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2006 Newsletter

The Scandinavian program of the Roth Endowment, based in Washington, DC, is being relocated to German and Scandinavian Studies at UMass Amherst, under the direction of Dr. Sky Arndt-Briggs. Kyle Frackman (Ph.D. Candidate) is the recipient of a grant from the Endowment earmarked to assist in this transition and extend outreach and offerings related to Scandinavia on behalf of German and Scandinavian Studies.

Faculty News

Dr. Sky Arndt-Briggs and Prof. Sarah McGaughey will present papers on "Spatial Modernism: Space and Place in Weimar Berlin" at the 2006 German Studies Association meetings, along with Sabine Hake of UT Austin. Sky will participate in UMass Amherst's 2006-07 Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts focusing on issues of cultural ownership.

Prof. Sherrill Harbison will chair the efforts of our newly-established Scandinavian Studies Committee.

Graduate Student News

Norman Ächtler (M.A. 2006) was awarded his master's degree, having completed it the previous year while a student on the Baden-Württemberg Exchange. Norman is now pursuing a doctorate in Germany.

Alison Behling (M.A. 2006) passed her M.A. exams and completed the master's degree in the spring 2006 semester. Alison will now pursue further graduate work in public and environmental policy and European Studies at Indiana University.

Juliette Brungs (Ph.D. Student) was selected for a summer research fellowship at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

Florence Feiereisen (Ph.D. Candidate) taught a class on 'Wunder' in Germany (German 310), TAed for From the Grimms to Disney: Germanic Fairy Tales and US Pop Culture at UMass and taught a conversation and composition class a Smith College. She presented “Music as Frames of Reference in Thomas Meinecke's Novels” at the annual conference of North East Modern Languages Association in Philadelphia (March 2006) and “Troubles with Gender Troubles” at the annual convention of the Popular Culture Association in Atlanta (April 2006). Two articles were published: “True Fictions and Fictional Truths: Text and Image in Sebald's The Emigrants” (in: Searching for Sebald, Ed. Lise Patt. Los Angeles: Institute for Cultural Inquiry, 2006) that she co-authored with Daniel Pope from Comparative Literature at UMass and “Liebe als Utopie? Von der Unmöglichkeit menschlicher Nähe in den Kurzgeschichten von Tanja Dückers, Julia Franck und Judith Hermann” (in: Zwischen Inzenierung und Botschaft. Eds. Ilse Nagelschmidt and Lea Müller-Dannhausen. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006). Florence will spend the summer working with the Suhrkamp Collection at Washington University thanks to a Max Kade dissertation grant.

Kyle Frackman (Ph.D. Candidate) passed his Ph.D. exams in May 2006. Kyle taught German 230: Intermediate German I in the fall semester and German 240: Intermediate German II in the spring semester. He presented a paper, "Boy Interrupted: Male Homosociality and Anxieties of Intrusion in Nordic Visual Art," at the Third Nordic Conference on Men and Masculinities at Åbo Akademi University in Turku/Åbo, Finland in May 2006. Kyle completed four articles for The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Scandinavian Culture (Routledge, 2007) on "Swedish Speakers in Finland," "Folk High Schools," "Einojuhani Rautavaara," and the "Nobel Peace Prize." He will spend part of the summer studying in Sweden, thanks to support from the Consulate General of Sweden, the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study (SASS), and the Swedish Institute. Kyle was also one of the organizers of the department's graduate student conference, "Experimentations: German and Scandinavian Studies," which took place in February 2006. Along with Florence Feiereisen, he is editing a volume of proceedings from the conference that will be published in 2006.

Melissa Gazo (Ph.D. Student) spent the spring 2006 semester in Germany.

Anne Hector (Ph.D. Candidate) was selected for one of the highly selective University Fellowships for 2006-2007.

Axel Hildebrandt (Ph.D. 2006) completed his doctoral degree and accepted a two-year position as Visiting Assistant Professor at Mt. Holyoke College.

Evan Torner (M.A. Student) completed his first year of graduate school in the M.A. program. Evan presented a paper at the department's "Experimentations" graduate student conference entitled "To the End of a Universe: The (Short-Lived) History of the DEFA Science Fiction Film." He also introduced and participated in the Q&A session for In the Dust of the Stars, a DEFA film screened at NYU's Deutsches Haus on 28 April 2006.

Susanne Wagner (Ph.D. 2006) completed her doctoral degree and accepted a one-year position at the Citadel. Susanne's dissertation was entitled "Der 20. July 1944 auf der Bühne" (with the English title "Depiction of the Walküre-events following the last assassination attempt on Hitler by Oberst Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg"). The dissertation committee consisted of Professors Sigrid Bauschinger (Chair), Klemens von Klemperer (Smith College), and Susan Cocalis. See photos below.

Susanne Wagner is hooded at the commencement ceremony

Prof. Sigrid Bauschinger, Susanne Wagner, Prof. Susan Cocalis, Prof. James E. Cathey after the graduate commencement ceremony

Prof. Sigrid Bauschinger, Susanne Wagner, Prof. Susan Cocalis after the graduate commencement ceremony

UMass Amherst in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Die neue Uniform paßt ihr doch ganz gut
Rettung der Auslandsgermanistik mit Volkness und Peoplehood: Das Fach der "Black German Studies"

AMHERST, im Mai

Die Erinnerung, wie sie Walter Benjamin im Augenblick der Gefahr aufblitzen sah, schien mit einem Mal ins neuenglische Amherst ausgewandert zu sein. Dabei hätte sie in Potsdam gute Dienste leisten können. Aber nicht in Deutschland, sondern in Amerika, an der University of Massachusetts, fand nun eine Tagung statt, die den Überfall auf Ermyas M. gleichsam zum geheimen Thema hatte und durch ihn eine ebenso unerwartete wie unerwünschte Aktualität bekam. Als Sara Lennox, Germanistin an der gastgebenden Hochschule, Benjamin zitierte, richtete sie ihren Blick aus der Gefahrenzone der Gegenwart jedoch nicht weniger in die Zukunft als in die Vergangenheit. Zwei Tage lang sollte es darum gehen, eine kaum eingestandene, weitgehend verdrängte Geschichte, die der schwarzen Deutschen oder, im akademischen Jargon, der Afrodeutschen, ins Bewußtsein zu rücken und nebenbei zu überlegen, wie ein universitärer Zweig eine neue wissenschaftliche Knospe treiben könnte.

Welcher Zweig dafür in Frage käme, behielt der erste Konferenztag noch für sich. Er war historisch ausgerichtet, und wer da glaubte, nur mit Mühe wären einige fundierte Beiträge zusammenzutragen, konnte sich immer wieder überraschen lassen. "Remapping Black Germany", also die Neuvermessung des schwarzen Deutschland, versprach der Titel der Konferenz, und dieses schwarze Deutschland ist nicht erst seit der neuesten Völkerwanderung im Entstehen begriffen.

Schlug Fred Moten, an der University of Southern California für African-American Studies und Film zuständig, noch einen gleichsam poetophilosophischen Bogen zu Kants Rassebegriff, den Moten als Zaubergeste verstehen wollte, so baute Robert Bernasconi, Philosoph an der University of Memphis, schon einen viel handfesteren historischen Rahmen um das erstaunlich ausladende Thema. Von ihm war zu erfahren, wie sich zwischen Kant und Hitler die Beurteilung der Mischung von weißer und schwarzer Rasse unablässig verschob und wieviel unheilvoller als die Positionen der Deutschen die der Amerikaner waren, deren Stichworte Hitler schließlich auf die Juden übertragen habe.

Bernasconis brisante These wurde indirekt bestätigt von Maria Diedrich, Amerikanistin an der Universität Münster, die auf den afroamerikanischen Schriftsteller und Bürgerrechtler W.E.B. DuBois verwies und dessen Weigerung, in Deutschland eine Diskriminierung der Schwarzen zu erkennen. Zum einen konnte DuBois damit die Lage im eigenen Lande noch wirksamer skandalisieren, zum anderen gab es eben auch in Deutschland, wie Diedrich bekräftigte, im Gegensatz zu Amerika keinen systematisch begründeten Rassismus gegenüber den Schwarzen.

Unberücksichtigt blieb dabei, nicht anders als im gesamten Verlauf der Konferenz, der prozentuale Anteil der Schwarzen an der Gesamtbevölkerung. Alles war auf den Facettenreichtum der afrodeutschen Geschichte gerichtet. Sie begann im Zuge des Kolonialismus, als die Deutschen erstmals schwarze Landsleute kennenlernten, nicht nur als lebende Ausstellungsstücke beim pädagogisch-ethnologischen Zirkus der Völkerschauen. Vor Ende des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts bildeten Diplomaten und Sprachhilfen, die etwa am Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen Anstellung fanden, die erste multikulturelle Gemeinschaft in Berlin, wie Sara Pugach, Historikerin an der Ohio State University, beispielreich belegte.

Schwarze Soldaten, die nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg mit der französischen Besatzungsarmee ins Rheinland kamen, ließen Kinder zurück, die als "Rheinland-Bastarde" beschimpft wurden. Ihnen folgten nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg die "Brown Babies", deren Väter schwarze Angehörige der amerikanischen Streitkräfte waren. Randolph Ochsmann, Psychologe an der Universität Mainz, sprach als Sohn eines schwarzen Amerikaners und einer weißen Deutschen aus eigener Erfahrung.

Für die "Brown Babies" gab es, dank wirtschaftlicher Wunderzeiten, in den sechziger Jahren so etwas wie ein Happy-End. Ihre Integration gelang einer Nation, die sich bereits in der Welt nach anderen Arbeitskräften umsah. Darüber war jedoch weniger zu erfahren als über die Schwarzen, die in die DDR geholt und, wie im Fall der Namibiakinder, wieder abgeschoben wurden. Das alles war historische Basisarbeit über einen von der Wissenschaft immer intensiver untersuchten, von der Öffentlichkeit bisher aber wenig beachteten Bevölkerungsteil. Die Konferenz indes hatte weitaus Kühneres im Visier.

Ein Wort wie "bahnbrechend" machte die Runde. Soll ein eigenes Fach namens "Black German Studies" begründet werden? Richtungweisend könnte eine Historikerin wie Tina Campt sein, die es anhand von Familienfotos unternahm, der "dominierenden Fiktion deutscher Rassenreinheit" ein Ende zu bereiten. Alexander Weheliye, für die Northwestern University in den Fächern Englisch und African-American Studies zugange, machte sich Gedanken über "rassische Kollektivität" jenseits des Nationalstaats, womit die "Schwarze Diaspora", im akademischen Diskurs längst ein Klassiker, in Reichweite war.

Der afrodeutsche Hiphop, den Weheliye für seine Ausführungen zwischen "Volkness" und "Peoplehood" heranzog, war nicht die einzige Kunstform, die in Amherst ihre Würdigung fand. Jürgen Heinrichs, Kunsthistoriker an der Seton Hall University, meinte im Werk des Künstlers Marc Brandenburg ein Unbehagen angesichts von Identität, jedoch keine Verleugnung wahrzunehmen. Bisweilen rang sich die Wissenschaft sogar durch, tapfer zu schweigen, um allein der Kunst die Bühne zu überlassen. Auch die Filmregisseurin Branwen Okpako und der Maler Daniel Kojo Schrade nahmen an der Debatte teil, vor allem aber durften sie zeigen, was ihnen zur afrodeutschen Befindlichkeit eingefallen war.

Auch für Tobias Nagl, seit zwei Jahren Research Fellow an der University of Massachusetts und treibende Kraft der Konferenz, gilt es nicht nur, die Geschichte der Afrodeutschen in all ihrer Komplexität aufzurollen und damit eine falsche, nämlich viel zu kurzsichtige Erzählung zu korrigieren. Er will der wissenschaftlichen Beschäftigung mit dem schwarzen Deutschland, die Mitte der achtziger Jahre an den deutschen Universitäten allmählich einsetzte, von Neuengland aus einen neuen Schub verleihen.

In einer Zeit, in der die Identitätswissenschaften heftigen Gegenwinden ausgesetzt sind, ist das ein ehrgeiziges Unterfangen. Zumal Richtungskämpfe sich auch in Amherst schon andeuteten. Könnte Ochsmann sich die "Black German Studies" als Spezialgebiet in seinem viel weiter gefaßten Projekt der "Black European Studies" vorstellen, peilt die Historikerin Fatima El-Tayeb, zur Zeit an der University of California at San Diego, über Nation und Rasse hinaus einen interdisziplinären Austausch großen Stils und noch größerer Reichweite an, ein Multifach, das der traditionellen Ökonomie soviel Raum gewährt wie Gender-, Queer- und Migration-Studies.

In diesem Überschwang, der von akademischen Skurrilitäten und Moden gewiß nicht frei ist, war kaum zu übersehen, daß die Hauptvertreter der entstehenden Zunft an amerikanischen Universitäten leichter Unterschlupf finden werden als an deutschen. Warum, das stand offiziell nicht zur Debatte. Aber Nagl, selbst einer jener deutschen Wissenschaftsemigranten, ringt dem Exodus auch einen positiven Aspekt ab. Er traut den "Black German Studies" zu, die Germanistik in einem Land wie Amerika, das ihr nicht gerade überwältigenden Zulauf beschert, vor der finalen Erschöpfung zu retten. Wo Goethe nicht hilft, geht es mit afrodeutschem Hiphop in den universitären Wettbewerb. Wer eine bessere Idee hat, melde sich umgehend.

JORDAN MEJIAS

Text: F.A.Z., 16.05.2006, Nr. 113 / Seite 42

2005 Newsletter

Faculty News

Professors James E. Cathey and Sherrill Harbison have been nominated for the University's Distinguished Teaching Award.

Graduate Student News

Amanda Boyd defended her dissertation on "Demonizing Esotericism: The Treatment of Spirituality and Popular Culture in the Works of Gustav Meyrink" on May 25, 2005. Amanda has a one-year position in the Department of German and Russian at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon where she is teaching advanced language, culture, and literature courses. She and her husband Shawn love the area, which is a big change for them after three years in Illinois.

Florence Feiereisen presented the following papers: “Patronizing Diminutive in the German Literature Scene: ‘Literarisches Fräuleinwunder'” at the University of Pennsylvania (graduate student conference, March 2005), “Poetry! Slam! Literature Performances in Contemporary Germany” at the University of Massachusetts' Anthropology department (graduate student conference, May 2005), "DJ-Autor Andreas Neumeister: Literarische Rhythmen in der deutschen Popliteratur” at the German Studies Association Conference (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 2005) and a poster entitled "Cuts, Mix and Scratches: German ‘DJ literature.'” at the annual conference of Women in German (Carrollton, Kentucky, October 2005.) Her article on “'DJ-Literatur': DJ-Techniken in der neuen deutschen Popliteratur” appeared in Focus of German Studies, Vol.12 (September 2005). She was and is active in the department ('Kaffeemutter' 2004-5, organizer of a German-American tandem program and other projects this semester). Since the last newsletter Florence taught German 311: Reading German culture (Spring '05, emphasis on contemporary lyrics and prose) and German 320: Advanced German -- Debating in German (Fall '05). Florence received a University Fellowship for 2005-6. In the summer, she spent two months backpacking in Fiji and Australia. Right now she is working on her dissertation and on smaller projects including an essay on the literary 'Fräuleinwunder' and their relationship towards love.

Kyle Frackman presented a paper “There is a Time and a Place for Everything: Logics of Textual Time-Space” at the Anthropology department conference "Eurovisions: Crossing Disciplines, Crossing Boundaries" in May 2005 and a poster “Bedding with Honor: Gender Dynamics in fin-de-siècle German and Austrian Educational Culture” at the 2005 Women in German Conference in Carrollton, Kentucky in October 2005. Kyle will have book reviews published in upcoming numbers of gender forum in addition to articles in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Sex and Culture: The Nineteenth Century and the Victorian Age (forthcoming). In the summer of 2005, he spent a month in Sweden at a language course sponsored by the Swedish Institute and is enjoying continuing to study Swedish and Finnish at UMass.

Betheny Moore Roberts has been making progress on her dissertation and has subtitled 6 of the 17 films for the DEFA retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Betheny was also hired to start a German program at Holyoke Community College; she began teaching one course this semester and now has enough students for two German language classes in the spring 2006 semester. The paper she was invited to deliver at Humboldt Universität, Berlin, "Heikle Fragen. Die Geschichte der DEFA-Aufklärungsfilmen" will be published in the book: "Deutschlandbilder-Geschlechtsbilder. Nation und Geschlecht in DEFA-Filmen" edited by Bettina Mathes, which will appear fall 2006.

2004-2005

2004 Newsletter

Faculty News

Sara Lennox has been elected Vice President of the German Studies Association, to succeed to the presidency in two years. With Randolph Ochsmann and Peggy Piesche of the University of Mainz and Fatima El-Tayeb of the University of California at San Diego, she has received a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation on "Black Europe: (Forgotten) Past and Future of a Continent" and from the Alexander from Humboldt Foundation on "Black European Studies." Her book, Cemetery of the Murdered Daughters:  Feminism, History, and Ingeborg Bachmann, has been accepted for publication by the University of Massachusetts Press. In 2004 she published the following articles:

“The Woman Who Rode Away: Postcoloniality and Gender in “Three Paths to the Lake.” If We Had the Word: Ingeborg Bachmann. Views and Reviews. Ed. Gisela Brinker-Gabler and Markus Zisselsberger. Riverside, CA: Ariadne, 2004. 208-220.

"Gender, Kalter Krieg und Ingeborg Bachmann" Über die Zeit schreiben III: Literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Essays zum Werk Ingeborg Bachmanns. Ed. Monika Albrecht and Dirk Göttsche. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2004. 15-54.

“Bachmann, Ingeborg. (1926-1973).“ The Literary Encyclopedia. www.LitEncyc.Com. Published 18 September 2004.

“Globalization, Alternative Modernities, and the Future of German Studies,” The Many Faces of Germany: Transformations in the Culture and History of Germany. Festschrift for Frank Trommler. Ed. John McCarthy, Walter Grünzweig, and Thomas Koebner. New York: Berghahn, 2004. 336-346.

“Constructing Femininity in the Early Cold War Era.” German Pop Culture: How “American” Is It? Ed. Agnes C. Mueller. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 66-80.

She also delivered the following talks in 2004 and 2005:

“The ‘Native Problem' in Colonial Narratives from German South West Africa,” The German-Herero War – One Hundred Years After 1904-2004: Realities, Traumas, Perspectives, Bremen, Germany, November 20, 2004; Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, February 7, 2005; McGill University, February 10, 2005.

”Colonial Phantasies: The Native Problem in the German Imagination,” 1904-2004: Decontaminating the Nambian Past - A Commemorative Conference.” University of Namibia, August 19, 2004 ; Schwarz auf Weiss: Imagining Blackness in German and Austrian Culture, Harvard University, September 12, 2004.

“Feminism and Cultural Studies,” Conference on Los Estudios de Género en el Siglo XXI, University of Havana, Cuba, January 6, 2004.

Tobias Nagl has joined the department as a research fellow to coordinate the Black European and Black German projects.  Tobias is completing his doctorate at the University of Hamburg with a dissertation called "Die unheimliche Maschine:  Rasse und Repräsentation im Weimarer Kino."

Graduate Student News

Florence Feiereisen (Ph.D.) presented her paper, “DJ-Literature: Repeating, mixing, sampling German pop literature,” at the Midwest Popular Culture Association conference in Cleveland, Ohio (8-10 October 2004). She also passed her Ph.D. exams in the fall 2004 semester (Prof. Susan Cocalis, advisor).

Kyle Frackman (Ph.D.) presented a poster at the 2004 Women in German conference in Carrollton, Kentucky: “‘Die lähmende Gewalt der Enge’: Discipline, Sexual Complicity, and Queer Space in Robert Musil's Törleß” (21-24 October 2004).

Anne Hector (Ph.D.) successfully took her Ph.D. exams in the fall 2004 semester (Prof. Susan Cocalis, advisor).

Alexandra Merley (M.A./Ph.D.) presented a poster at the 2004 Women in German conference in Carrollton, Kentucky: “The Wonderful Horrible Life of the Government-Commissioned Artist: Propagandistic Photography in 1930's United States and Germany” (21-24 October 2004). She also passed her M.A. exams in the fall 2004 semester (Prof. Susan Cocalis, advisor).

Kerstin Mueller (Ph.D.) successfully defended her dissertation in the fall 2004 semester (Prof. Susan Cocalis, chair/advisor).

Betheny Moore Roberts (Ph.D.) was invited to give a three hour lecture and film discussion in May 2004 at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin symposium "Geteiltes Land, Geteilter Sex. Nation und Sexualität in DEFA Filmen" organized by the Zentrum für transdisziplinäre Geschlechterstudien with support from the DEFA-Stiftung. Her talk "Heikle Fragen. Die Geschichte der DEFA Aufklärungsfilme" also included screenings of three films which had not been seen since the fall of the Wall.

Maria Stehle (Ph.D.) presented a paper (“‘Transnational Psychogeography’ as Political Practice: Confronting the Trans in the Nation at a Teleshop in Berlin Mitte”) and a poster (“Derive as Political Practice and Feminist Perspective: A Psychogeographical Map of the Teleshops in Berlin Mitte”) at the 2004 Women in German conference in Carrollton, Kentucky (21-24 October 2004). She also successfully defended her dissertation, “Discourses of Crisis in West German Texts and Films of the 1970s: A 'Transnational Psychogeography' of Gender, Race, and Violence,” on 14 December 2004 (Prof. Susan Cocalis, chair/advisor).

Undergraduate Student News

Jennifer Hill, a German minor, has been awarded a General Electric Foundation scholarship.

Sara Young, a German major, hs been selected for a DAAD fellowship.

2003-2004

Amanda (Benis) Boyd (Ph.D.) is currently teaching German language and literature in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she continues work on her dissertation on Gustav Meyrink. Last April, Amanda presented a paper at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference titled “Gustav Meyrink, Black Magic, and the Great War,” and she will present there again in spring 2004 on “Vampiric Transfusions and Spiritual Transformations in Selected Works of Gustav Meyrink.” Amanda's website: http://www.german.uiuc.edu/acboyd/.

Prof. James E. Cathey gave a talk on “The Language of the Vikings” in a session with the theme “Language: Seeing with the Etymological Eye” at the 25th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum held on 16 April 2004 at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

Cedric Cunningham (Ph.D.) presented his paper “The Reunification of 'Aryan' Germans 1990-2004: Seen from the Perspectives of African Germans” at the (Re)Visions graduate student conference in March 2004.

Florence Feiereisen (Ph.D.) presented her paper “Thomas Meinecke's Tomboy: A Queer Analysis” at the (Re)Visions graduate student conference in March 2004.

Kyle Frackman (M.A.) and Rachael Salyer (M.A.) presented their paper “Queerly Everyday: Discursive Mobility and (Hetero)Normative Discipline in Der bewegte Mann” at the (Re)Visions graduate student conference in March 2004.

Anne Hector (Ph.D.) presented her paper “Anti-Ostalgie: Answering the Kitsch Trend of Ostalgie” at the conference of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association held in San Antonio, Texas, 7-10 April 2004. Anne also had a review, “Versuche, das Vergessen zu vermeiden: Jana Hensels Zonenkinder beschreibt eine Kindheit in der DDR,” published in the February/March 2004 issue of German World.

Prof. Harry Seelig gave a talk entitled “'Hans Adam': Goethe's Creation Myth: A Parody Parodied by Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauß” at the “Internationales Hugo Wolf Symposium in Graz und Slovenj Gradec anlässlich des 100. Todesjahres des Komponisten” (3-7 November 2003) and as a part of “Vixen Muse: Hugo Wolf's Musical World” at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada (23-26 November 2003). Prof. Seelig has also developed a new course for the fall 2004 semester: German 594A — “Goethe's Divan: Orientalism in 19th-century German Culture.” For a course description, visit http://www.umass.edu/germanic/newcourses.html.

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2002-2003

Prof. Robert G. Sullivan was honored at the 38th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 8-11 with a special session devoted to his book Justice and the Social Context of Early Middle High German Literature (Routledge, 2001). The gathering is one of the largest academic conferences in the nation with approximately 3,000 participants meeting annually at Western Michigan University. Among the attendees this year was Prof. James E. Cathey, who delivered a paper on “Bernlef and the Heliand.” (Campus Chronicle, 5/23/2003)

Rachael Salyer (M.A.) presented her paper “(P)entangled Interpretations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” at two conferences in the spring semester: The Medieval Forum at Plymouth State University (April 11-12, 2003) and the graduate student conference sponsored by the UMass English Department (May 15, 2003).

Maria Stehle (Ph.D.) and Prof. Susan Cocalis were featured in the Campus Chronicle (5/9/2003) after the Department's Märchen-Bash.

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