die Frage der Gewalt," at the international conference 400 Jahre Martin Opitz, Grlitz, Germany, October, 1997. She presented a keynote lecture, "The Witches' Sabbath in Early Modern German Culture," at the conference "Constructing Publics: Cultures of Communication in Early Modern German Lands" at Duke University. In June 1997 she served as a host and lecturer for Legacies of Learning, an OSU Alumni Tour to Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany and she lectured on "The Age of the Baroque"; "We are the People: The Unification of Germany"; "The Wall in my Backyard: Divided Berlin." In 1997 she received the Ohio State University Distinguished Lecture Award and in November, 1997 she presented "The Witch: Fiction and Fact in Early Modern German Culture." At the German Studies Association in Washington, September 1997, she served as respondent to three papers on German national identity. She served as co-organizer and chair of the session "Imaging Women in Cultural Production in Early Modern Germany" at MLA in Toronto, Dec. 1977. She has been appointed to a three-year term with the Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession of the Modern Language Association. In the fall of 1998 she will be on leave with a Fulbright Senior Research Award and will do research in Dresden and Berlin on her study "The Culture of Violence in Early Modern Germany."

Hugo Bekker has concluded his work on Paul Celan and recently completed a novel.

Marilyn Johns Blackwell has this spring been awarded the Vorman-Anderson Professorship of Nordic Languages and Literatures by the university. She has also in a separate action been promoted to the rank of full professor. Her research activities this year have concentrated on a new book project, "Spectatorship and Spectatcle in the Dramas of August Strindberg." She gave a paper on "Set Design in Miss Julie: The Complicit Spectator" at the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study in May in Tempe, Arizona and continues her extensive work in faculty governance.

Kathryn A. Corl is co-principal investigator with Diane W. Birckbichler, OSU Foreign Language Center, of a 3-year project, "Articulation and Authentic Assessment: A Multimedia Computer-Adaptive Proficiency Test." The project, in its third year of funding in 1998, is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education. This spring, Corl and Birckbichler were awarded an Instructional Innovation Grant from OSU's University Technology Services for development of the listening subtests of the MultiCAT project. Corl was also awarded a Faculty Innovator Grant from OSU's University Technology Services to develop a Web site for distribution of audio course materials for German 101-103. She received an Outstanding Faculty/Staff Award from the Sphinx and Mortarboard Honoraries in Spring 1997. For the academic year 1997-98 she served as Director of the Department's Individualized Instruction Program and began a project with Graduate Associate Andrea Herzog to revise and update the individualized instructional materials for German 101-103. Together with Donna van Handle (Mt. Holyoke College) she published "Extending the Dialogue: Using Electronic Mail and the Internet to Promote Conversation and Writing in Intermediate-Level German Language Courses" The Calico Journal 15 (1998) 129-143, and she served as associate editor of the 1997-98 Central States Report, Celebrating Diversity in the Language Classroom, published by National Textbook Company. She presented "Evaluating Graduate Teaching Associates," on a panel "Assessing the Effectiveness of Foreign Language Programs: A Range of Evaluative Frameworks" (with Diane Birckbichler and Galal Walker), MLA, Toronto, December, 1997; "Concerns of the Profession: Assessments for the German Language" (panel member and session chair, with Ulrike Arendt and Dorry Kenyon) AATG, Nashville, November 1997; "Assessments for Decision-Making: The MultiCAT Computer-Adaptive Tests" (with Diane Birckbichler) American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Nashville, TN, November, 1997 ; "Foreign Language Study on Demand: A Technology-Based Model" Conference Presentation, (with Mari Noda and Galal Walker), Educom '97, Minneapolis, MN, October, 1997. She continued her work on the AATG National Testing Commission and the AATG/Goethe/Institut Distance Learning Project "Going the Distance."

John E. Davidson awaits the publication of his book, Deterritorializing the New German Cinema (Minneapolis: U Minn Press, Nov. 1998) and the forthcoming articles "Like a Deadman Walking in Chinatown: How the Essay Views Ecological Issues in Contemporary Culture" in Water: The Renewable Metaphor, ed. Susan Anderson, and "Working for the Man, Whoever That May Be: The Vocation of Wolfgang Liebeneiner," in Cultural History through a National Socialist Lens ed. Robert Reimer (Camden House). His review of Thomas J. Saunders Hollywood in Berlin: American Cinema and Weimar Germany (Berkeley: UC Press, 1995) will appear in German Studies Review (Feb. 1998). Last year saw the publication of his article "Overcoming the Past(s) in German Film since the Wende," Seminar 33.4 (Nov. 1997): 307-21"; his review of "Arlene A. Teraoka's East, West, and Others: The Third World in Postwar German Literature," in Modern Fiction Studies (Summer 1998): 467-70; and his encyclopedia entry on "Uwe Johnson" in Modern Germany: An Encyclopedia of History, People, and Culture, 1871-1990 (NY: Garland, 1998): 529. He was invited to deliver the following lectures: "'You know which side of the border you're on?': From Paris, Texas to the Present in German Film" Vassar College, April 1998; and "Money Makes the 'Welt' Go Around: Genre Cinema and German Films of the '90s," Denison University, December 1997. He presented "Echoes of THE Somber Reich: Mirrors and Music in Wolfgang Liebeneiner's Die Strkere," at the 11th Hollins Colloquium on German Film, Hollins College, April 1998, and "Watching the River Flow: On Representing Ecological Problems in Contemporary Films," at the Symposium "Water: Ecological Questions and Cultural Represenations," University of Oregon, October 1997. He was the proud recipient of the "Germanic Languages and Literatures Nice-Guy Award" presented by an ad hoc Staff committee in June, 1998.

Helen Fehervary co-edited, with David Bathrick, New German Critique: Special Issue on Heiner Mller, 73 (Winter 1998), 192 pp. She published: "Landscapes of an Auftrag," NGC Special Issue on Heiner Mller, 115-132; and "Response to Jost Hermand:'Looking Back at Heiner Mller,'" Contentious Memories: Looking Back at the GDR, eds. Jost Hermand and Marc Silberman (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), 163-167. She presented "Mannerism, Modernism, Mller: For Tintoretto I'd throw out all of Expressionism." International Conference: "Der Fall Heiner Mller: Probleme und Perspektiven," University of Bath, England (7-10 September 1998); organized and moderated the panel discussion "Victor Klemperer's Dresden Diaries, 1933-45: A Rediscovered Depiction of Everyday Jewish Life in Nazi Germany." Ohio State University (4 June 1998). She has been named General Editor of Anna Seghers: Werke. Textkritisch durchgesehene, kommentierte Werkausgabe in 21 Bnden (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2000ff.)

Bernd Fischer published "Peace in the Future Perfect: Novalis' Die Christenheit oder Europa," The Poetics of Memory, Ed. Thomas Wgenbaur (Tbingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1998); "Nations- und Revolutionsbegriffe in B. Traven's Land des Frhlings," B. Traven - The Writer, Ed. Jrg Thunecke (Nottingham: Sherwood Press, 1998); "The Memory of Multiculturalism and the Politics of Identity," Transforming the Center, Eroding the Margins: Essays on Ethnic and Cultural Boundaries in German-Speaking Countries, Ed. Dagmar Lorenz and Renate Posthofen (Columbia: Camden House, 1998) 163-68; "Towards a Constructivist Epistemology: Johann Gottfried Herder and Humberto Maturana," The European Legacy 2 (1997): 304-308; "Christoph Hein Horns Ende," "Christoph Hein Der fremde Freund/Drachenblut," and "Christoph Hein Der Tangospieler," Reclams Romanlexikon: Deutschsprachige Prosa vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, Ed. Frank R. Max, Christine Ruhrberg (Stuttgart: Reclam 1997). He presented "Eine Nation in der Nation? Jdische Emanzipation und der Nationenbegriff der Aufklrung," Universitt Marburg, Germany, 14 July 1998; "A State Within a State? Enlightenment Theories of Nationhood and Jewish Emancipation," at "Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation" Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, 28 May 1998; "German National Identity: Eighteenth-Century Literature and Twentieth-Century Theories," Michigan State University, Lansing, MI, 20 Mar. 1998; "Nationale Intentionalitten in prmoderner Literatur und postmoderner Theorie," Johannes Gutenberg-Universitt Mainz, Germany, 13 Nov. 1997; and, "Achim von Arnims zeitpolitisches Programm um 1810," German Studies Association, Annual Conference, Washington, DC, 26 Sept. 1997. He continues to edit The German Quarterly, published by the American Association of Teachers of German, together with Dagmar Lorenz. He received a Research Fellowship at the Humboldt Universitt, Berlin, July 1998.

Anna Grotans spent the 1997/98 academic year on a Fulbright Junior Researcher Fellowship in Munich completing her book manuscript Reading in Medieval St. Gall. She was awarded a Grant-in-Aid to attend the International Medieval Latin Congress in Cambridge, England in September. She published "Sih dir selbo lector: Cues for Reading in Tenth- and Eleventh-Century St. Gall," Scriptorium 51.2 (1997): 251-302, and has the following articles forthcoming: "Utraque lingua -- Deutschunterricht in Notkers St. Gallen," forthcoming in Theodisca. Ergnzungsband zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Wolfgang Haubrichs, Ernst Hellgardt and Reiner Hildebrandt, eds. (Berlin: de Gruyter); and, "Simplifying Latin in Notker's Classroom: Tradition and Innovation," American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures. She reviewed Evelyn S. Firchow, ed., Notker der Deutsche, De interpretatione, German Quarterly (fall 1997): 407-409; Ursula Schaefer, ed.,Schriftlichkeit im frhen Mittelatler, JEGP 96.1(1997): 78-80; and, Martin Irvine, Making of Textual Culture, Arbitrium 3 (1997): 298-300.

Gregor Hens published "Constructional Semantics in German: The Dative of Inaction," American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures 9.2 (1997): 191-218. His review of Hammer's German Grammar and Usage (2nd ed. Rev. by Martin Durrell. Chicago: NTC Publishing Group, 1995) appeared in Modern Language Journal 81 (1997): 425-6. During the last year, he has also worked to extend the scope of his research on Thomas Bernhard, which is now his priority project. He served as Resident Director of the Indiana-Purdue-Ohio State Study Abroad Program, and he co-organized the Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (GLAC 4) at Ohio State in April 1998. He continues to serve as co-editor of the Society of Germanic Philology Newsletter.

Neil G. Jacobs has had accepted an edited collection of essays "Studies in Jewish Geography," to appear in Autumn 1998 as a Special Issue of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. This collection will include an editor's essay "A field of Jewish geography." He published an article "On the Investigation of 1920s Vienna Jewish Speech Ideology and Linguistics," American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures, 82: 177-217, and a review of Patrick Stevenson (ed.), The German Language and the Real World: Sociolinguistic, Cultural, and Pragmatic Perspectives on Contemporary German (Oxford: Clarendon Press,.1997), in Language and Society 262 (June 1997): 307-310. He gave the following conference presentations: "Soire bei Kohn Hermann Leopoldi's sterreichbild and Austria's Leopoldibild" presented at the 12th Annual Symposium on Austrian Literature and Culture, University of California, Riverside April 17-19, 1997; "Reconstructing Jewish Dutch Characteristics and Conceptual Framework" (with Frans Hinskens), presented at the Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference, April 25-27, 1997, UCLA; "Jewish Dutch: Reconstructing an Obsolete Ethnolect" (with Frans Hinskens), . New Ways of Analyzing Variation ('NWAVE') # 26, Universite' Laval, Quebec City, Oct. 23-26, 1997; "On the Interaction of Jewish and Non-Jewish Geography: Ashkenaz and the Baltic Rim," at the Association of American Geographers 94th Annual Meeting, 25-29 March 1998, Boston, Massachusetts; and, "The Map of Ashkenaz: Evolution, Approaches, Problems" at the conference "Ashkenaz Theory and Nation", May 26-29, 1998, Krakow, Poland. He coorganized (with GLL colleagues Anna Grotans and Gregor Hens) the Fourth Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (GLAC4), held April 17-19, 1998, at Ohio State. He served on the organizing committee of the conference "Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation", held at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, May 26-29, 1998. He gave an invited talk, "Claiming Ashkenaz," at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, April 7, 1997. He served as Scholar-in-Residence at the Sholem Aleichem Institute Annual Retreat, Tamarack, Michigan, May 1997.

David Miller was Co-coordinator of the international conference on Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation (Krakow, Poland), May 1998, where he also presented the paper "Reconquering Canaan: Ashkenaz in America." He was a panelist in a roundtable on "Teaching the Holocaust" at "(Re)Presenting the Holocaust," Ohio State University, Feb. 1998. He served as a Co-chair of the Academic Senate Diversity Committee at OSU, and as Secretary (1997) and Chair (1998) of the MLA Discussion Group on Yiddish Literature.

Linda Haverty Rugg translated Room Service: Tales of Eastern Europe (NY: The New Press, 1998), an award-winning collection of essays on pre-1989 Eastern Europe by Richard Swartz, long-time Eastern European correspondent for Svenska Dagbladet. She also translated seven essays from a collection entitled Zig Zag by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, due to appear with The New Press in the fall of 1998. In May of 1998, Rugg delivered a talk entitled "Writing on the Body: The Mark of Cain in Strindberg's Till Damaskus" at the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study in Tempe, Arizona. During the fall of 1998, Rugg will be serving as a Visiting Associate Professor of Scandinavian at the University of California, Berkeley.

Harry Vredeveld published "Helius Eobanus Hessus" in Dictionary of Literary Biography 179: German Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation 1280--1580, ed. James Hardin and Max Reinhart (Detroit, 1997) 97--110; and "Materials for a New Commentary to Sebastan Brant's Narrenschiff," Daphnis 26 (1997) 553--651. He also read "Sebastian Brant: A Humanist at Sea in the Narrenschiff?" at the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association Annual Conference, Banff, Alberta, in May 1997.

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Graduate Student News

Degrees

MA: Patricia Feise; Kristin Zeier (Spring 1998)

PhD: Elizabeth Hamilton, "Disabling Discourses in German Literature from Lessing to Grass" (Spring 1998);

Agnes Risko, "Gott zu Ehren, dem Neben-Christen zum Nutz: Anna Elisabeth Horenburg's Manual for Midwives (1700)" (Spring 1998)

Awards and Honors

Humanities Alumni Society Outstanding Graduate Student Award:

    Elizabeth Lntz

Graduate Student Departmental Research Paper Award:

    Folke-Christine Mller-Sahling

Graduate Student Departmental Service Award:

    Stephanie Libbon, Nikhil Sathe, Jennifer William

Graduate Associate Teaching Award:

    Blake Peters

Goethe Institut's Zentrale Mittelstufenprfung:

    Kristin Astle, Kristina Camp, Yevgeniya Ioselivich, Johanna Ries, Patricia Spinner

Dissertation Fellowships:

    Cindy Chalupa, Stephanie Libbon

 

FLAS Fellowships:

    Colleen H. McCallum, Jason Payne, Kate Vestich

Study Abroad Awards, 1998-99:

    Nikhil Sathe (Universitt Bonn Exchange Program)

    Folke-Christine Mller-Sahling (Universitt Humboldt Exchange Program; Summer Travel Grant)

Karen Logue (Universitt Mnchen Exchange Program)

Publications and Presentations

Stephanie Libbon presented "The Search for Self in Kleist's Penthesilea" in February at the University of Kansas' Second Annual Graduate Student Colloquium; "Frank Wedekind: Progressive Feminist or Patriarchal Pimp?" at the 51st Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, which will be published in expanded form in The Prostitute in German Literature, ed. Christiane Schoenfeld (forthcoming from Lang). In conjunction with Christine Moeller-Sahling she organized a graduate student forum in which recipients of last year's dissertation fellowships presented the progress of their research. She served ably on the Department's Assistant Professor Search Committee and was co-recipient of the Departmental Service Award. She received a dissertation fellowship for Summer 1998.

Elizabeth Lntz presented "' Palestine is Golus and Diaspora': Anti-Zionism in Bertha Pappenheim's Literary Work," Western Jewish Studies Association Conference, University of Judaism; and, "Bertha Pappenheim ('Anna O.') on Yiddish: Between Nostalgia and Denial," Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation, Jagiellonian University, Krakw, Poland. She also gave the closing remarks at the conference "(Re)Presenting the Holocaust" at OSU. She was awarded the Outstanding Student Award of the College of Humanities and was elected to the office of Secretary of the Council of Graduate Students.

Folke-Christine Mller-Sahling presented a paper on Gertrud Kolmar at our "(Re)Presenting the Holocaust Conference" in February 1998. She received the Departmental Graduate Student Research Paper Award 1997-98 for her work on Christine de Pizan, as well as a Graduate Student Research Travel Grant from International Studies for pre-Dissertation Research on the Emkendorf Circle in Schleswig-Holstein. She will spend the next academic year at the Humboldt University in Berlin with the Departmental Fellowship.

Joseph Moser presented two papers last year: "Survival amongst the 'first victims': Surviving the Holocaust in Austria" at the graduate student colloquium (Re)Presenting the Holocaust,Feb. 15-16, 1998; and "Survival among the 'first victims': Surviving the Holocaust in Austria from the Perspective of New Jewish Austrian Writers" at the Thirteenth Annual Symposium on Austrian Literature and Culture at the University of California at Riverside, April 16-18, 1998.

Jason Payne received a FLAS fellowship for Summer Quarter 1998 from the Slavic Center, and has received one for 1998-99 to study Polish. He also presented papers at the German graduate student conference at OSU, the MLA in Toronto, and "Ashkenaz: Theory and Nation" in Krakw. He published an article in the summer 1997 issue of Slavic Almanach.

Nikhil Sathe presented "Identity and the Past in Anita Desai's Baumgartner's Bombay" at the "(Re)Presenting the Holocaust," OSU, February 1998. He was awarded a Seidlin Fellowship and was co-recipient of the Graduate Student Service Award. He also joined the prestigious Pi Kappa Phi Honor Society.

Kate Vestich presented a paper entitled "The Saga of Sigurd the Silent: Profile of an Original Riddarasaga" at the 33rd Kalamazoo International Medieval Conference in Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 1998.

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Undergraduate Student News

Degrees

Graduates in 1997-98

    Nathan Bach, Jennifer Rumora, Kory Gulley, Janice Hegemier, Christopher Heiby, Charlotte Herbert, Timothy Kirk, David Kleinberg, Matthew Korte, Chad Lewis, David Sray

Awards and Honors

Dean's List:

    Kathryn Baltes, Emily Black

Diane M. Cummins Scholarship for Outstanding Achievement in Yiddish Studies:

    Aris Rosh

Dieter Cunz Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Student:

    Karen Logue

Fulbright Fellowship:

    David Kleinberg

Honors Thesis:

    David Sray -- "The Search for Justice within Twentieth-Century German Drama"

Ilsedore Edse Scholarship Award:

    Angela Dawn Kissner

Goethe Institut's Zertifikat Deutsch als Fremdsprache:

    Karen Logue

Goethe Institut's Zentrale Mittelstufenprfung:

    Kenneth Simcox, David Kleinberg

National Merit Scholars:

    David Kleinberg, Alexander Marcus

Office of International Education Grants:

    Anwyn Erikson, Heath Hughes, Jason Yalen, Justin Zeefe

Office of International Studies Grants for Study Abroad:

    Kelly Copley, Nicole Davis, Adrienne Keeves, Heather Marker

University Scholarships:

    Dagfin Senturia

Dresden Summer Program

The following students participated in our Dresden Summer Program. We were able to procure Max Kade Fellowships of between $300 and $1800 for all participants who applied for them (16 of 17!). Thanks to Visiting Professor Andy Spencer for coordinating the program, with the help of Teaching Associates Yogini Joglekar and Jennifer William.

Kristen Convery, Jill Eft, Jill Guzdanski, Bob James, Adrienne Keeves, Renee Lambert, Darby Mahan, Heather Marker, Jim McJunkins, John Nees, Adam Polhamus, Carol Schmidt, Chuck Schreiner, Bart Snapp, Cheryl Stockman, Justin Zeefe

Activities and Opportunities

The Max Kade German House offers nine undergraduate students the chance to live and learn in a friendly, German-language environment. Native speakers and Resident Director Kristina Camp help ensure the quality of both the spoken German and the camaraderie at the House. This unique housing opportunity is open to students who have successfully completed German 201. Applications for next year will be taken in Winter 1999.

The German Club is a member-oriented society whose main interests are to offer a socially enjoyable, yet educational opportunity to speak German and to learn more about German history, culture, and life. The membership is diverse, consisting of graduate and undergraduate students studying German, native German speakers, and other individuals from the community interested in German. One does not need to speak German to attend, but German conversation is encouraged in this informal setting.

Kaffeestunde, hosted by both faculty members and graduate students, has become something of an institution around Cunz Hall. Once per week anyone interested has an opportunity to practice German conversation with students and faculty, while enjoying coffee, tea, and refreshments provided by the department. The first Kaffeestunde in every month is held at the Max Kade German House, 141 W. 11th St.

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Alumnae/i News

Jennifer Cushman (Ph.D. 1996) has returned from her tour of duty with the Peace Corps and has taken a tenure-track job at the University of Minnesota at Morris.

Garry Fourman (M.A. 1982), is Chair of the Foreign Language Department at Columbus State University.

Elizabeth Hamilton (Ph.D. 1998) presented "Disability Studies and American German Studies: An Intersection of Disciplines" at the Ohio State University Colloquium "Enabling the Humanities: Disability Studies and Higher Education" (April 1998), for which she also served as disability-access coordinator. Hamilton was elected to the Executive Committee of the MLA Disability Studies Discussion Group (December 1997) She is currently teaching German at Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school near Philadelphia.

Dave Limburg (Ph.D. 1992), Assistant Professor at Guilford College, reviewed Lernen leichter machen. Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Ute Rampillon. Modern Language Journal, Spring 1997: 132-3. He was faculty leader for the Guilford College semester abroad program in Munich, Fall 1996; and passed his four-year review, the second of three evaluation years in the tenure process.

Barbara Mabee (Ph.D. 1988), Associate Professor of German, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, published "The Wall as a Kafkaesque Symbol: Helga Schubert's Das verbotene Zimmer," Neophilologus 80.4 (October l996): 599-612; "Footprints Revisited or 'Life in the Changed Space that I don't Know': Elke Erb's Poetry Since l989," Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 21.1 (Winter l997): 161-185; and "Sarah Kirsch (l935-) Germany," Women Writers in German Speaking Counries (Westport: Greenwood, l998) 244-253. With Jack Moeller, Helmut Liedloff, and Winnifred R. Adolph she co-auithored Kaleidoskop. Kultur, Literatur und Grammatik 5th edition. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, l998). She wrote the following entries for The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature (Westport: Greenwood, l997): "Doubles, Female,"pp.97-98; "Droste-Hlshoff, Annette von (1797-1848)" pp. 101-103; "Fairy Tale," pp.140-141; "Fantastic Literature," pp. 147-148; "Gruppe 47 (l947-1967)" pp. 224-225; "Infanticide," pp. 258-259; "Morgner, Irmtraud (l933-1990)" pp.330-331; "Socialist Realism," pp. 488-490 ; "Subjective Authenticity," pp. 501-502; and "Witch," pp. 564-565.m Mabee co-translated, with Joan Moessner, 20 poems by Elke Erb, interspersed in her text "Fundamentally Grounded." Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 21.1 (l997): 187-218. She reviewed Tamara Felden, Frauen Reisen. Zur literarischen Reprsentation weiblicher Geschlechterrollenerfahrung im 19. Jahrhundert (New York: Lang, l993) In German Quarterly 69.3 (l996): 354-355;

Nelly Sachs, Neue Interpretationen. Mit Briefen und Erluterungen der Autorin zu ihren Gedichten im Anhang. Ed. Michael Kessler and Jrgen Wertheimer (Tbingen: Stauffenberg Colloquium, l994) in Colloquia Germanica 29.1 (l966): 90-92. Mabee presented "Tone, Playful Linguistic Strategies and Loyalty to the Texts: Translating Elke Erb and Sarah Kirsch," MLA, Washington, D.C., Dec. 27-30, l996; "Linguistically Playful Strategies (De)construction/ Destabilization of Meanings: Elke Erb's Poetry and Her Reading of Barthes, Foucault, and Bataille in the l980's," Fifth Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI), Utrecht, The Netherlands, August 19-24, l996; "The Female Double in Droste Hlshoff's Poetry: 'Drin seltsam spielt ein Doppellicht,'" GSA, Washington, D.C., Sept. 25-27, l997; and, "The Uncanny, Nocturnal 'Doppeltgnger' in Annette von Droste-Hlshoff's Poetry: The Problematics of Poetic Self-defintion in Nineteenth Century Women Writers," Nineteenth International Conference of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, March 18-21, l998.

N. Ann Rider (Ph.D. 1992) has been granted tenure and promoted to associate professor of German with secondary appointment in Women's Studies at Indiana State University.

Ester Riehl presented "Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's Bozena: A Czech Maid and the Future of Austria" at the Austrian Studies Symposium, University of California, Riverside; and "Motherhood and Morality in Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's Bozena" First German Women's Movement: Concepts and Conflicts in German Literature and Culture, The Ohio State University, May 1997.

Agnes Risko (Ph.D. 1998) has accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor in Germanic Languages and Literatures at OSU.

Andy Spencer (Ph.D. 1992) has forthcoming the translation of Alexander Kluge, "It's an Error that the Dead are Dead," New German Critique 73, Heiner Muller Special, (Fall 1998) and the article "Die Zerstoerung Dresdens: Symbol und Ereignis in Publizistik und Historiographie," in Die Zerstrung Dresdens am 13/14 Februar 1945: Antworten der Knste, Ed. Reiner Pommerin and Walter Schmitz (Bhlau Verlag). He presented "Heiner Mller and Einstrzende Neubauten: Hamletmaschine as Radio Play," at "Der Fall Heiner Mller: Probleme und Perspektive," Bath University, England, September, 1998. He served as a discussant on the Panel on Victor Klemperer's Dresden Diaries 1933-45, OSU, June 1998. He held the post of Visiting Assistant Professor in Germanic Languages and Literatures in 1997-8 and Resident Director of the our Dresden Summer Abroad Program, 1998. He is acting as Visiting Assistant Professor again in the present academic year and is, by his own admission, a terribly amiable fellow.

Amy Kepple Strawser (Ph.D. 1991), Visiting Assistant Professor at Ohio Wesleyan University (1997-98) and Ohio Dominican College (Spring 1997-99), translated Holger Teschke, "Heiner Mller, For Instance," in New German Critique (Winter 1998). She presented "Catalysts for Change: Women Poets Breaking Ground from the 50's to the 90's," at the 10th Annual Women's Conference, Kent State Salem. April 1998.

Gregory Wolf presented "'Cowardice, or the Devil Made Him Do It': Suicide in the Cultural Context of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," Group for Early Modern Culture Studies Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, Sept. 1996; and "Lessing's Reception of Shaftesbury and his Rejection of Enthusiasm," Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, Lexington, Apr. 1997. He organized "Germany in Black and White," a photography exhibit by Dan Maynor in the Max Kade German House. He accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor at Michigan State University for the 1997-98 academic year.

Karin Wurst (Ph.D. 1984), Associate Professor at Michigan State University, edited and introduced Eleonore Thon's "Adelheit von Rastenberg." Texts and Translation Series. New York: MLA, 1996. She published "Brgerliches Trauerspiel"; and "Epistolary Culture/Epistolary Novel" in The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature. Eds. Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1997); "Spuren-sicherung: Elise Brgers Einakter Die Antike Statue aus Florenz (1814) als Beispiel dramatischer Experimente an der Jahrhundertwende" Goethe Yearbook VIII (1996): 210-237; "Negotiations of Containment: The "Trivial" Tradition and Elise Brgers's 'Adelheit, Grfinn von Teck' (1799)" Thalia's Daughters. German Women Dramatists From the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Eds. Susan Cocalis, Ferrel Rose (Tbingen: Franke, 1996): 35-51; "Der gekreuzigte Prometheus. J.M.R. Lenz: Wirkungsgeschichte in Literaturwissenschaft und Kritik" Ich aber werde dunkel sein. Ein Buch zur Ausstellung J.M.R. Lenz Hrsg. Ulrich Kauffmann et al. (Jena: Bussert, 1996): 109-116. She reviewed Volker Demuth, Realitt als Geschichte. Biographie, Historie und Dichtung bei J.M.R. Lenz. Monatshefte 89.1 (1997): 93-95; Daniel Wilson and Robert Holub, Impure Reason. Dialectic of Enlightenment in Germany, Colloquia Germanica 29.2 (1996): 165-167; Gnther Sae, Liebe und Ehe, Colloquia Germanica 29.1 (1996): 63-64. She presented "The Foremothers of the First Feminist Movement," Ohio State University, May 1997; "Fashion and the Fashion Journal in Late Eighteenth-Century Culture: Bertuch's Journal des Luxus und der Moden," Midwest Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies, Indianapolis, Oct. 1996; "Elise Brger and the Gothic Imagination," German Studies Association, Seattle, Oct. 1996. She is currently acting as the Book Review Editor for German Quarterly.