Our graduate students have been very productive this past year. Harrison Baldwin, Allyn Heath, Bryan Knowlton, Birte Pietsch, Stephanie Walford, and Gina Wrobel all passed their master’s exams with flying colors and are pursuing educational opportunities both in the US and overseas. In addition, the program has welcomed several new graduate students: Caleb Davis, Qianqing Hu, Lisa Klotzsche, Robert Koller, Budimka Uskokovic Tenney and Alexandra Woessner. Welcome!

Photo: Bethany Richetti and her Advisor, Dr. Holub, after a successful defense.

Below are notes from several of our current graduate students:

Geoffrey Algar has passed his MA Exam and has been busy with teaching his undergraduate GE course on “Jewish Voices in US Literature.” For the upcoming academic year 2017/2018, he’ll serve as president of the Germanic Graduate Student Association.

William Baker advanced to candidacy in autumn 2016 and has since then presented a paper titled “Blandness and 'just seeing' in the Films of Wim Wenders” at “Change is Possible and Necessary: New Perspectives on Wim Wenders as Filmmaker and Visual Critic”, a conference at Richmond University. For the academic year 2017/2018, he has accepted a fellowship to conduct research at the Freie Universität Berlin.

Our first recipient of the Graduate Associate Distinguished Teaching Award, Kathrin Frenzel was heavily involved in the implementation of our new textbook in the lower-language levels as both assistant coordinator for 1101 and peer coordinator for 1102. In addition, she passed her candidacy exam and defended her prospectus. Moreover, she has presented her research at several conferences inside and outside of Ohio: Her paper "Let's Talk Some More! - Communicative Speaking Assessment with Electronic Speaking Portfolios” was presented at the IAFOR International Conference on Technology in the Classroom on Hawaii, her paper “Communcative Speaking Assessment” at the 48^th NeMLA Convention in Baltimore, “Communicative Speaking Assessment with Electronic Speaking Portfolios” was presented at the Ohio Foreign Language Association 2017 Conference, and she also gave a remote presentation at the International Association for Language Learning Technology titled "Electronic Speaking Portfolios: Tips, Tricks, and Benefits.” Along with peers from other language departments, Kathrin will continue to play an integral role in the organization of the yearly Second Language Research Forum which will take place at Ohio State in 2017.

Sarah Larson Traylor presented research from her dissertation at the NeMLA conference in Baltimore, Maryland in a paper titled “Between Community and Individualism: Richard Burton’s Pilgrimage in Der Weltensammler.” She also participated in the 2017 Notre Dame Berlin Seminar on German Literary Institutions “Der Literaturbetrieb.” In the academic year 2017/2018, she will finish up her dissertation with the support of a fellowship from the Max-Kade-Foundation.

Robert Koller, a new student in our program, finished his Magisterarbeit with the interesting title “Autobiografisches Schreiben zur Bewältigung von Exilerfahrungen und Identitätskrisen in Frederic Mortons Werken Runaway Waltz und Asphalt and Desire.“ In his research, he has assessed the Global Action Program of the United Nations and its implementation through informal learning settings.

Carly Martin assisted in the organization of the Ohio German Studies Workshop and, as Treasurer of the Germanic Graduate Student Association, played a pivotal role in organizing our annual graduate student conference. Moreover, she worked as facilitator at Ohio State’s TA Orientation in August 2016 and 2017 and in the Spring of 2017, she participated in the Teaching Orientation Facilitator Learning Community with the University Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Carolin Müller’s research was and will be supported by a Ray Travel Award, a Global Mobility Group Graduate Research Grand and a Felice M. Grand Endowed Scholarship. She published a review on the monograph Euro Visions by Mariana Liz in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television and has presented three papers: One co-presentation at the University of Arizona, Tuscon on “Connected Learning: Using instructional techniques and digital tools to enhance language and content learning”, another at the annual NeMLA in Baltimore on “The limitations of education and good will: refugee youth narratives in Neuland” which was followed by a presentation at the Chicaco Language Symposium titled “Teaching Assessing Linguistic and Cultural Development in the German Language Classroom.” In addition, she as organized the exhibition “Across the Pond. back and over again” at the OSU Urban Arts Space with fellow artists from Columbus and Dresden.

Bethany Richetti defended her dissertation “Learning to Re-present: Realism & Education in Literature and Visual Arts, 1800-1880” over the summer and continues to teach in our department as a lecturer.

Dennis Schäfer presented his research on Expressionist Cinema on two occasions. At the Germanic Graduate Student Conference here at Ohio State, he spoke on “Salvaging Nosferatu: Female Monstrosity in Penny Dreadful”, and at a DAAD Postgraduate Summer School in London, he delivered a paper titled “Monströse Metropolis: E.T.A. Hoffmann und die Schatten des expressionistischen Films.” This past summer, he has been working in Germany with the support of a Dr. Henry Kratz Jr. Summer Research Fellowship and was recently elected Treasurer of the Germanic Graduate Student Association.

Gina Wrobel has successfully founded two organizations/projects both inside and outside the department. The graduate student working group Foreign Language Research and Teaching (FLRT), of which Gina is president, is a cooperation among graduate students from many language departments. The German Reading Circle (GRC) offers an opportunity for students in our intermediate and continuing language program to gain extensive reading experience. In addition, she presented a paper on "Combined Explicit & Implicit Reading Instruction in the German Language Program” at the Indiana University Graduate Student Conference in Germanic Studies, Bloomington in March 2017.