This is a web space for alumnae/i — graduate and undergraduate — of German and Scandinavian Studies at UMass Amherst. If you are not listed on this page, please e-mail the webmaster at <etorner@german.umass.edu> with your name, degree(s) and year(s) of graduation, e-mail address, the address of your personal website (if you have one), and a little about what you're doing now and what you've been doing. Feel free to e-mail us notes about happenings in your life — or even photos!

If you would like to donate to German and Scandinavian Studies, you can visit the UMass Amherst Development Office website and donate securely online. Your contributions help us to provide scholarships to undergraduates, fund graduate student research, and organize lectures and events. Thank you!

Jon Sherman (M.A. 1999), currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, won both the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Campus Award for Excellency in Undergraduate Instruction by a Teaching Assistant. He is working on his dissertation and has spent last year in Vienna, Austria, where he worked as a TA in the German Department's Study Abroad Program.

Stephanie Forryan (B.A. Linguistics and German) is now recording and performing music in Berlin. More information about her music can be found online: http://www.stephaniesongs.com/.

KateLyn Claffey (B.A. 2006), a former DEFA Film Library staffer and participant in the Baden-Württemberg Exchange, now lives in Boston and works at a law firm in government center. She says that DEFA played an interesting role in her job interview!

Photos of recent graduate Anu Lannen (B.A. 2006), who sent "Special thanks to the Überprofessors of UMass Amherst!"

Kocayne S. Givner (B.A. 2000) has been working in UMass Amherst Admissions since January 2004, after working at a graphic design school in Brooklyn, NY and a small business school in central MA. She writes the her most serious hobby is painting: "Having realized my passions for art and design, I will begin an MS in Interior Design at Drexel University beginning June 2006." Before graduating from UMass Kocayne participated in the Baden-Württemberg Exchange Program in Freiburg, where she met Ebanda Schafer, how her husband of six years (in the picture below). www.kocayne.com kocayne@hotmail.com

Amanda Boyd (Ph.D. 2005) has accepted a tenure-track position at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. Amanda will have a part in creating a German major. This summer and fall Amanda will be presenting at the Association for the Study of Esotericism and German Study Association conferences as well as the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. Her first article, "Gustav Meyrink and the Evolution of the Literary Vampire: From Feared Bloodsucker to Esoteric Phenomenon," is forthcoming in Neophilologus.

Shawn Boyd (M.A. 2002) passed his preliminary examinations for the Ph.D. in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in March 2005. He is hard at work on his dissertation on Middle High German literature, which he is writing under C. Stephen Jaeger.

Wendy Darling (B.A. in Journalism, Minor in German 1993) recently returned from her third trip to Germany in the past two years. On this last occasion, Wendy participated in a large-scale Live Action Role Play in Burg Bilstein, a castle located in the small town of Bilstein, in the Sauerland. Wendy acted as informal interpreter to several non-German-speaking guests, including British author Storm Constantine (see photo below). Afterward Wendy also had fun in Cologne, including a visit to the newly opened Roman sewer line, running under the heart of the city. Wendy currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and owns her own web design consulting company, Metro Girl (www.metrogirl.com). She is grateful for all the great instruction she had at UMass Amherst.

Christine (Burysz) Kowal (B.A. 1977) works with her husband in their own public relations firm. They have two sons: Daniel, a Biology major at Assumption College in Worcester, and James, who is a sophomore at St. John's High School in Shrewsbury.

David M. Nelson (B.A. 1995) in memoriam
GREENFIELD — David M. Nelson, 33, of 271 Silver St. died Friday, 14 January 2005 at home.

He was born in Newton, MA, on August 17, 1971, the son of Gordon and Ruth (Entine) Nelson. He graduated from McLean High School in McLean, Va. Also, he graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a bachelor’s degree in German. He was a resident of Sunderland prior to moving to Greenfield in 1999.

David was an assistant manager for Manny’s in Hadley, where he was featured on Manny’s commercials.

He hosted “Tuesday Night Trivia” in Hadley.

He loved animals, military history, building model tanks and “online” role-playing games. He was an avid reader.

Besides his mother of Watertown, he leaves his maternal grandmother, Blanche Entine of Watertown; a sister, Diane Nelson of Leeds, England; his stepmother, Susan Hopley, and his stepsister, Amy Dobson, both of McLean, VA; his former wife, Kayce D. Warren of Greenfield; his partner, Linda Eldred of Easthampton and Athol, and several aunts, uncles, cousins. Also he leaves his dear friend, Myles Healy of Shelburne Falls, and many other close friends.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Pioneer Valley Humane Society, P.O. Box 786, Greenfield, MA 01302

2003-2004

Marek Dutschke (B.A. 2003) is currently a Fulbright grantee in Berlin where he is pursuing research on right-wing radicalism in the “new” federal states. On 3 February 2004, Marek spoke at the KünstlerKlub Junges Forum in Berlin on “Spuren meines Vaters,” a talk about his father's (Rudi Dutschke's) generation.

Sharyn Claffey (B.A. 2002) graduated from UMass with a major in Economics and a minor in German, though it was while working for the DEFA Film Library that she decided to pursue graduate work in German Studies. As of September 2003, Sharyn is now in Washington, DC working on an M.A. in German and European Studies at Georgetown University's BMW Center for German and European Studies. Sharyn is also jointly pursuing a Ph.D. in Government with a concentration in International Relations. When she's not on campus, she's either exploring DC or working (as of very recently) as Managing Editor of the Americans for UNESCO new magazine.

Birgitta Fryksén (Ph.D. 2000) has published Rilke und kein Ende: Zur Rilke-Rezeption in Schweden von 1904 bis in die 1960er Jahre in Peter Lang's “Kulturtransfer und Geschlechterforschung” series (2003), edited by Sigrid Bauschinger and Sibylle Penkert.

Constantina Grafakos (B.A. 2000) is currently working for an environmental engineering firm where she provides customer service for the German- and Greek-speaking clients. After graduating, Constantina spent a year as a hotel Sales Manager and then moved to Mannheim, Germany to work as a freelance corporate English trainer for about fifteen months. In March of 2003, Constantina moved to the Boston area and in September of 2003, Constantina will start work on a master's degree in Education at Salem State College. She hopes to become a certified English literature and German language high school teacher.

Laura McLary (M.A. 1989, Ph.D. 1996) was recently awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor at the University of Portland, where she is responsible for coordinating a new German Studies major (beginning fall 2003). Laura taught a six-week course in Salzburg earlier in the summer of 2003, accompanied by her husband Jeffrey White (M.A. 1991) and their 2 ½-year-old daughter, Fiona. Laura writes, “I'm still working on Trakl” and “Greetings to all, especially Susan, meine Doktormutter!” Below is a picture of Laura, Jeffrey, and Fiona in Salzburg. Laura's website: http://lewis.up.edu/efl/mclary.

Leslie Morris (Ph.D. 1988) had her essay (written with Karen Remmler) "Writing Against Type: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Germany" published in Aufbau (26 February 2004). Most of this text was excerpted from the introduction to Contemporary Jewish Writing: An Anthology, edited by Morris and Remmler, published in 2002 by the University of Nebraska Press. Leslie is also co-editor, with Jack Zipes, of Unlikely History: The Changing of German-Jewish Symbiosis (New York: Palgrave, 2002). Leslie is currently Associate Professor of German and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota.

Beret Norman (M.A. 1995, Ph.D. 2004) defended her dissertation, "Bricolage as Resistance: The Lyrical, Visual and Performance Art of Gabriele Stötzer" (Prof. Sara Lennox, chair) on 25 March 2004. Beret started her job as Assistant Professor of German at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho (Fall 2004) after a year in the Department of German and Russian at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. With this appointment, Beret reports, the Modern Languages and Literatures department at Boise State doubled the number of German faculty.

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