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Department Newsletter
Autumn 2000
Editor: Professor Kai Hammermeister
TABLE OF CONTENTS- Letter from the Acting Chair.
- New Faculty Members.
- News from the Staff.
- Conference Report.
- An Outdoor Event.
- Lectures 1999/2000.
- News from the Faculty.
- Graduate Student News.
- Undergraduate Student News.
LETTER FROM THE ACTING CHAIR
Greetings!The academic year 1999-2000 was a memorable and successful one for the department. Our undergraduate enrolments continue to rack up sizable gains, our graduates are being placed in tenure-track positions, and after several years of retirements and departures, our faculty is once more increasing in number.
The department is delighted to welcome three new faculty members this autumn. Alexander Stephan has accepted the endowed position of Ohio Eminent Scholar in German; Paul Reitter joins us as Assistant Professor and Benjamin Robinson as Visiting Assistant Professor. We are currently searching for a senior colleague (associate or full) in post-1750 German literature and culture. Please check the MLA Job Information List or our web site for details. This autumn Helmut Schneider is in our midst as the Departments Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor. Jochen Vogt will follow him in that role during the winter quarter.
Three of our newly-minted PhDs landed academic positions last year: Elizabeth Hamilton and Elizabeth Loentz accepted tenure-track positions at Oberlin College and the University of Illinois at Chicago, respectively; and Stephanie Libbon accepted a position as Assistant Professor at Allegheny College. To all three we extend our heartiest congratulations and best wishes.
I am equally happy to report that Bernd Fischer has decided to stay on for a second four-year term as chair of the department. We shall all be glad to have him back in the Chairs office this winter, once he has completed his well-deserved quarter off.
Harry Vredeveld
NEW FACULTY MEMBERS
Professor Stephan
Alexander Stephan
A few weeks ago I joined the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the rank of Full Professor and with the obligation to live up to the lovely title of Ohio Eminent Scholar. And already I feel like an old-timer: meetings with the Lecture and Awards and the Graduate Studies Committees, a search for a new colleague at the rank of Full Professor, orientations in the College of Humanities, receptions by the Honors program, the Dean and the President for new faculty, PPAC (whatever that is?) brownbag luncheons with President Kirwan and Provost Ray and so on. Two offices had to be moved into (one in charming Cunz Hall, the other at the Mershon Center, where I hold a joint appointment). And, most important, classes and reading lists for AY 2000-2001 need to be prepared. In short: OSU is exactly the lively, intellectually stimulating and challenging place I had anticipated it would be. The areas in which I hope to contribute most to the German Department at OSU are modern German literature, German area studies, with a strong bend for historical issues, and culture studies. These interests are reflected in my first course at OSU, a graduate seminar on Weimar Culture and Society. The Golden 20s? They also stand, in form of German-American historical relations, in the center of my current research, which includes a book with Yale University Press appearing in October 2000 under the title Communazis. FBI Surveillance of German migr Writers. After the German original of this book had received considerable coverage by newspapers, radio stations and German TV, the English version seems to start out with some media attention as well: a story by Dinitia Smith in the New York Times (with a reprint in the International Herald Tribune), interviews for Wisconsin Public Radio and Deutsche Welle and more. Another book, based on an international conference I organized with Therese Hrnigk at the Literaturforum in Berlin in February of this year, deals with the issue of totalitarianism and has the title Red = Brown? Nationalsozialismus und Stalinismus bei Brecht und Zeitgenossen (Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 2000). An edited volume, Speculations About Jakob and Other Writing (New York: Continuum, 2000) is the second of three books I am contributing to The German Library, a 100-volume series making the best of German primary literature available to English readers. And, finally, my affiliation with the Mershon Center, a dynamic and well endowed institute sponsoring interdisciplinary research on national security, democratization and political culture, allows me to pursue my interests in the intersection of culture and politics by supporting a book on the world-wide surveillance and the expatriation of German exile writers by agencies of the Third Reich such as the Auswrtige Amt, the Gestapo and the Reichsinnenministerium. Even before I had considered coming to Ohio, our colleague Helen Fehervary asked me to prepare the volume Die Entscheidung for the edition of Anna Seghers works she is editing for Aufbau Verlag in Berlin. One reprinted and a few new articles on Anna Seghers novel Das siebte Kreuz, on Seghers FBI file and on the activities of the German embassy in London regarding the German exile community in Great Britain during the 1930s appeared this year in the United States, Germany, England and France. And, finally, I am much looking forward to two trips to Europe one to a conference on exile studies in Berlin in October; the other a lecture tour in conjunction with Anna Seghers 100th birthday to Berlin, Munich, Augsburg, Meiningen and Mainz. A stop-over in Frankfurt will allow me to interview members of the Theater am Turm on their theatrical reaction to Brechts Manahme, the UNO-play Das Kontingent, which is also the topic of an article I have written for Brecht Yearbook. My wife Halina, who is currently holding a joint appointment at OSUs Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures and, as Professor at the University of Florida, and I are delighted to be part of the exciting intellectual atmosphere of this institution and are looking forward to many years of collegial and professional relations with members of our departments and with colleagues at the university, including the fellows of the Mershon Center. Work, we realize already after three weeks, will certainly not be of short supply at Ohio State University. The only thing that is still missing are a few aficionados of tennis. So, please, step forth.
Reitter struggling to look at ease.
Paul Reitter
Assistant Professor. Paul Reitter filed his dissertation last December at UC Berkeley. He began at OSU just a few weeks ago. In meantime, he worked as a post-doctorate teaching fellow at Stanford University. Article versions of two chapters of his dissertation, which attempts to show how Karl Kraus's modernis journalistic style came to be a significant answer to the "Jewish Question,"appeared last spring in the German Quarterly and the Germanic Review,respectively. Paul also wrote an essay for an Edition Text + Kritikanthology on Kraus (ed. Gilbert Carr and Edward Timms), and an essay on Heine and myth for the Camden House Heine Companion (ed. Roger Cook). And he published several book reviews in the German Quarterly as well as two book review essays in The Nation. Paul recently submitted an article on Kafka to Seminar and is working on essay about a new Hitler biography for Dissent. He presented papers last year at the University of London, the German Studies Association meeting, Stanford University and Wesleyan University.NEWS FROM THE STAFF
Brenda Hosey and Natascha Miller
CONFERENCE REPORT
Conference on Biography and Biographical Approaches to German LiteratureFebruary 24-26, 2000
Gregor Hens
The conference, co-sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Institute (New York), The German Academic Exchange Service, and the Max Kade Foundation, as well as units at Ohio State, opened on Thursday, February 24, at the Westin Great Southern Hotel in downtown Columbus. Brief welcoming remarks were delivered by Associate Dean of Humanities Christian Zacher, as well as Professors Fischer and Hens. A group of graduate students (Kristy Boney, Yogini Joglekar, Nikhil Sathe, and Jennifer William) who worked very hard in advance of the event were acknowledged at this and several other occasions during the conference.
The opening lecture on contemporary literary biography was delivered by Hans Hller (Salzburg) immediately following the initial remarks. Professor Hller discussed incisively the methodological issues surrounding his own biographical research on Ingeborg Bachmann, and addressed recent controversies surrounding literary biography, which became a recurrent theme in many lectures during the proceedings.
The regular conference opened on Friday morning and continued until Saturday afternoon in parallel sessions. Presenters and the audience came from many institutions in the US, from Europe as well as from Australia. Topics of the more than forty presentations ranged from literary biographies of individual authors to issues of autobiography, genre questions, filmic representations and more.
The second plenary lecture was held by Daniel Wilson (University of California, Berkeley), a Goethe scholar whose work has received an extraordinary amount of media and critical attention. The lecture entitled Looking the Other Way -- Goethes Political Biography touched on several very controversial issues concerning Goethes role as a government official in Weimar, and a lively debate ensued about Goethe as a politician, about Wilsons findings vis--vis Goethes literary work, and about the reception of Wilsons studies in Germany.
On Saturday, the plenary lecture was presented by Prof. Susan Cocalis (University of Massachusetts--Amherst). Her lecture, entitled Li(e)ves Interrupted: German Women Writers and the Limits of Biographical Interpretation dealt with an aspect that had been largely overlooked in the proceedings: the end of causal and chronological sequencing (constitutive notions in much of todays biographical writing) in a postmodern and cyber context. How, Cocalis asked, can we discuss biography with students whose experiences, such as extensive role play on the internet, have shaped their perceptions of temporal and causal sequence, and affected their ability to distinguish between the fictional and the real, in ways unimaginable just one generation ago? Cocalis also responded to many issues that had been raised in other presentations during the preceding two days.
Hens and Fehervary
The social events surrounding the conference were equally successful. Conference participants had ample opportunity to mingle, and many new and interesting connections were made. Professor Hllers lecture was followed by a welcoming reception at the conference hotel, and several large dinner groups formed afterwards. On Friday night, Barbara Becker-Cantarino kindly invited the conference participants to a reception in her home. On Saturday, conference participants were taken to the Max Kade German House for a reception. This event was extremely well attended and continued much longer than we had anticipated. Everyone seemed quite animated and very comfortable.
GLL OUTDOOR EVENT, SPRING 2000
MISTY VALLEY -- SUGAR GROVE, OHIOJennifer William and Natascha Miller
On May 28th, some members of the department braved the menacing weather and met in Misty Valley. This is located near Hocking Hills in Sugar Grove, Ohioapproximate population of 465. One of Sugar Groves claims to fame is that the first female drum major at OSU, Shelly Graf, calls it home. We toured the property of Bill and Betty Pierson. One of the interesting sights was the Shade Bridge, which was built in 1831 and moved to the Piersons place in 1983. One of the last remaining bridges in Fairfield County, it is now a covered bridge museum filled with various interesting artifacts. The museum is open to the public with free admission. Also on the grounds is an original log cabin, built before the Civil War, adorned with paintings from local artists. For the short time that it rained, we took up shelter in the covered bridge museum. The rain pattering on the tin roof, the hot drinks, and relaxed conversation made it quite gemtlich, and hectic urban life seemed far away. A poodle, two beagles, and a couple of other canine companions joined in the fun. The day was also complete with delectable cuisine. A sampling of the food included Nik Sathes famous lentils, Helen Fehervarys quiche, and Betty Piersons legendary Sugar Grove salad. Nataschas mother also made a German Fruchtboden, and we roasted corn over an open fire. All in all, it was quite an enjoyable day. Many thanks to the Piersons for their hospitality, and for making us feel right at home! For more information on scenic Sugar Grove, visit www.sugar-grove.com or www.visitfairfieldcountyoh.org.
LECTURES 1999-2000
Professor Helga Meise(University of Marburg), Max-Kade-Visiting-Professor at Pennsylvania State University gave the lecture Tradition als Beschrnkung. Caroline von Hessen-Darmstadt (1721-1774) und ihre autobiographischen Aufzeichnungen.Professor Franz Eybl (University of Vienna) gave the lecture Unvorstellbar erquickender Trost? Zur Evidenz des Emblematischen bei Heinrich von Kleist
Professor Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich (University of Weimar), gave the lecture Pietas docta: The Psalm Paraphrases of Helius Eobanus Hessus
NEWS FROM THE FACULTY
Barbara Becker-Cantarino
presented several lectures in Germany during the past year. At the Humboldt Universitt, Berlin, she presented Zur Maskerade der Geschlechter in Texten der Romantik on December 14, 1999. She provided an introduction to a series of sessions with her paper on Neue Forschungen zu Geschlecht und Krper in der Frhen Neuzeit at the International Congress Artes et Scientiae. Reprsentation alter und neuer Sichtweisen von Natur in der Frhen Neuzeit at the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbttel, April 5-8, 2000. In July she traveled again to Berlin to present Brendel/Dorothea Mendelssohn/Veit/Schlegel und ihr Beitrag zur Romantik at the bi-annual meeting of the Arnim-Gesellschaft that took place at the Literarische Colloquium in Berlin, July 28-30, 2000. She attended the Congress of the International Association of German Scholars in Vienna, September 10-17, 2000, and presented a paper on Geschlecht, Literaturgeschichtschreibung und die Schriftstellerinnen der Romantik. In October she will participate in an international conference on Johan Beer (1645-1700) in Weienfels, Germany, and present a paper on Johann Beers Weiber-Hchel und die Tradition der Ehesatire. Her new book Schriftstellerinnen der Romantik, Epoche - Werke - Wirkung is being published by C.H. Beck Verlag, Munich, and has been announced in the publishers fall catalogue to appear in September. She published several articles and reviews last year. Hexenkche und Walpurgisnacht: Imaginationen von Dmonie in der Frhen Neuzeit und im Faust I. appeared in Euphorion 99 (1999), pp. 193-225. Her article Bettina von Arnim, die Frauenfrage und der Feminismus appeared in Die echte Politik mu Erfinderin sein. Beitrge eines Wiepersdorfer Kolloquiums zu Bettina von Arnim, edited by Hartwig Schulz, Berlin: Saint Albin Verlag, 1999, pp. 217-248. The article Geschlecht und Kanonbildung am Beispiel der Autorinnen der Romantik was published in Autorinnen in der Literaturgeschichte, edited by Christiane Caemmerer et al. Osnabrck: Zeller Verlag, 1999, pp. 11-29. Most recently, her article Lessings Der Misogyne: Maskerade und Sexualitt in Lessings frhen Lustspielen appeared in Monatshefte 92 (2000), pp. 123-38. Her review of Berlin and Its Culture. A Historical Portrait, by Ronald Taylor, New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1997, appeared in Monatshefte 91(Winter 1999), pp. 576-578. She reviewed for IASL. Internationales Archiv fr Sozialgeschichte der Literatur the study: Ulrike Weckel. Zwischen Huslichkeit und ffentlichkeit. Die ersten deutschen Frauenzeitschriften im spten 18. Jahrhundert und ihr Publikum. (Studien und Texte zur Sozialgeschichte der Literatur, 61). Tbingen: Niemeyer 1998, the review was posted in the Internet : http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de, in January 2000. She also reviewed: Ute Pott. Briefgesprche. ber den Briefwechsel zwischen Anna Louisa Karsch und Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim. Mit einem Anhang bislang ungedruckter Briefe aus der Korrespondenz zwischen Gleim und Caroline Luise von Klencke. Gttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 1998 and Mein Bruder in Apoll. Biefwechsel zwischen Anna Louisa Karsch und Johann Wilhelm Ludewig Gleim. Vol. I: Briefwechsel 1761 - 1768. Edited by Regina Nrtemann. Vol. II: 1769 - 1791. Edited by Ute Pott. Gttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 1996, in Daphnis. Zeitschrift fr Mittlere Deutsche Literatur 28 (1999), pp. 453-55. She continues to serve as co-editor of the journal Daphnis. Zeitschrift fr Mittlere Deutsche Literatur and to chair the Steering Committee of the Wolfenbtteler Arbeitskreis fr Barockforschung. For the past three years she has been a member of the MLA Committee on Women in the Profession and she co-authored a report on the Status of Women in the Profession 2000, to appear in Profession 2000. She is also serving a three-year term on the National Screening Committee, Institute of International Education, U.S. Student Programs (Fulbright).
Marilyn Blackwell
continued work on her book Spectacle and Spectatorship in the Dramas of August Strindberg and published five articles: Gender and Creativity in Bergmans Det sjunde insgelet and Fanny och Alexander (Tijdschrift voor Skandinavisktiek), Strindbergs Early Dramas and Lacans Law of the Father (Scandinavian Studies), Crossdressing and Subjectivity in the Films of Ingmar Bergman, (Stage and Screen: Studies in Scandinavian Drama and Film. Essays in Honor of Brigitta Steene), Till Damaskus och frvrngingen av det rtta seendet (Strindbergiana), and Le Pre, Mademoiselle Julie, et Jacques Lacan, (Droit et littrature dans le contexte suedois, eds. Philippe Bouquet et Pascale Voilly), as well as a number of book reviews in professional journals. She also presented a paper on Ett drmspel: A Critique of Epistemology at the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies in Madison, Wisconsin in May 2000. Her contributions to the department and the university include chairing the Eminent Scholar Search Committee which was successful in bringing to us Professor Alexander Stephan, functioning as Director of Graduate Studies for the second year, chairing the University Senate ad hoc Committee on the SEI, and also an M.A. and two Honors Thesis Committees.
Kathryn A. Corl
continues her work on two long-term projects: the MultiCAT multimedia computer adaptive testing project (assisted by Andrea Herzog) and the development of new materials for the Department's Individualized Instruction Program (co-written with graduate students Andrea Herzog and Andrea Heitmann.) She also continued to serve on the AATG Testing Commission and as a member of the AATG/Goethe-Instituts "GOLDEN distance-learning teacher development project. She gave presentations on the MultiCAT Project at the AAUSC German Section Annual Meeting at the University of Wisconsin, at OSU's Humanities Technology Advisory Committee Conference: Technology Across the Humanities Curriculum", and to the language faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University. She was elected vice-president of the American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators (AAUSC) in December, 1999 and was a member of the Program Committee for the AATG 2000 Annual Meeting in Boston.John E. Davidson
has published Its a Nice Day for a Canoe Ride: An Essay on Ecological Issues in Contemporary Culture in Water, Culture, and Politics in Germany and the American West, ed. Susan Anderson (Peter Lang: October 2000); Das Land, in dem Gott mit der schpfing nicht fertig wurde: Werner Herzog und der Tropenwald des Neuen Deutschen Kinos, in Der Tropenwald der Deutschen Geschichte, Bilder, Politik, ed. Michael Flitner, (Berlin: Campus Verlag, 2000): 263-79; and, Working for the Man, Whoever That May Be: The Vocation of Wolfgang Liebeneiner, Cultural History Through a National Socialist Lens ed. Robert Reimer (South Carolina: Camden House, 2000): 240-67. He was a respondent for a panel on the theory of auto/biographical literary criticism at a conference on Biography (Columbus, February 2000) and presented Time is on My Side, or How the Reason of Detective Films Has Fallen into Myth (Florida State University, January 2000). He was also invited to give talks on History and Memory in East German Cinema (University of the South, April 2000) and Crime and the Cynical Solution: On the Rebirth of Black Humor out of the Spirit of Self-Concern (University of Michigan, November 1999), as well as to participate in the German Film Institute for Advanced Scholars (Summer 2000). At present he is serving as the Director of Graduate Studies.Helen Fehervary
Publications:
General Editor: Anna Seghers, Werkausgabe, vol. I/4: Das siebte Kreuz, ed. Bernhard Spies (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2000), 525 pp.
Reprint Chapter Essay: "The Literature of the German Democratic Republic," The Cambridge History of German Literature, ed. Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly (Cambridge/UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000): 393-439.
Articles: "Mannerism, Modernism, Mller: 'In der Zeit des Verrats sind die Landschaften schn'," Heiner Mller: Probleme und Perspektiven, ed. Ian Wallace, Dennis Tate, Gerd Labroisse (Amsterdam/Atlanta, Ga.: Editions Rodopi, 2000): 35-44; "Helene Weigel und Anna Seghers: Two Unconventional Conventional Women," The Brecht Yearbook 25: Special Issue on Helene Weigel, ed. Judith Wilke (2000): 74-94.
Entry "Anna Seghers" and entry "Das siebte Kreuz," Encyclopedia of German Literature, ed. Matthias Konzett (Chicag Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000); Entry "Heiner Mller," Modern Germany: An Encyclopedia of History, People, and Culture, 1871-1990, 2 vols., ed. Dieter K. Buse and Jrgen Doerr (New York and London: Garland, 1998); Entry "Anna Seghers," Who's Who in Contemporary Women's Writing, ed. Jane E. Miller (New York: Routledge, 2000). Lectures and Presentations: "Helene Weigel and Anna Seghers: The Politics of Work and Friendship," Conference on Biography, Ohio State University (February 2000); "Anna Seghers's Prose: The Influence of Art History," Bucknell University (April 2000); Response to "Icons of the Marketplace: The Social Capital of Heroes and Heroines in Two Germanys," Wisconsin Workshop: Heroes and Heroines in German Culture, University of Wisconsin-Madison (April 2000); "Anna Seghers und die Kunstgeschichte," Universitt Potsdam (November 2000); "Anna Seghers: Die Werkausgabe in 21 Bnden," Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Berlin (November 2000).
Bernd Fischer
has accepted the position of Department Chair for another four-year term.He published: Fichte und der andere nationale Weg zur Moderne. Searching for Common Ground: Diskurse zur deutschen Identitt 1750-1871. Ed. Nicholas Vazsonyi (Kln, Weimar, Wien: Bhlau, 2000), 61-75; Verfhrte Verfhrer: Zur Ordnung der Gefhle bei Heinrich von Kleist. Festschrift fr Diether Hnicke. Ed. Joachim Dyck & Marvin Schindler (Detroit: Wayne State U., 2000); Aufklrung. Encyclopedia of German Literature. Ed. Matthias Konzett (Chicag Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000), 36-40; ber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen. Encyclopedia of German Literature, 858-860; Charles Sealsfield 1793-1864. Encyclopedia of German Literature, 888-889; and Christoph Hein. Reclams Romanlexikon. Bd. 5. 20. Jahrhundert III. Ed. Frank Rainer Max & Christine Ruhrberg (Stuttgart: Reclam 2000), 429-33.
He reviewed: Jutta Landa, ed. I Am Too Many People. Peter Turrini: Playwright, Poet, Essayist (Riverside: Ariadne Press, 1998). The German Quarterly 72 (1999): 418-20; and Sen Allan. The Plays of Heinrich von Kleist: Ideals and Illusions (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1996). Modern Philology 97 (1999): 292-94.
Professors Fischer and Reitter
He presented: Kleists Skeptical Irony, Skepticism and the Literary Imagination, Deutsches Haus at New York University, New York, NY, 22 Sep. 2000; Kleist und die Romantik, Berliner Romantik - 3. Symposium der Internationalen A. v. Arnim-Gesellschaft, Literarisches Colloquium, Berlin, Germany, 30 Jul. 2000; Germany, Ten Years after Unification, The Armonk Institute, Columbus, OH, 6 May 2000; Heinrich von Kleist: Die Hermannsschlacht, Displacement and Eradication in the Works of Heinrich von Kleist, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, 15 Apr. 2000; Transnational Scholarship, Parallel Lines Brown-Bag Discussion, Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 11 Apr. 2000; Christoph Hein: Von Allem Anfang An, Biographical Approaches to German Literature, Columbus, OH, 25 Feb. 2000; and The Enlightenment in Dresden and Germany, Dresden in the Age of Splendor and Enlightenment, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Oh, 17 Oct. 1999.
Valentina Glajar
presented Bukovina: An Internal Colony of the Habsburg Empire at the German Studies Association in Atlanta. At the Ohio State University, she presented History and Subjectivity: Erica Pedrettis Autobiographical Novel Engste Heimat at the Biography Conference, and she moderated the panel German Drama at the Comparative Drama Conference. During the last year, she reviewed Susan Tebbutt, ed., Sinti and Roma: Gypsies in German-speaking Society and Literature (New York: Berghahn Books, 1998) for Monatshefte, and Brigid Haines, ed., Herta Mller (Cardiff: U of Wales P, 1998) for Journal of English and Germanic Philology.Anna A. Grotans
served as Interim Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in the 1999/2000 academic year and is continuing this year as Associate Director. She presented The Desert in the Imagination: The Abbey of St. Gall at Claremont Consortium for Medieval and Early Modern Studies and Courting Early German: Scribal Practice and Editorial Fancy at the annual meeting of the Medieval Academy in Austin, Texas. She published Utraque lingua: Latein- und Deutschunterricht in Notkers St. Gallen in Theodisca: Beitrge zur althochdeutschen und altniederdeutschen Sprache und Literatur in der Kultur des frhen Mittelalters, Wolfgang Haubrichs, et al., eds. (Berlin: de Gruyter) 260-275.Kai Hammermeister
finished the manuscript of his new book The German Aesthetic Tradition that is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. He reviewed a number of books for German Quarterly, Germanic Notes and Reviews, German Studies Review and Philosophy in Review and presented papers at the Chicago MLA as well as at the University of Heidelberg.Gregor Hens
published Thomas Bernhards Trilogie der Knste: Der Untergeher, Holzfllen, Alte Meister (Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer--Camden House, 1999) and What Drives Herbeck? Schizophrenia, Immediacy, and the Poetic Process (Language and Literature 9.1 [2000]: 43-59.) He organized a panel and presented a paper on Thomas Bernhard at the 1999 annual conference of the German Studies Association in Atlanta and lectured on contemporary Austrian literature at the German Studies Colloquium at Stanford University. With the help of several highly motivated graduate students, he organized a conference on literary biography (see the report in this issue).
Professor Jacobs
Neil G. Jacobs
(Ph.D. Columbia University 1984) is Associate Professor in the Yiddish and Ashkenazic Studies Program (YASP) in GLL. In addition, he is Adjunct Associate Professor of Linguistics in the OSU Linguistics Department, and holds a Courtesy Appointment in the Department of Geography. His primary areas of research and publication are Yiddish linguistics, Jewish Geography, post-Yiddish Jewish ethnolects, and general linguistics. Prof. Jacobs edited Studies in Jewish Geography, a Special Issue of the journal Shofar (Fall 1998). He has collaborated with the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, as well as the Slavic and East European Studies Center, on a number of projects. Prof. Jacobs was on Faculty Professional Leave (sabbatical) during 1999-2000, working on a book project in Yiddish linguistics. A new research area "in development" concerns the use of language in Jewish cabaret (in German, Yiddish, Dutch, English, and Polish). Prof. Jacobs regular teaching responsibilities within GLL include courses in Yiddish language and Yiddish linguistics. In addition, he has taught "Sociolinguistic Variation in Modern German" for the German program, team-taught with former colleague Prof. Dagmar C.G. Lorenz the course "Language and Society in Interwar Vienna", as well as the course in Historical Linguistics for the Linguistics Department, and an experimental course "Language and Ethnic Expression in the Baltic Region", which dealt with the situation of, e.g., Baltic German, Yiddish in the Baltic area, Karaite, Estonian, Latvian, Swedish, Finnish, and other languages, their development in the modern period, and interactions and mutual influences. Since the last GLL Newsletter update, Prof. Jacobs presented the following conference papers: "Perceptions of Ashkenazic geography." Paper presented at Annual Meeting, Association of American Geographers, Honolulu, Hawaii, March 23-27, 1999. "The syllable in Yiddish: Considerations of prosodic structure and phoneme inventory" Fifth Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (GLAC-5), April 16-18, 1999, University of Texas at Austin. "Areal and contact considerations of syllable and foot in Yiddish." Methods X Conference, August 1-6, 1999. Memorial University of Newfoundland, Saint Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. "Post-Yiddish Ashkenazic speech: The linguistics and sociolinguistics of Jewish-German and Jewish Dutch." Paper presented at conference "Multilingualism in Western Ashkenazic Jewry: Ideology, Intertextuality, and Transmission." October 24-27, 1999. Middelburg, Netherlands. "A phonological account of word stress in Yiddish." Paper presented at Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (GLAC-6), University of WisconsinMilwaukee. April 28-30, 2000. In addition, he gave an invited lecture: "Text and Jewish Subtext: Language and Jewish cabaret from Vienna to Camp Granada." Invited talk presented at SUNY Buffalo. March 17, 2000.Benjamin Robinson
I am a Visiting Assistant Professor at Ohio State this year. As a native Ohioan (I grew up in Cleveland), I am happy to be on home ground. For the past two years, my wife Jenny has been a graduate student in the creative writing program here at Ohio State, so I am thrilled to be together with her again and to be spared the red-eye commute from California. Since 1997 I have been a Post Doctoral Fellow at Stanford University. I received my PhD from Stanford in 1997. My specializations are the literature and culture of the GDR; literature and memoirs of war, revolution and exile from 1914 to 1949; systems theory and critical theory; the continental and analytical philosophical traditions; and literature and economy. I am completing a manuscript, Other Systems: On the Ultimate Vacation in Another Germany, on the literary means by which East German authors (Christa Wolf and Franz Fhmann) referred to really existing socialism and the senses in which they understood socialism to exist. I am also researching a study of Klaus Mann, Hans Fallada and Johannes R. Becher, From w to a: Opium and Apocalypse Between World Orders, which explores the connection between these authors' public antifascism and private lives that included addiction, murder and exile. The study aims to better understand the biographical connection between experience and perception, on the one hand, and knowledge and ideology, on the other. Recent and forthcoming publications include: What Comes First in German Studies, German or Studies? Germanic Review (Summer 2000); Tactical Humanists: Foreign Cultural Literacy in the Postexcellent Institution, ADFL Bulletin (Winter 2001); Morphine as the Tertium Quid between War and Revolution; or, The Moon Gland Secretes Poppy Sleep over the Western Front of Johannes R. Becher, German Quarterly (forthcoming 2001); Santa Monica of the Turn: Catastrophe and Commitment in an Autobiography of Collaboration, New German Critique (Winter 2001); Review of Otto Werckmeister, Icons of the Left, Modernism and Modernity (Fall 2000).Harry Vredeveld
During his NEH Fellowship year, he completed volume II of The Poetic Works of Eobanus Hessus, volume II, Journeyman Years 1509-1514, to be published by MRTS, Arizona State University. He published Towards a Critical Edition of Erasmuss De conscribendis epistolis in Humanistica Lovaniensia 49 (1999): 8-69, as well as a review of Humanistische Lyrik des 16. Jahrhunderts, Lateinisch und deutsch, edited, annotated, and translated by Wilhelm Khlmann, Robert Seidel, and Hermann Wiegand (Frankfurt am Main, 1997), in German Quarterly 72 (1999): 79-80. He also presented Deaf as Ulysses to the Sirens Song: The Story of a Forgotten Topos, 53rd Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, Lexington, KY, April 2000.EMERITI & ALUMNI NEWS
These emeriti, former visiting faculty and former students all served this summer (July/August) as German instructors in the German Language Program for the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria: Rebecca Thomas (formerly Dupantier), Assoc. Professor at Wake Forrest University. She received her Ph.D. from OSU. John Lalande. He was a visiting Assistant Professor at OSU in 1980/81. John is now Chair of the Dept. of Foreign Languages at New York State University at Oswego, NY. Ilsedore Edse, Associate Professor Emerita, she taught German Diction for opera singers at Aims. Probably, this was her 10th summer with Aims. Werner Haas served as the Director of the German Language Program at Aims. He has held this position for the past 16 years.Kelly Mayer
(Ph.D. Ohio State Univ. 1997) joined the faculty of Washington College, Chesterton, Maryland as Assistant Professor of German.Arne Olof Lindberg,
who received his Ph.D. from Ohio State and taught at Miami University, Ohio and Washington State University died on Nov. 18, 1999.GRADUATE STUDENT NEWS
M.A. - Kristy Rickards Boney, Colleen Heather McCallum, and Andrea Heitmann
Graduate Research Paper Awards - Sai Bhatawadekar and Michaela Peroutkova
Graduate Student Service Award - Kristy Boney
Sai Bhatawadekar is currently in the PhD program of the department. Her interests include 20th century German literature and film, film adaptations of literary works, and cultural identities and exchanges between Germany and India. In February 2000 in the University of Southern Mississippi and in March 2000 in University of Southern Colorado she presented her paper titled Femme Fatale and Fallen Teacher: The Images of the Self in Der Blaue Engel (Germany) and Pinjra (India). The paper is published in 'The Image of Twentieth Century in Literature Media and Society', Will Wright and Steven Kaplan (ed). In the Spring quarter 2000 Sai received, along with her collegue Michaela Peroutkova the award for the best graduate paper of the year 1999/2000, for her paper Die Aesthetische Erfahrung bei Schopenhauer und im Hinduismus
Cynthia Chalupa serves as the full-time Assistant Director of the Foreign Language Center and is working on her dissertation "Through the Looking Glass: Overcoming Language in the Works of Trakl, Celan, and Aichinger." As the Assistant Director of the Foreign Language Center, Chalupa coordinates the Individualized Language Learning Center and the Collaborative Articulation and Assessment Project, a project designed to ease students' transition from high school to post-secondary language study through program articulation and proficiency-based assessments. In addition, she directs the Model Assessment Project sponsored by the Ohio Foreign Language Association and the Ohio Department of Education. She received a FLAS fellowship in summer 1999 to take part in two Business German seminars at the Heine Heinrich Universitt. in Dsseldorf. She served on the faculty of the College of Humanities' combined languages GTA pre-service workshop and gave a lecture "A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Teaching and Learning Vocabulary" in September 1999. She published the article "Meeting the Needs of International TAs in the Foreign Language Classroom: A Model for Extended Training" in Mentoring Foreign Language TAs, Lecturers, and Adjunct Faculty, Ed. Benjamin Rifkin, (AAUSC Volume 2000), Heinle & Heinle, 2000. She presented "Bridging the Gap: The Collaborative Articulation and Assessment Project" at the Ohio Foreign Language Association conference (March 2000). In summer 2000 she received a Goethe-Institute fellowship to take part in a seminar on Germany and the European Union in Schwbisch Hall. She will present "'Der Unbetretbare Raum:' The Mirror as a Literary Space in 19th and 20th-century German Literature." at the GSA Conference in October, 2000 and "Enhancing Self-Directed Language Programs with New Technologies" at the ACTFL conference in November, 2000.
Colleen H. McCallum, a graduate student in the Yiddish and Ashkenazic Studies Program (YASP), successfully completed her Masters Thesis this year. Her work, titled Black Ashkenaz: Depictions of African Americans in Selected Yiddish Poetry, examined poetry written by Eastern European immigrant Jews living on the Lower East Side of New York. Ms. McCallum proposed using Yiddish language, literature, and culture as a way of providing a different perspective and new insight into the relationship between African Americans and American Jews. Her construct of Black Ashkenaz addressed the incorporation, depictions and portrayals of African Americans in Yiddish literature. During the summer, she participated in the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies Program, successfully completing their intensive four-week program in Yiddish language and literature. Ms. McCallum will spend the academic year 2000-2001 on fellowship through the Melton Center for Jewish Studies. As the George M. and Rene K. Levine Graduate Fellow in Jewish Studies, she will work closely with the Melton Center in conducting student-centered activities on campus and in the Columbus community. She looks forward to her continued work and studies as a doctoral student in YASP, exploring the creation, presence, and representation of the Other in Yiddish literature.
Samuel Jordan
Stephan Friedrich Mayr is from Augsburg, Germany. He came to Ohio State University from Augsburg University where he received the 'Zwischenprfung' in Germanistik and Protestant Theology. At OSU he plans to complete his MA. After his time at OSU he will take the 'Staatsexamen' in Germany. His thesis will be about Martin Walser and the influence of biography in his novels. He worked at Augsburg University at the department of Systematical Theology under the chair Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, who was recently honoured with the Leibnitz award. There Stephan Mayr worked for the 'Adolf von Harnack' research-project about Harnacks work and life. He is most interested in German literature of the 20th century and the exegesis of the Old Testament.
Folke-Christine Mller-Sahling wrote entries for the Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800-1850 (ed.Deutsches Literaturarchiv, de Gruyter, expected in 2002) on three OSU Germanists, namely Wolfgang Fleischhauer, Robert Oswald Roeseler, Adolf Ernst Schroeder. She also wrote a chapter for a book on Meta Schoepp, "Meta Schoepps literarische Veroeffentlichungen in Nordamerika," edited by Arno Bamm at the Universitaet Klagenfurt (Profil Verlag, forthcoming in 2001). I enjoyed attending and presenting at a session on "Little Genres" at the GSA conference in Atlanta in October 1999, where I presented a paper on the correspondence between Heinrich Christian Boie and Luise Mejer during the late 18th century. At the "Sixth Annual Intersections Conference" at the University of Pennsylvania in March 2000, I presented a paper on "Pious and Enlightened Strains of Influence: Juliane von Reventlow's Salon in Emkendorf, 1789-1816". At the 53rd Kentucky Foreign Language Conference in April, I presented a paper on the didcourse of love in Caroline von Dacherden's correspondence with Wilhelm von Humboldt. I was fortunate to be a participant of the Preparing Future Faculty program, a collaborative program between the OSU Graduate School and leading liberal arts colleges and Universities in Ohio. I had a wonderful mentor in Gary Baker at Denison University in Granville, OH. A PEGS-based Dissertation Fellowship came at the perfect time for Fall quarter 2000. It will allow me to finish the dissertation in time to enter the academic job market in December 2000.
cand. Ph.D. Nikhil Sathe
Yogini Joglekar: I passed the candidacy exam in March 2000 and am currently working on the dissertation in Newark, Delaware. Last year, I presented two papers on post-1945 German detective film-- in February 2000 at the Southern Mississippi Film Conference, and in April 2000 at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference. In October, I will be presenting a paper entitled Trying Times for the New World? The Image of America in German Literature and Ingeborg Bachmanns Der gute Gott von Manhattan at the Literature on Trial conference organized by the Emory University. I was selected to participate in the Preparing Future Faculty program organized by the Graduate School, and visited the German department at the College of Wooster. In the Winter quarter 2000, I apprentice-taught Professor Davidsons course on German detective fiction. In the Fall and Winter quarters 2000, I was a co-organizer of the GLL Biography Conference. During these quarters, I also worked as a Council of Graduate Students representative on two university committees: the Council on Academic Affairs and the Distinguished Teaching Award Committee. I was a recipient of the Seidlin fellowship for spring quarter 2000.
Michaela Peroutkova attended an interdisciplinary Conference in March 2000 on "The Image of The Twentieth Century in Literature, Media and Society" in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she presented a paper entiteled "Postmodernism in Czech Culture." In the Spring quarter 2000 the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures honored Michaela and her collegue Sai Bhatawadekar with award for the best graduate paper of the year 1999/2000. The award was given to her for her paper "Die Frage nach der Erkenntnis in Uwe Johnsons Roman Mutmassungen ueber Jakob". Currently Michaela is preparing for her Ph.D. general exams.
Ivan Svetlicic got his B.A. in German and English from Berea College, Kentucky in May 1999. Last year he taught German 102 and German 103, and over the summer he received a scholarship to study the use of technology in language instruction. Ivan worked on creating the German 201 Web page under the supervision of Professor Gregor Hens. The idea of the page is that the students would have a more interactive approach to language instruction by utilizing exercises and materials contained on the course Web page. The interactive nature of the page allows the students more freedom, immediate feedback on their work, a discussion group option, and is designed to provide support for the individual work of a student.
Ivans interests include Peter Handkes writings concerning the former Yugoslavia, 20th Century Austrian literature, and using technology, especially computers and computer languages in assisting language instruction and distance learning.
Sanjot Walawalkar is from Bombay, India. She came to Ohio State University from the University of Bombay where she received a Masters Degree in English Literature She is mainly interested in 20th century German literature. She is also interested in Comparative literature. After finishing at OSU she would like to work with UNESCO.
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT NEWS
- Undergraduate Essay Award: Klodiana Basko
- Dieter Cunz Award: Marie Hoffmann
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 German House offers nine undergraduate students the chance to live and learn in a friendly, German-language environment. Native speakers and the resident director help ensure that 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 2001.
Join the Friends of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures!
Formed to assist the Department in finding support for student scholarships, graduate student and faculty research, bringing visiting scholars and artists to campus, and in general providing funds for educational and scholarly activities not presently supported by the operating budget. Please make your check payable to the OSU Friends of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures and mail it to the Chair, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1229.
230 North Oval Mall
Columbus, OH 43210
Fax: 614-292-8666
Email: