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The 2006 Department Newsletter
Prof. Gregor Hens - Editor
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- A Note from the Chair
- Current faculty and staff
- New Faculty
- Botoman award
- Lectures and events
- National Humboldt Meeting
- Theater production with Alexander Stillmark
- Alexander Stillmark: A Portrait
- LangFest 2006
- Students Abroad
- Graduate Students
- New MAs
- New PhDs
- Student Awards
- More graduate student news
- Alumni News
- Alumna profile: Tricia Fellinger
- In Memoriam Johanna Belkin
- Selected faculty publications
- Graduates of the Department, what have you been doing?
- Join the Friends of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
A note from the Chair
I am pleased to be able to introduce four new faculty members who have joined the department in autumn 2006. Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm spent the first seven years of her career at the University of Kansas and joins us as Associate Professor with tenure. A specialist in German as a foreign language, Carmen will collaborate with Kathy Corl in the direction of our undergraduate language program and help develop a new specialization in DAF for our graduate program. Merrill Kaplan has just defended her dissertation at the University of California at Berkeley. She joins us and the Folklore Program within the Department of English as a tenure-track assistant professor and will devote half of her teaching to courses in our Scandinavian Studies program. Brikena Ribaj received her PhD from the University of Utah and Kerstin Mueller from the University of Massachusetts. Both join us as visiting assistant professors and will primarily teach in our undergraduate German and general education programs.
After 36 years of service to the Ohio State University, Harry Vredeveld retired at the end of spring quarter 2006. Ultimately it was Harry's wish to be able to dedicate more time to his scholarship--first and foremost his immeasurable Eobanus Hessus edition--that led to his decision. While we will keep him as a scholar and hopefully as an occasional lecturer, we will dearly miss Harry's many other talents, not the least his cheerful companionship and the selfless service he has provided to the Department and the University for so long. I am very happy to report that Neil Jacobs has been promoted to the rank of professor and Paul Reitter to the rank of associate professor with tenure. My heartfelt congratulations!
Bernd Fischer
Current faculty and staff
- Barbara Becker-Cantarino, Research Professor
- Nina Berman, Associate Professor
- Marilyn Johns Blackwell, Vorman-Anderson Professor for Scandinavian Studies, Director of Swedish/Scandinavian Studies
- Kathryn A. Corl, Associate Professor
- John E. Davidson, Associate Professor
- Helen Fehervary, Professor
- Bernd Fischer, Professor and Chair
- Anna Grotans, Associate Professor
- Kai Hammermeister, Associate Professor
- Gregor Hens, Associate Professor
- Brenda Hosey, Fiscal HR Officer
- Neil G. Jacobs, Professor
- Steven Joyce, Associate Professor (Mansfield Campus)
- Merrill Kaplan, Assistant Professor
- David Neal Miller, Associate Professor
- Natascha Miller, Graduate Secretary and Web Manager
- Kerstin Mueller, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Paul Reitter, Associate Professor
- Brikena Ribaj, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Andy Spencer, Senior Lecturer
- Alexander Stephan, Professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar
- Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm, Associate Professor
- Graham R. Walden, Professor and Librarian
Professors Emeriti
Ilsedore EdsePaul Gottwald
Werner Haas
Chuck Hoffmann
Donald C. Riechel
Heimy F. Taylor
Gisela Vitt
Harry Vredeveld
New faculty
Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm received her B.A. from Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, her M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin where she specialized in Applied Linguistics. She taught courses in German applied linguistics and linguistics and coordinated the German language program for six years at the University of Kansas before joining the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at OSU. Her research interests lie in the areas of the relationship between grammar and social interaction, cross-cultural communication, foreign language pedagogy, and Graduate Teaching Assistant development. In spring 2006, Taleghani-Nikazm published her study Request sequences: The intersection of grammar, interaction and social context, which provides a micro-analytic description of how speakers employ grammar and syntax as resources to construct turns at talk and accomplish the social action of request in everyday German conversation. Prof. Taleghani-Nikazm is currently completing a paper in collaboration with Andrea Golato (University of Illinois) on the negotiation of face in online communication by focusing on the organization of requests in a German web chat program. The paper is scheduled to appear in the September issue of Multilingua.
Merrill Kaplan specializes in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, nineteenth-century Norwegian literature and culture, and folklore. She is a member of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies, the American Folklore Society, the Western States Folklore Society, and--when she remembers to pay her dues--the Medieval Academy of America. She holds an A.B. in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Scandinavian Languages and Literatures are from the University of California at Berkeley. Her Ph.D. was conferred in 2006.
Prof. Kaplan has spent a year in Oslo polishing her Norwegian and researching oral traditions about runic monuments as a Fulbright IIE Fellow with additional support from the Lois Roth Endowment. Much of the research and writing of her dissertation was carried out during two years as a guest at the Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland, where she was supported in part by a grant from the American Scandinavian Foundation. She speaks Icelandic whenever the opportunity arises.
Kaplan's research interests extend from the dawn of vernacular literature in Iceland and Norway in the 12th and 13th centuries to the 19th-century Romantic and philological encounter with those same cultural goods to traditional narrative collected in later centuries. In every period, she is interested in vernacular literature and culture, the reception of the past in the present, problems of representation and access, and interstitial phenomena that have fallen into the cracks between modern academic fields: oral tradition about inscriptions is one such phenomenon.
Many of Kaplan's research projects and publications on medieval subjects have focused on Old Icelandic narratives of the supernatural and what they may tell us about the medieval Icelandic sense of political and religious identity. More modern subjects also intrigue her. Recently she has been looking at verbal dueling in traditional poetic meters on an Icelandic chatboard. She has also written on the significance of Ibsen's folklore collection for an understanding of Peer Gynt and Ibsen's later, self-consciously realistic plays. She is interested in how the reception of medieval goods can turn back on itself, as when The Vikings at Helgeland, a Norwegian play based on Danish translations of Old Icelandic sagas, was translated into Modern Icelandic and performed in Reykjavík in 1892, prompting a series of fascinating theater reviews. An article on that subject has been published in Modern Drama.
Her current book project grows out of her dissertation. It concerns the past in the present and the movement of the goods of the past into the present through oral and textual modes of performance. It examines how Christian Icelanders of the fourteenth century engaged with the narrative goods of the prior, pagan age and how that vexed encounter is reflected and problematized in four tales preserved in the Flateyjarbók manuscript. All are tales of the heathen past irrupting into the Christian present in the person of an old man bearing a wealth of story about the heroes of old appearing as a guest at the court of the Christian king of Norway.
Her next project will allow her to knit together several of her smaller projects involving folklore, disciplinary formation, and a scandal attaching to a runic inscription in southern Sweden. The larger goal is the illumination of the mid-19th-century breakup of the old field of Antiquities into the modern fields of Folklore, Literature, Archaeology, Runology, and others.
This fall she taught the Department's course in Nordic Mythology with great pleasure, as it is one of her very favorite subjects, and she hopes to inspire enthusiasm at OSU for Iceland's medieval literature and the folklore of Scandinavia as a whole.
Botoman Award
Congratulations to Kathy Corl, who won the Rodica C. Botoman Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring in the College of Humanities, The Ohio State University, June 2005. She also received a $73,000 research grant for the MultiCAT Item Banking Project.Lectures and Events
Lecture: Jochen Vogt (University of Essen), '"Sooo hoch?" Vom allmählichen Verschwinden der "Statue genannt Liberty" (in der deutschen Literatur)' Oct. 3, 2005.
Lecture: Gudrun Loster-Schneider (University of Mannheim) 'Medea', Oct. 4, 2005
Conference: Looking Backward--Looking Forward: A Conference Commemorating the Centenary of the Birth of Dr. Shlomo Noble, Nov. 5-7, 2005. The symposium was organized by Professors Neil Jacobs and David Miller to commemorate the contributions of Professor Noble, a 1939 doctoral graduate of Ohio State and a pioneering intellectual in Yiddish and Ashkenazic Studies, on the one-hundredth year of his birth. It also brought to campus a stellar group of scholars who participated in a spirited exchange of ideas on a wide-range of topics.
Lecture: Nina Berman, 'Whose Islam is it? Thoughts on Lalla Essaydi's images of women and children' (presented by the OSU Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities and the Columbus Museum of Art in conjunction with the "Lalla Essaydi: Converging Territories" exhibition), Nov. 17, 2005.
Lecture: David Neal Miller, 'Memories of the Present: Arthur Leipzig's New York' (presented by the OSU Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities and the Columbus Museum of Art in conjunction with the "Arthur Leipzig: On Assignment" exhibition), Jan. 26, 2006.
Lecture: Paul Michael Lützeler (Washington University), 'The US-EU Divide: Problems and Prospects', Feb. 20, 2006.
Lecture: Neil G. Jacobs, 'A Code of Many Colors: The Language of Jewish Cabaret', Feb. 22, 2006.
Lecture: Brendon O'Connor (Griffith University, Australia), 'What is Anti-Americanism: Tendency, Prejudice or Ideology?', March 2, 2006.
Lecture: Wilfried Barner (University of Göttingen), 'Leben und leben lassen. Lessing über Schriftsteller, Verleger und Buchhändler.' March 31, 2006.
Discussion: Ayse Polat (Berlin) and Gregor Hens, 'A Conversation on Writing', April 3, 2006 (In conjunction with the screening of Polat's films En Garde and Tour Abroad at the Wexner Center).
Lecture: Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink (Universität des Saarlandes), 'Between Ethnology and Romantic Discourse: Jesuit Accounts of South America', April 10, 2006.
Lecture: Paul Reitter, 'The Origins of Jewish Self-Hatred', April 26, 2006.
Conference: Alexander Stephan with John Brown (Georgetown University), 'Public Diplomacy as a Global Phenomenon', April 28, 2006.
Conference: National Meeting of the Alexander von Humboldt Association of America: 'German-American Cross-Currents and Exchanges', organized by Barbara Becker-Cantarino, June 2-4, 2006.
National Humboldt Meeting
by Barbara Becker-CantarinoMore than one hundred members and guests of the Alexander von Humboldt Association of America from all parts of the US came to Columbus for the 6th national meeting of the Association (whose members have received a research fellowship or award from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung of Germany) from June 2 to 4, 2006. The meeting opened with a reception and banquet at the Holiday Inn on the Lane.
Thanks to support by the Dean of Humanities, John W. Roberts, and contributions from several units at Ohio State, among them the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, the meeting could feature some genuine Ohio hospitality. The organizer was Barbara Becker-Cantarino, President of the Alexander von Humboldt Association of America, who was assisted by German graduate students Aleksandra Iwanik, Saskia Kraemer, and Charlie Vannette.
Theater production with Alexander Stillmark
by Katie MaderThe music starts and exploding images begin flashing on the screen. As I wait with my fellow actors behind stage, I am anxious with anticipation. From backstage, the images that flash are merely streams of light; we were not able to use the theater space until just 30 hours ago, so there was no time to watch the pieces come together and sit in the audience's seat. We soon receive the command and move into the audience's view, slowly, as the images project onto our white costumes. When the lights come on and the music fades away, we begin. Trenne. Lights, image, we turn. Trenne dich. Lights, image, we turn. The message goes no further. In frustration, we stop and turn away.
Our undertaking was to theatrically perform, in a cast of seven people, a set of ten poems by Bertolt Brecht. We had only one native speaker, and one person with any real theater experience. In addition, because of a scheduling conflict, our director was not able to make it to the country until 3 weeks prior to opening night. To say that we as a group of actors were a little concerned about the success of the production is a bit of an understatement. The rehearsals with Alexander (Sascha) Stillmark, who flew in for two weeks during the winter quarter to get the ball rolling, did not ease our fears. Instead of working on the script and blocking some scenes, as we had hoped would be the case, we were surprised and somewhat distraught to find that the majority of our efforts focused on body movement and building images.
The lights go out, images flash, the music plays, and then the lights again shine down upon us. Suitcases in hand, we walk through the city, slowly, with determination. One, full, three-hour rehearsal was spent on walking. We walked with our heads raised high, we walked happily, we walked with distress. We walked like elephants, hopped like frogs, galloped like gazelles. We walked without looking at one another, we walked by and touched each other on the back of the head. We walked quickly, and we walked slowly enough to discover how our bodies made each intricate movement when taking a step forward. Sometimes we ran.
I am dirt, we scream as we do our aerobic movements. We kick and punch our way through the lives of women in the city, and we are victorious. Sascha wanted our body movement training to continue in his absence, so he made contact with both the theater and dance departments on campus and secured two people who would help us towards gracefulness and group cohesion. Practices were oftentimes intense; one in particular involved galloping on our hands and feet, torsos in the air, which left some sore for the next five days. Despite this, we all enjoyed the experience; not only was this a great opportunity to get to know and work with people from different departments on campus, but it also served to establish a camaraderie between us, so that when Sascha returned in May, we were already working and communicating as a group.
We stand on stage, uniform in posture; out feet are shoulder-length apart. We stoically repeat what is said. We learn; we obey. We are undaunted. Upon Sascha's return, rehearsal increased to four hours a day, three days a week. Such long rehearsals were hard on many of us, but by the end of the three week period, we were taking six hour rehearsals in stride. Similarly, our attitudes about the abstract nature of the play changed as we understood more of the purpose. As we practiced the first two poems, mumbled complaints and negativities formed into dark clouds that hung over us. "This is boring, no one is going to understand it, why can't we just do something concrete?" we thought. Sascha, however, had a different plan, and slowly, as the music was added and more poems were staged, understanding began to break through our doubts. By the final poems, our efforts concentrated on experimenting with new abstractions, and zestfully adding these into the production. We anticipated the opening night with tension, energy and excitement.
The final line of the poem forms in my fellow actress' mouth. We step forward, turning to watch the images projected onto the white cloth screen. The lights go black, we walk back on stage, clasp hands and take a bow. Our hands part as those of the audience come together. As we rise, we are greeted with applause.
Alexander Stillmark: A Portrait
by Katie MaderAs I arrive to the office and knock on the door, Sascha looks up and greets me with a smile. He tells me to please take a seat and hurriedly pushes together the papers on the desk, making small stacks out of the strewn loose-leafs. Sometimes he looks down at particular paper, trying to extract its meaning, and then lays it back down without success. He's missing his glasses. Sascha, Alexander Stillmark, as his parents named him, finishes tidying up, and then seats himself across from me in the high-backed leather chair behind the desk. I open my notebook.
I forgot my glasses at Aikido training, discloses the director. It was his first time going, and his excitement cannot be missed. Enthralled, I watch as he mimics the punches with his hands, every now and then he throws in a word like boom or pow. He smiles. Although his energy would never give it away, the wrinkles disclose that this smile has graced his face for the past 60 years. Yet his eyes still sparkle; they go very well with the blue sky seen through the open window behind him.
Sascha wears a black T-shirt and a matching pair of pants, which doesn't seem to fit with the blue sky or his effervescent personality. But I have seen this uniform many times before. He wears a watch on his left arm, (one that I must confess, I looked to numerous times during some of our rehearsals), but his crossed legs reveal that socks and shoes are apparently not required. Clearly he feels comfortable in Helen Fehervary's office.
Although these bare feet normally belong in Berlin, they find themselves in the German Department at the Ohio State University due to an invitation to direct a play with students from the Department as the visiting Max Kade professor. Sascha, in fact, just enjoyed the last run of the successful production of "Cover your Tracks," which used the poems of Bertolt Brecht's "Reader for City-Dwellers" as the script. When asked whether or not the production turned out as he expected, he quotes Picasso: "I search for nothing, I find." It was the same way with our group, he explains. We just experimented and made new discoveries.
It was exactly this process of discovery that sometimes made his actors nervous; yet despite certain frustrations, the smile and shining eyes won us over. One actress admitted, "I would have liked to have him as a grandpa." As it turns out, our director is indeed the proud grandfather of five grandchildren. From the way he talks about them, I can imagine they are properly spoiled when they visit their grandpa and grandma, who have now been married for 41 joy-filled years. Then I ask about the missing ring from his finger, he answers that wearing a ring simply bothers him.
What the husband, father and grandfather does not like, he does not do. This has been a kind of mantra for his life. Through his distinguished career, he has served as a director at the Berliner Ensemble and Deutschen Theater, as well as trained actors at a school in Berlin. Additionally, he has directed programs like ours in countries throughout the world, sometimes in conjunction with the Goethe Institute or the International Theater Institute. Vietnam, Finland, Cyprus, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Mexico, Bolivia, Bangladesh and South Africa are the countries on a briefly recalled list. In sum, he had produced or directed around 50 workshops and plays. Yet, he has never stayed longer on one position or project than his interest has lasted because, as he quotes Picasso, "Talent is being interested in the work." His favorite project? He could never choose.
Alexander (Sascha) Stillmark
As he speaks in detail about the different projects he has undertaken and wonderfully interesting people he has met, his eyes sparkle and his smile lights up his face. I marvel at the movements of his hands, which seems to each be a beautiful, artistic extension of his words, flowing naturally from his body.
The telephone rings and the hands answer. His glasses have been found. He speaks with excitement and thankfulness on the telephone. When the conversation ends, I congratulate him and thank him for his time. He embraces me warmly as we say goodbye. I would have liked to have him as a grandpa, too.
LangFest 2006
LangFest 2006, organized by our graduate Chad Schneider (pictured), is a celebration of all the cultures and languages that OSU offers both inside of the classroom and across the campus.
Chad studied German as a Major and received a degree in Foreign Language Education from OSU. He has a Masters in German Literature from the University of Illinois-Chicago. He currently serves as Assistant Director of the Foreign Language Center at OSU, where he supervises the SBC Individualized Language Learning Center in Hagerty Hall and serves as CAAP coordinator, a project that develops foreign language proficiency assessments in French, German and Spanish. He is also pursuing a Ph.D in Language, Literacy and Culture in the School of Teaching and Learning (College of Education) at OSU.
Students abroad: A letter from Rachel Fouts
I decided to volunteer at an elementary school (Grundschule) in Bonn because I have enjoyed working with children in various capacities for years, and I didn't want my study-abroad experience to be lacking in this important way.
As to be expected, I play my most prominent role during the English lesson. Out of the wealth of my childhood memories, I pull the motions and melodies to vocabulary-relevant songs, such as "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" for the body unit. As I shamelessly lead the work-out of a song by example, the children laughingly join in, and any shyness about speaking in English disappears. My year in Bonn would certainly not be complete without the time I spend with these kids.
Graduate students in the department
Sai Bhatawadekar, ABD; Anna Beckhoff, BA; Niels Bohrmann, MA; Kristy Boney, PhD; Alexander Brewer, BA; C.J. Brown, BA; Erin Cary, MA; Addie Cheney, MA; Kristopher Fromm, BA; Doug Gill, MA; Svetlana Gordon, MA; Andreas Grieger, BA; Andrea Heitmann, ABD; Kevin Herzner, BA; Kristen Hetrick, MA; Ola Iwanik, MA; Michael Kovnat, BA; Saskia Kraemer, MA; Annett Krause, MA; Jaclyn Kurash, MA; Weijia Li, MA; Linda Long-Van Brocklyn, MA; Sara Luly, M.A.; Colleen McCallum-Bonar, ABD; Katie Mader, BA; Jennifer Magro Algarotti, MA; Neha Malshe, BA; Moises Mermelstein, MA; Donovan P. Pavlik, MA; Kevin A. Richards, MA; Daniela Roschinski, MA; Jarrod Shepherd, MA; Nicholas M. Spitulski, MA; Thomas Stefaniuk, MA; Ulrike Stoll, MA; Charlie Vannette, MA; Emily Walton, MA; Wray Withers, MA; Jesse Wood, MA.
Congratulations to our new MAs
Niels Bohrmann (Thesis: Canetti vs. Nietzsche: Zwei anthropologische Systeme im Vergleich)
Addie Cheney
Saskia Kraemer
Jennifer Magro Algarotti (Thesis: Missionary Writing in Cameroon, 1914-1948: Anna Rein-Wuhrmann and the Basel Mission)
Donovan Pavlik
Kevin Richards
Daniela Roschinski
Jarrod Shepherd (Thesis: Translation of Culture in Emine Sevgi Özdamar's 'Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei')
Congratulations to our new PhDs
David E. Connolly, PhD 2005, defended his dissertation on the Problems of Textual Transmission in Early German Books on Mining: "Der Ursprung gemeynnes Berckrecht" and the Norwegian "Bergkordnung" (Advisor: Anna Grotans). He has since returned to his full-time position at Chemical Abstracts Service in Columbus as the manager of one of CAS's specialized databases of chemicals in patents.
Patricia Sanda, PhD 2006. Christoph Ransmayrs Romane Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, Die Letzte Welt und Morbus Kitahara: Eine narratologische, historische und rezeptions-ästhetische Untersuchung (Advisor: Bernd Fischer)
Kristy Rickards Boney, PhD 2006. Mapping Topographies in the Anglo and German Narratives of Joseph Conrad, Anna Seghers, James Joyce, and Uwe Johnson (Advisor: Helen Fehervary). She now teaches at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
Kristy Rickards Boney, PhD
and Professor Fehervary
Student Awards
Kristen Hetrick and Weijia Li received this year's Graduate Research Paper Award. The Graduate Service Award went to Colleen McCallum-Bonar. Matthew Bauman and Paul Krause received the Undergraduate Research Paper Award. Vanessa Orlik is the recipient of the Dieter Cunz Award. Sarah Sherren and Andrea Wittmer earned Ilsedore-Edse Scholarships for Study Abroad.
Nadia El-Yousseph, a senior double-majoring in Linguistics and German, and Zachariah Baird, who is earning a minor in German and linguistics, are this year's Fulbright-Scholars. Nadia also presented a racy poster entitled "Sex and Size: The perception of diminutives in German and English" at the COH Eleventh Annual Undergraduate Research Colloquium. Sarah Sherren, Rebecca Langenderfer, Nikolai Bogomolov, and Paul Krause were honored as recipients of the Robert and Mary Reusché Scholarship for Study Abroad. Ryan T. Bricker and Abbey M. Kinson were nominated to membership in the Ohio State University Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Julie Starzynski received the DAAD Undergraduate Scholarship to study in Bonn for two semesters. Wendy Dray was awarded a Marilyn Ruth Hathaway Education Scholarship and will begin the M.Ed. program at Ohio State in June.
Matthew Snyder studied at the Federal University of Paraná in Curitiba Brazil. He was recently accepted to the German graduate program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was awarded the Kent James Brown Assistantship. Congratulations to all!
More graduate student news
It has been an active year for Colleen McCallum-Bonar. Among other activities, she presented two papers at the 2006 Hawaii International Conference in Arts and Humanities in January 2006; Black Meets White: Diasporic Representation and the Case of Yiddish Literature and Holocaust 'Her'story: Alternate Perspectives on the Holocaust (with Karen Sobul). In February, Colleen lectured on Black and White and Read All Over? Yiddish Literature and Diasporic Expression at a conference at New York University. In April, Colleen gave a presentation at Temple Beth Tikvah entitled Images of African Americans in Yiddish and Jewish American Literature, in which she provided a comparative, alternate perspective in addressing the relationship between African Americans and Jews.
Svetlana Gordon presented "Postcoloniality and postcolonial critic in Sevgi Özdamar's novel Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei hat zwei Türen aus einer kam ich rein aus der anderen ging ich raus at the Graduate student conference at Yale University.
Weijia Li presented Bewusstseinserweiterung oder Seelen-betrübung--Drogenrausch in der deutschen und chinesischen Pop-Literatur at the Cornell Graduate Student Conference.
News from our alumni
Egon Schwarz (MA 1951) is the Rosa May Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and professor emeritus of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Washington University in St. Louis. Recently, articles and essays have appeared in such journals as Die Sammlung, Der Zaunkönig, Modern Austrian Literature, and in Festschriften. In June, Professor Schwarz returned from a lecture tour of Sweden, Germany, and Austria, where he read from the paperback edition of his autobiography entitled Unfreiwillige Wanderjahre (Beck 2005).
Sharon Hamersley (MA 1970) is employed by the Central Ohio Lions Eye Bank as an Education Coordinator. She is responsible for staff education on eye donation in 66 hospitals in Central and Southeastern Ohio. Her son Ben graduated from Ohio State in June 2005 with a degree in Environmental Science.
Sue Lancaster Vonderhaar (MA 1978) is the Copydesk Chief at The Cincinnati Enquirer. She spent a month in Hattiesburg, Miss., following Hurricane Katrina helping to produce the Hattiesburg American newspaper for storm victims in southern Mississippi. She lives with her husband in Delhi Township (outside Cincinnati).
Reginald A. Bess (PhD 1979) was named Chairperson of the Division of General Studies at Morris College in Sumter, South Carolina. He was named Full Professor of Modern Languages in 2006.
Glenn R. Cuomo (PhD 1982), Professor of German Language and Literature at New College of Florida, was a senior Fulbright scholar in the German Studies Seminar on "Aktuelle Tendenzen der deutschen Literatur der Gegenwart" in the summer of 2005. He currently serves as Chair of New College's Division of Humanities.
Greg Schneider (MA 1984) is currently the administrator of the Ohio Natural Heritage Program at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources where data is collected and a geospatial database on all the known locations of rare plants and animals in the state of Ohio is maintained. He works to help take care of Ohio's State Nature Preserves.
Karin A. Wurst (PhD 1985) is a Professor of German at Michigan State University. She is the author of Fabricating Pleasure: Fashion, Entertainment, and Con-sumption in Germany (1780-1830) and articles on fashion and gender in German Studies Review, the Journal des Luxus und der Moden and elsewhere. She served as President of the Society for German Renaissance and Baroque Literature in 2005.
David Caldwell (MA PhD 1986) is a Professor of German at the University of Northern Colorado. After serving as interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 2004-05, he was selected as dean of the new College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He is active in service to the Fulbright Association and a member of the editorial board of the Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature. At Northern Colorado he enjoys film programming, writing film reviews, and advising student organizers of the campus International Film Series. He continues work on Bertolt Brecht and on urban imagery in literature and film and developed a senior seminar called "Berlin: Die Stadt als Text."
Barbara Mabee (PhD 1988) will return to a regular teaching and research assignment after serving as Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. She is a co-author, with Simone Berger, of the textbook Kaleidoskop. Kultur, Literatur und Grammatik, which is in its seventh edition. She continues to publish extensively on contemporary women writers such as Elfriede Jelinek and Jana Hensel.
Tom Baginski (PhD 1990) published "Die Welt als Kunst in der naturmagischen Lyrik Oskar Loerkes," Études Germaniques, 61.2 (2006): 443-459.
Randall Condra (MA 1990) has been accepted into the Fine Arts Exhibition at the 2006 Ohio State Fair.
Amy Kepple Strawser (MA PhD 1991) is a senior lecturer at Otterbein College. She has published profiles of Ursula Krechel, Helga Novak and Carolyn Forché and lectured on "Living with the A-Word: Teaching and Mothering with Purpose" at the Women in German Conference.
David Limburg (PhD 1992) is in his fourteenth year of teaching German and German Studies at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. He serves as Director of the International Studies program and Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages.
Jenifer Cushman (MA PhD 1996) has been the Director of International and Off-Campus Programs at the College of Wooster since May 2005.
Joseph Moser (MA 1999) accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of German at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, PA.
Steve Benner (PhD 2000) is a candidate for the priesthood in the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis. He is enrolled at Bexley Hall Seminary in Columbus and will graduate in May 2007. Steve has also been a part-time lecturer in the Department this past year.
Kent Broestl (MA 2002) works as a computer programmer for a major educational publisher in Columbus, OH.
Jennifer William (PhD 2002) is an Assistant Professor at Purdue University, where she currently serves as the Graduate Advisor for German. She advises the German Culture Club and Purdue's chapter of Delta Phi Alpha, the National German Honor Society. She has published articles in The Germanic Review and the Journal of the Kafka Society of America and has written encyclopedia entries for The Literary Encyclopedia.
Kate Hallihan (PhD 2005) currently works as the Director of Professional Development at the Ohio State University Graduate School, where she researches and develops workshops and curricula for graduate faculty and graduate students in order to improve the quality of graduate education at Ohio State. Kate also coordinates the Preparing Future Faculty program which arranges for mentorships between accomplished faculty at area liberal arts colleges and Ohio State graduate students interested in exploring an academic career at smaller colleges and universities. Upcoming presentations: "The Use of Teaching Portfolios in TA Awards: A Study," Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education 31st Annual Conference October 25-29, 2006, Portland, OR. Research areas include: Bettina von Arnim, pedagogy, professional development in graduate education, women's issues and work-life balance in higher education. This past year, Kate, her husband Jason McAninch, and their 2-year-old daughter, Fiona Elizabeth McAninch, moved into their new home in the Eastmoor area of Columbus. On April 13, 2006, the family welcomed their second child, Connor James McAninch. Fiona and their 4 cats are all adjusting very well to the new arrival!
Alumna Profile: Tricia Fellinger
by Emily WaltonTricia Fellinger's German classroom at Upper Arlington High School is covered with wall-to-wall German realia and student work. The students make their way into the classroom and find their seats among the desks forming a "C". Frau Fellinger walks among the students and chats auf Deutsch with them about this and that.
The well-oiled and productive German classroom machine is no surprise considering how important German and teaching is to Tricia. Born and raised in Cincinnati, she was surrounded by a culture steeped in German history and heritage. As a student at Bowling Green, she began her studies of German, spending a year in Marburg, Germany. She continued her German studies at Ohio State, spending another year in Bonn, Germany writing her MA thesis on the Concept of Female-Female Friendships in 19th Century Epistolary Novels, Bettine Von Arnim and Karoline Von Günderrode: A Literary Friendship, and receiving her Master's Degree in 1995. A teacher at Upper Arlington High School since 1998, she has been involved in the Advanced Placement program, International Baccalaureate program and the German American Partnership Program, a summer exchange program in Moosburg, Germany. She is also a trainer at the Goethe Institut in Chicago, Department Chair of Global Languages at UAHS and President of the Ohio Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German. Some of her recent publications and presentations include Reading Strategies for Global Language Learners, Creative Writing Ideas for the German Classroom and a workshop on Popmusik im Unterricht sponsored by the Goethe Institute at the University of Kentucky.
When asked why she is inspired to teach, she responds, "I've learned that teaching the introductory language levels is such an important part of the foundation for students to encourage them to explore the language--so they can form relationships and feel comfortable with using the language. My favorite part of being a teacher is getting to know the kids, because with German, chances are I'll have them from beginning to end, getting to see their language, intellectual and character growth over the years." But she also cites the drawbacks to teaching, namely that it can be "physically and mentally exhausting." To combat the stresses of teaching, she enjoys traveling, practicing yoga, redecorating her condominium.
in memoriam Johanna Belkin
Professor Belkin was born in Munich, Germany and came to this country in the 1950s. She held a Masters Degree from the University of Munich and a PhD from The Ohio State University. Professor Belkin taught as Assistant Professor of German at Ohio Wesleyan University before coming to The Ohio State University in 1966, where she served in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures for 26 years and as Associate Dean of the College of Humanities from 1972-1973. Her scholarship was devoted to Medieval and Baroque German literature and philology. In 1975 she published a comprehensive bibliography of the Old High German author Otfrid von Weissenburg and the anonymous Old Saxon biblical poetry. Professor Belkin was very interested in late medieval scientific texts and was indeed a pioneer scholar in this recently developed field. In 1978 she published an exemplary critical edition of Euchrius Rösslin's 1535 treatise on minerals, an interdisciplinary project that was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. She also authored several articles on medieval technical language and medical treatises. Before her retirement in 1992, Professor Belkin had turned her attention to Grimmelshausen's baroque novel, Simplicissimus and was preparing a computer-generated index of the work. At the time, she was at the forefront in using cutting-edge technology for computer-assisted analyses in the Humanities. In her exemplary philological investigations she demonstrated the fertile unity of the history of the language and the history of literature. Professor Belkin served her profession at the highest level. She was a member of the Grimmelshausen Society, the Gutenberg Society, the Society of International Courtly Literature, and the Society for the Study of Dictionaries and Lexicography of North America. She was an active member of the University community and served on numerous college and University Committees, including the College of Humanities Research Committee, the Steering Committee of the OSU Research Council, the Comparative Literature Committee, which helped to establish the Department of Comparative Studies, the COH Promotion and Tenure Committee, and she was for many years active in the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. In her selfless service to the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, she supervised numerous PhD dissertations and for many years instructed our students in the history of the German Language, medieval literature and the craft of philological analysis. In recognition of her efforts, she received the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.Selected faculty publications
Barbara Becker-Cantarino
„Empfindsamkeit und Frauenlektüre," In: Das Projekt Empfindsamkeit und der Ursprung der Moderne, ed. Klaus Garber and Ute Széll. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2005, pp. 191-213.
„Die Lektüren Sophie von La Roches (1730-1807)." In: Geselligkeit und Bibliothek. Lesekultur im 18. Jahrhundert Ed. Wolfgang Adam and Markus Fauser with Ute Pott. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005, pp. 201-214.
„Literarische Geselligkeit–Neue Handlungsspielräume für Frauen um 1800?," In: Handlungsspielräume von Frauen um 1800. Ed. Julia Frindte and Caroline Westphahl. Heidelberg: Winter, 2005, pp. 17-39.
"Erbauung und Autorschaft: Johanna Eleonora Petersens Herzensgespräche mit Gott (1689)." In: Aedificatio: Erbaung im interkulturellen Kontext in der Frühen Neuzeit. Ed. Erich Solbach. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2005, pp. 19-34.
„Schlesien und Polen im Werk von Anna Louisa Karsch." In: Schlesien in Literatur und Kultur der Frühen Neuzeit. Ed. Klaus Garber. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2006, vol. 1, pp. 250-75.
„Gewalt und Leidenschaft: Zu Sextus Bircks und Martin Opitz' Judith." In: Passion, Affekt und Leidenschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit. Ed. Anselm Steiger et al. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005, pp. 719-39.
„Autorschaft: Zum Briefwechsel von Sophie von La Roche und Christoph Martin Wieland. In: Vom Verkehr mit Dichtern und Gespenstern. Figuren der Autorschaft in der Briefkultur. Hg. von Jochen Strobel. Heidelberg: Winter, 2006, pp. 61-78.
„Ut pictura poesis? Zu Harsdörffers Theorie der ¸Bildkunst.'" In: Georg Philipp Harsdörffer und die Künste. Ed. Doris Gerstl. Nürnberg: Hans Carl, 2006, pp. 9-22.
Nina Berman
"Ottoman Shock-and-Awe and the Rise of Protestantism: Luther's Reactions to the Ottoman Invasions of the Early Sixteenth Century." Spec. issue on Edward Said, ed. by Friederike Eigler, Seminar 41:3 (Summer 2005): 226-45.
"Autobiographical Accounts of Kenyan-German Marriages: Reception and Context." In Germany's Colonial Pasts. Eds. Eric Ames, Marcia Klotz, and Lora Wildenthal. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P., 2005. pp 205-26.
"Transnationalism and German Studies." H-NET List on German History H-GERMAN@H-NET.MSU.EDU. January 2006.
"On the Relevance of Comparative Cultural Knowledge for German Literary Studies." The German Quarterly 78.2 (Spring 2005): 243-45.
Marilyn Blackwell
"The Seventh Seal: Cinematic Form and Cultural Criticism" Film Analysis: A Norton Reader ed. Jeffrey Geiger & R. L. Rutsky. Norton: New York, 2005. Pp. 529-81.
"Excerpt from Där stäppen tar slut (Where the Steppe Ends)" by Peter Mosskin in Contemporary Jewish Writing in Sweden, ed. Peter Stenberg (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005). Pp. 325-58).
"Motti, Excerpt from Stenarnas döttrar (Daughters of the Stones) by Anita Goldman in Contemporary Jewish Writing in Sweden, ed. Peter Stenberg (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005). Pp. 403-20).
"Empirism, optik, och perspektiv på genus i Fadren" ("Empiricism, Optics, and Perspectives on Gender in [Strindberg's] The Father" Forthcoming in Det gäckande könet, ed. Anna Cavallin & Anna Westerståhl-Stenport, Symposion Press.
"The Sexualization of Space in Ingmar Bergman's Theater and Film." Forthcoming in a selection of the papers presented at the Ingmar Bergman Symposium at which Prof. Blackwell was a keynote speaker. It is edited by Maaret Koskinen, professor of Film Studies at Stockholm University and will appear with Wallflower Press.
Helen Fehervary
Anna Seghers, Erzählungen 1967-1980. Volume editor Eva Kaufmann, Vol. II/6, A. Seghers, Werkausgabe. Editors Helen Fehervary and Bernhard Spies (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2005), 452 pp.
"Regarding the Young Lukács or The Powers of Love: Anna Seghers and Thomas Mann," New German Critique 95 (Spring/Summer 2005): 81-92.
Gregor Hens
In diesem neuen Licht [novel]. Frankfurt: S. Fischer Verlag, 2006.
Setzungen (with Norvin Leineweber). Bremen: hachmannedition, 2006.
„Setzungen. Auszug." Edit 40.2 (2006): pp. 21-23.
„Matadore." Volltext 1 (2006): p. 34.
„Laputa." Nach Japan. Reiselesebuch. Ed. by Renate Giacomuzzi and Peter Giacomuzzi. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag, 2005, pp. 102-107.
Francien Markx
"E. T. A. Hoffmann's 'Don Juan': Views of an Eccentric Enthusiast?" Seminar 41:4 (November 2005): 367-379.
Andy Spencer
"Verwisch die Spuren/Cover the tracks" and "Life of Galileo". Communications from the International Brecht Society 35 (Fall 2006): 48-54.
Alexander Stephan
The Americanization of Europe: Culture, Diplomacy, and Anti-Americanism after 1945. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006.
Das Amerika der Autoren. Von Kafka bis 09/11 (with Jochen Vogt). München: Fink, 2006.
Exile and Otherness: New Approaches to the Experience of the Nazi Refugees. Exilstudien/Exile Studies, vol. 11. Oxford: Lang, 2005.
Refuge and Reality: Feuchtwanger and the European Émigrés in California (with Pól O'Dochartaigh). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005.
„Der wiedererwachte Systemkonflikt. Der 'neue' Bruch zwischen den USA und Europa ist eigentlich ein 'alter'." In: Endstation Amerika? Sozialwissenschaftliche Innen– und Außenansichten. Eds. Hermann Strasser and Gerd Nollmann. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2005, pp. 73-92.
„Vom Antiamerikanismus zum Systemkonflikt. Deutsche Intellektuelle und ihr Verhältnis zu den USA." In: Das Amerika der Autoren. Von Kafka bis 09/11. München: Fink, 2006, pp. 407-429.
„Transatlantic Rift: The Emerging Clash of Cultures Between the US and Europe." In: Occasional Papers. Department of European and Classical Languages & Cultures. Vol. 1. College Station: Texas A and M University, 2005, pp. 25-39.
"Der große Freund-Feind. Das gespannte Verhältnis zwischen Deutschland und den USA" Südwestrundfunk 2, 11 July 2004.
"Cold War Alliances and the Emergence of Transatlantic Competition: An Introduction." In: The Americanization of Europe: Culture, Diplomacy, and Anti-Americanism after 1945. Ed. Alexander Stephan. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006, pp. 1-20.
„A Special German Case of Cultural Americanization." In The Americanization of Europe: Culture, Diplomacy, and Anti-Americanism after 1945. Ed. Alexander Stephan. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006, pp. 69-88.
"The Historical Context of the German Reaction to 9/11" In America: Sovereign Defender or Cowboy Nation?. Ed.Vladimir Shlapentokh, Joshua Woods, and Eric Shiraev. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, pp. 13-27.
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