Tidings - Volume 31/2012

germanic.osu.edu 1 Tidings

Contents 3 ... Holub Named Ohio Eminent Scholar in German 4 ... Lectures and Conferences 7 ... Undergraduate Student News 9 ... Graduate Student News11 ... Faculty Books 2011-12 12 ... Faculty News 15 ... Alumnae / Alumni News 16 ... Friends of the Department

tíðindi Zeitung לַאנרושז

DEPARTMENT OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES VOL. 31 / 2012

TIDINGS

Greetings from the Outgoing Chair

At the top of my greetings this year is the exciting news that Professor Robert Holub is joining our faculty in Germanic Languages and Literatures as the Ohio Eminent Scholar of German.

Professor Holub most recently served as Chancellor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; he has also served as Provost at the University of Tennessee and as Dean, Chair and Professor of German at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known to Germanists for his scholarship on nineteenth- and twentieth-century intellectual, cultural and literary history and for his leading role in shaping the field of German Studies over the last several decades. This autumn semester Professor Holub is teaching a graduate seminar on “The Late Works of Friedrich Nietzsche.”

Several colleagues have taken on new responsibilities within the College and University. Paul Reitter has assumed the directorship of the Humanities Institute. Kathryn Corl is now heading operations at the Council on Academic Misconduct. I am at the end of my four-year term and have stepped down as chair of the Department to resume my research and teaching. Bernd Fischer will be serving as interim chair this year while we conduct an outside search to fill the position.

Romy Bierwirth joins us from the University of Jena as our new DAAD “Sprachassistentin.” Romy will be with us the entire year and teach several beginning language courses and assist with activities in our German House. We also welcome 6 new MA students: Kelly Darbyshire, Emily Foote, Sophie Lahr-Eigen and Gesine Wegner are Graduate Teaching Associates and Carly Martin and Alice Schlingman join us as fellows.


Congratulations to Berit Jany, who is our first Max Kade Dissertation Fellow for the academic year. Berit will use the time to work on her dissertation on “Representations of early Anabaptism in German narrations.” Sarah Larson and Jonathan Smith are spending the year in Germany in Dresden and Berlin, respectively. Lizzy Hancock has returned from Berlin to complete her MA; Jaclyn Kurash is back from Allegheny College, where she taught as a visiting instructor, to complete her PhD with us.

We are proud to congratulate our five most recent doctores, Kristen Hetrick, who defended in January, and Jennifer Magro-Algarotti, Kevin Richards, Thomas Stefaniuk and Jesse Wood, all of whom defended their theses with bravado this past summer. Luke Bauer and Zoe Biller successfully completed their MAs in the spring and are continuing on to the PhD.

I want to draw your attention to the Germanic Graduate Student Association Conference which will take place in February. This year’s topic will be “Transculturalism and Transnationalism in the Arts.” Please see page 6 of this newsletter.

Semesters are under way and with them new graduate and undergraduate major programs in German. We’ve also added several new classes to the roster. General education courses we have added include “Religion in Modern German Literature and Philosophy” (Ger 3451H) and “Masterpieces of German Literature” (Ger 4252), both of which will be taught in spring semester 2013.

I will finish my greeting with a call for donations to a very important fund. A few years back I announced that the Department had received a generous gift from the estate of Henry Kratz earmarked for graduate student research. This fund would support travel to archives or conferences. For the fund to be vested and generate income, we still need $7,000. Please consider giving a gift to the Henry Kratz, Jr. Fund (480961).

Tom STefaniuk wiTh faculTy afTer hiS defenSe

anna GroTanS


Robert C. Holub Named Ohio Eminent Scholar in German

H olub’s scholarly work deals with nineteenth and twentieth-century literary, cultural, and intellectual

history, focusing on social and historical contextualization of the writers and movements he treats. He has published monographs on Heinrich Heine, German Realism, Literary Theory, Jürgen Habermas, and Friedrich Nietzsche. The author of more than 100 articles and essay on topics as varied as aesthetic theory in the eighteenth century and coming to terms with the past in postwar Germany, he has also edited English translations of works by Heine and Nietzsche, and written dozens of scholarly reviews.

His current project involves situating Friedrich Nietzsche in the social and scientific discourses of nineteenth-century Europe. While most of Nietzsche scholarship deals with him abstractly and divorced from his intellectual roots, Holub will present him as an intellectual in active dialogue with current issues in German society and with the latest and most controversial theoretical developments in the realm of natural science (evolution, thermodynamics, physiology, eugenics).

Holub joins GLL after a series of positions in academic administration: first as Dean of the Undergraduate Division at Berkeley (2003-06), then Provost at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (2006-08), and finally as Chancellor of the Amherst campus at the University of Massachusetts (2008-12). Prior to his work in administration he had been a member of the German Department in Berkeley for 27 years (1979-2006), including a six-year stint as Chair of that department (1991-97). He was a distinguished visiting professor at Ohio State in 1997.

Holub lives in Worthington with his wife Sabine, who did graduate work in GLL in the 1990s, and their three children, Madelaine (11), Shoshanah (9), and Natalie (5), all of whom attend Evening Street School.

Thanks to a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Romy Bierwirth has joined the department as a visiting instructor this academic year. Bierwirth graduated with the Erstes Staatsexamen from the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany where she studied German literature and linguistics, history and pedagogy as well as Teaching German as a Foreign Language and adult education.

Her main interests are in foreign language acquisition and foreign language pedagogy, especially in the field of foreign language phonology.


Neil G. Jacobs and Marilyn J. Blackwell retire

Neil G. Jacobs, PhD (Columbia University, 1984). Professor.

Research interests: Yiddish phonology and morphology; history of the Yiddish language; Yiddish linguistic geography; general historical linguistics, Post-Yiddish Jewish ethnolects (especially of German and Dutch); use of language in Jewish cabaret; ethnography of Ashkenazic Jewish speech/the linguistic performance of Jewishness.

Books: Economy in Yiddish Vocalism: A study in the interplay of Hebrew and non-Hebrew components (1990). Harrassowitz VerlagYiddish: A linguistic introduction (2005). Cambridge University Press

Edited volumes: Studies in Jewish Geography. Special Issue of Shofar: An interdisciplinary journal of Jewish studies, Vol. 17, No. 1. Fall 1998.When Languages Collide: Perspectives on Language Conflict, Language Competition, and Language Coexistence. Edited by Brian D. Joseph, Johanna DeStefano, Neil Jacobs, and Ilse Lehiste. Ohio State University Press. (2003).

Articles on: Hebrew-Aramaic component in Yiddish; Yiddish phonology; Yiddish morphology; history of the Yiddish language; Yiddish linguistic

geography; hyperforeignism in general linguistic change; diglossia; ethnogeographic information systems (EGIS) for mainframe and pc; Jewish-German; Jewish cabaret.

Major courses taught: History of the Yiddish language; Yiddish linguistic geography; language and society in interwar Vienna. Newer teaching projects include: a group-studies course in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese under the rubric Spanish 694: "Introduction to Papiamentu language and Culture".

Marilyn Johns Blackwell, PhD (University of Washington, 1976). Professor.

Specializations: 19th- and 20-century drama and prose; feminist criticism; film.

Books: C.J.L. Almqvist and Romantic Irony: The Aesthetics of Self-Consciousness (1983); Persona: The Transcendent Image (1986); Gender and Representation in the Films of Ingmar Bergman (1997).

Edited Book: Structures of Influence: Comparative Approaches to August Strindberg (1981).

Articles on: Strindberg; Almqvist; Bergman; Ibsen; Enquist; Vesaas; Dinesen.

Major courses taught: Films of Ingmar Bergman; Scandinavian literature courses.


“ein sehr gelungener und runder Besuch”

Dresden Deputy Mayor Winfried Lehmann and Antje Beutekamp visited Ohio State on

February 10, 2012.

The students of German 201, taught by Berit Jany, impressed him with solid questions about Dynamo Dresden and the Fußballstadion. He described his experience with the students as ein absoluter Höhepunkt of his campus visit.

Lectures and Conferences

Sai Bhatawadekar (Hawaii at Manoa) Claims and Disclaimers: Schopenhauer’s Comparative M.O. 5/1/12

Transformations of the Public Sphere, International and Interdisciplinary ConferenceApril 12-14, 2012

Symposium: Reference in Interaction from a Cross-Cultural Perspective. April 6-7, 2012

Robert C. Holub (Massachusetts, Amherst) Friedrich Nietzsche in Context: His Dialogue with Nineteenth-Century Science. 4/5/12

Thomas Meyer (Chicago) From Kirchhain to Annapolis. Leo Strauss’s Intellectual Biography. 4/2/12

4th Annual GGSA Conference - Mind and Madness: The Mind and its LanguagesFeb 17-18, 2012

2012 Carolyn Engel Luebeck LectureBarton Byg (Massachusetts - Amherst) Abstraction in the Cultural Cold War: Film and the Visual Arts in East Germany. 1/18/12

Kai Hammermeister (Ohio State) Defending Art against its Interpreters. 11/15/11

Amy Kepple Strawser (Otterbein & Columbus State) Poetry reading from Voices from the Bitter Core (2010), her translation of Ursula Krechel’s Stimmen aus dem harten Kern (2005). 10/17/11

Stefanie Arend (Universität Rostock and Max Kade Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia) “‘Mache doch mein Inneres so gut und fein, dass er mich lieben kann’ - Liebe und Bildung in Irmgard Keuns Roman ‘Das kunstseidene Mädchen (1932).’” 10/3/11

Tim Mehigen (Otago) Robert Musil and the Question of Science. 9/27/11

Workshop - Literature and the Public Sphere: The Case of Heinrich von Kleist. 9/22/11

“Ask Me More About Brecht: Hanns Eisler in Conversation with Hans Bunge”by Sabine Berendse and Paul Clements, A Multimedia Dramatic Reconstruction of Hanns Eisler’s Conversations with Hans Bunge. April 26, 2012.

phoTo: doriT fraTzScher


Spring Conference

Transformations of the Public Sphere

On April 13 and 14, 2012, at the Ohio State University’s Mershon Center for International Security Studies, international scholars from various disciplines discussed “Transformations of the Public Sphere.” The conference concluded a three-year-long interdepartmental lecture and workshop series discussing Jürgen Habermas’ influential, historical and normative concept of the “public sphere”––the realm of a rational and power-free discourse and opinion making that keeps a (democratic) government in check.

The conference opened with a discussion of concepts of the common, including the social and philosophical power of taste (Christoph Menke), the role of aesthetics in politics (Juliane Rebentisch), and the public as a mirror of the political system (Edgar Landgraf). Political scientists explored ways of “cognitively mapping” today’s complex global political economies through a “reflexive biopolitics” (Kam Shapiro), the necessity of communicative distortion in the public sphere (Jacob Schiff), and the Occupy Wall Street protests’ challenge to the study of world politics (Nicholas Kiersey). The public image and function of science was examined with respect to nuclear power

(Spencer Weart) and climate change (Joel Wainwright). An international viewpoint was presented in discussions of recent factory movements in Buenos Aires (Carlos Forment) and public debates about modernization and gender in Mexico and Brazil (Ignacio Corona). The exploration of public spheres was completed by an imaginative architectural look at the city of Columbus’ public spaces (Michael Bongiorno, Sarah Bongiorno, Bart Overly). Philip Armstrong, Eugene Holland, Alan Beyerchen, and Anna Puga prepared spirited responses. Conference organizers included Bernd Fischer, Alan Beyerchen, John Davidson, Bernhard Malkmus, May Mergenthaler, and Jennifer Mitzen.

Workshop

”Literature and the Public Sphere: The Case of Heinrich von Kleist”Bernd Fischer organized an International Workshop “Heinrich von Kleist and the Public Sphere,” September 21-22, 2011, at The Humanities Institute. Speakers included: Christian Moser (U. of Bonn), Jeffrey High (California State U. at Long Beach), Lisa Beesley (Vanderbilt U.), Alex Holznienkemper (OSU), Sara Rossini (OSU), Sean Allan (U. of Warwick), Carrie Collenberg (Williams College), Nancy Nobile (U. of Delaware), David Pan (U. of California at Irvine), Helmut Schneider (U. of Bonn), and Tim Mehigan (U. of Otago).


4th Annual Germanic Graduate Student Association Conference Mind and Madness: The Mind and its Languages

wanSke moderaTinG The firST panel

The Germanic Graduate Student Association, together with advisor May Mergenthaler, organized another well-attended conference again this year. Alum Charlie Vannette (Ferris State University) returned to Columbus to give the plenary address, “The Aesthetics of Schizophrenia: A Cognitive Approach to Robert Walser’s Prose.” The keynote speaker, Lisabeth Hock (Wayne State University), gave a fascinating talk entitled, “Women’s Life Cycles and Women’s Melancholy in 19th Century Psychiatric and Literary Texts.”

Alumna Sara Luly (Kansas State University) and Wonneken Wanske, Jon Smith, Simon Lösch, Jeff Frazier, and Marcus Breyer agreed to serve as panel commentators. There were three exciting panel topics in the program: Madness and the Artistic Soul, Deviance and Society - the 19th Century, and Madness in Language and Letters. Particpants traveled in from across the country, from as far away as the University of Oregon and Duke University, and from other well-established Germa programs, such as Johns Hopkins and the University of Wisconsin.

Kudos to our GGSA officers and organizers of the 2012 conference: Alex Holznienkemper, Bethany Richetti, Zoe Biller, and Lizzie Gordon!

The 2013 GGSA Conference

This year’s conference is already shaping up nicely. Professor Stephen Brockmann from Carnegie Mellon will serve as the keynote speaker and our own alum Prof. Weijia Li will return as plenary speaker. This year’s title is “Beyond Borders: Transnationalism and Transculturalism in the Arts” and abstracts are welcome until November 30th ([email protected]).

merGenThaler, VanneTTe, and hock aT The GGSa conference

Honorary Members of the GGSA:

Ivo Ivanoff, Bill Baker, Daniel Berens, and Damon Berry.

Thank you for your wonderful engagement!


While in Germany, our 2012 group of study-abroad students involved themselves in

activities that were fun, educational, and memorable. In a visit to a Gymnasium (high school), they were treated to presentations in English by the German youths, who made an impression on all with their English fluency. The experience was captured by representatives of city hall and journalist Benjamin Schuke of the Sächsische Zeitung. His interview with students, “Tausche Hamburger gegen Currywurst,” appeared in the local paper on July 4th.

Other activities included weekly trips to several cities in Saxony and Thuringia, where students learned a lot about ancient and recent German history, arts and living culture. In Dresden, students toured the Stasi prison and detention site, Bautzner Straße, together with the former mayor of Dresden, Herbert Wagner. They attended a book reading by a German author, a Dresden Monarch’s football game (organized by the current mayor for schools, sports and recreation), and went hiking in the Sächsische Schweiz, a beautiful landscape near Dresden. Students also visited the capital city, Berlin where they explored major historic sites such as the Brandenburg Gate, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and German Parliament. The group was of the opinion that it was one of the best trips they had ever taken.

Are you interested in the 2013 study-abroad group? Contact Dr. Spencer and check out the webpage at: https://germanic.osu.edu/study-abroad-research

Congratulations!

Daniel Berens 2012 Dieter Cunz Award

Nathan Miller 2012 Ilsedore Edse Scholarship

William Baker and Yuchen Lin Undergraduate Essay Awards in German

Elizabeth (Betsy) Akins Austrian Ministry of Education Fulbright

Ivo Ivanoff (photo below) Huntington International Scholarship Undergraduate International Experiences Grant

Amy JonesASC Undergraduate Research Scholarship“A Trilingual Translation of Lyric Poems of Marceline Desbordes-Valmore and Helmina von Chézy“ Advisors: May Mergenthaler, Louisa Shea

iVo iVanoff in haGerTy hall / phoTo: naTaScha miller

Study Abroad Dresden 2012

UndergradUate StUdent newS


Letter from BerlinAs I write this I am sitting on my 4th floor balcony looking out on the Fernsehturm and the Sony Center. Upon arrival, I was concerned that this sleepy-village girl who avoids London at all costs wouldn’t survive, yet I will be sad to say goodbye to Berlin.

This year of study at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has enabled me to further develop my understanding of Second Language Acquisition and Language Pedagogy. I was fortunate enough to be welcomed into the Masters of Education Department, where I contributed in SLA seminars and visited lectures. Participation in these courses has enabled me to find a topic for my MA research paper and I look forward to returning to work on this. I was also able to put these theories into practice when I took a teaching position at a language school in the city. In this position, I not only developed my skills as a teacher and taught Berliners the differences between US and UK jumpers, pants, and holidays, but also learned more about life in this city than an exchange student who sat in seminars ever could.

I also took the opportunity to take courses in the Art History Department, reigniting my interest in the visual arts. The most fascinating was a course by the renowned Dr. Piotr Piotrowski considering the representations of Democracy in Communist and Post-Communist art.

Leaving Berlin and Europe once again will be tough, but I look forward to my return to the department.

~ Lizzy Hancock

Scandinavian and Saga Clubs

are now official !

Check them out on the Germanic website -

https://germanic.osu.edu/scandinavian-and-saga-clubs

from left to right: Adam Carl, Courtney Skaggs, Gen Gornichec, and Lars Benthien at the Student Involvement Fair on the Oval.


Kristen Hetrick (middle) after her PhD Oral Defense with Helen Fehevary (left) and Barbara Becker-Cantarino (right)

gradUate StUdent newS

PhD Oral Defense

Kristen M. Hetrick, January 2012Writing Illness: Tuberculosis and Cancer in German and North American LiteratureHelen Fehervary (Chair), B. Becker-Cantarino, G. Hens

Thomas Stefaniuk, June 2012Diaspora Destiny: Joseph Jessing and Competing Narratives of Nation, 1860-1899Barbara Becker-Cantarino (Chair), B. Malkmus, C. Taleghani-Nikazm

Kevin Richards, July 2012Soldiering On: Images of the German Soldier 1985-2008John Davison (Chair), K. Byram, A. Grotans

Jesse Wood, July 2012“Aber das Geistige, das sehen Sie, das ist nichts.” Collisions with Hegel in Bertolt Brecht’s Early Materialism John Davidson (Chair), B. Fischer, B. Malkmus

Jennifer Magro Algarotti, August 2012The Austrian Imaginary of Wilderness: Landscape, History and Identity in Contemporary Austrian LiteratureGregor Hens (Chair), B. Fischer, B. Malkmus

PhD Candidacy Examinations

B. Wonneken Wanske, April 2012Barbara Becker-Cantarino (Chair), K. Byram, H. Fehervary, B. Malkmus

Sylvia Fischer, May 2012Helen Fehervary (Chair), K. Byram, J. Davidson, B. Fischer, A. Spencer

Sara Rossini, June 2012Barbara Becker-Cantarino (Chair), H. Fehervary, B. Fischer, A. Grotans

New magister and magistra artium, May 2012

Luke Bauer and Zoe Biller


zoe biller and Simon löSch aT The max kade German houSe

Congratulations!

Elizabeth Gordon and Alex Holznienkemper 2012 Graduate Research Paper Awards

Kevin Richards and Alex Holznienkemper 2012 Graduate Service Awards

More Graduate Student News

Jeff Frazier completed his second year of the PhD program in German. He continued his research on the evolution and cultural importance of the unique concept of Heimat in German literature and cinema over the past two centuries. In several research papers, Jeff wrote about the significance of Heimat-related themes in Goethe’s Die Wahlverwandtschaften, Karl Philpp Moritz’ Anton Reiser, Fatih Akin’s 2004 film Gegen die Wand, as well as Thomas Arslan’s 2001 film Der schöne Tag. Jeff will be taking his candidacy exam in autumn semester 2012.

Alex Holznienkemper hit the ground running after returning from a year in Berlin; he presented papers at the “Revisioning Terrorism” conference at Purdue University, Professor Fischer’s Kleist Workshop, as well as at a Cal State Long Beach conference on “Kleistian (pre-)Occupations.”

Much time was then devoted to organizing the 4th annual GGSA conference along with GGSA members Lizzie, Bethany and Zoe. He recently has finished the first two chapters of his dissertation and is preparing to enter the job market this year. Besides teaching basic language classes, Alex also had the opportunity to teach a general education course - “Witches, Scapegoats and Violence,” which was a fantastic experience.

Berit Jany completed her first year of dissertation research and writing. She presented papers at the 2011 GSA Conference in Louisville, Kentucky and at the 2012 SGAS Conference in Lawrence, Kansas, for which she received the Edward J. Ray Travel Award. Throughout the year, she taught German 201, both on Ohio State main campus and at the 2012 Dresden study abroad program. Berit has received the Max Kade Dissertation Fellowship for this academic year.

Wonneken Wanske presented the paper “Ja Wohl Hat Sie Es Nicht Gethan! Or did she? A Case Study on the Anthropology of Infanticide in A.G. Meißner‘s Eponymous Kriminalgeschichte” at the 2011 GSA in Louisville, Kentucky. She completed her candidacy exams in spring quarter. Wonneken spent her third summer teaching a variety of German language courses in Vermont in the undergraduate German program of the Middlebury College Language Schools.


Faculty Books 2011-12

Reitter, Paul. On the Origins of Jewish Self-Hatred. NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012.

Kaplan, Merrill. Thou Fearful Guest: Addressing the Past in Four Tales in Flateyjarbók (FFC 301). Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia (Academia Scientiarum Fennica), 2011.

Malkmus, Bernhard. The German Picaro and Modernity: Between Underdog and Shape-Shifter (New Directions in German Studies). NY: Continuum, 2011.

David Ballantyne. Sydney Bridge Upside Down. Trans. Gregor Hens. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2012.

Mergenthaler, May. Zwischen Eros und Mitteilung: Die Frühromantik im Symposion der „Athenaeums-Fragmente” Paderborn/Munich/Vienna/Zurich: Schöningh, 2012.

News from Other Worlds: Studies in Nordic Folklore, Mythology and Culture. Eds. Merrill Kaplan and Timothy R. Tangherlini. Berkeley/Los Angeles: North Pinehurst Press, 2012.

Heinrich von Kleist and Modernity (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture).Eds. Bernd Fischer and Tim Mehigan. Rochester: Camden House, 2011.

Migration and Religion. Christian Transatlantic Missions, Islamic Migration to Germany. Ed. Becker-Cantarino, Barbara. Amsterdam/NY: Rodopi, 2012.

Edited Volumes 2011-12


FacUlty newS

Barbara Becker-Cantarino published Migration and Religion: Christian Transatlantic Missions, Islamic Migration to Germany (Amsterdam: Rodopi 2012), which contains 12 greatly revised presentations from the April 2011 conference focusing on 18th-century Christian transatlantic missionary work out of Germany and on the new Islamic presence in contemporary Germany. This diachronic, transnational pairing may serve to show communalities and differences over time and space, it is a contribution to the ongoing discussion about the role of religion and migration. She published „Fleming Schreiben vertriebener Frauen Germanien. Zu Ikonographie und Konzept von ‚Germania‘ im 17. Jahrhundert.“ In: Was ein Poete kann! Studien zum Werk von Paul Fleming (1609-1640). Eds. Stefanie Arend, Claus Sittig. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012, and „Körperlichkeit und Emotion. Zu Sophie Tieck-Bernhardis Erzählungen.“ In: Caroline de la Motte Fouqué und Sophie Tieck-Bernhardi. Ed. Barbara Gribnitz. Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2011. Her reviews of Jill Anne Kowalik Theology and Dehumanization. Trauma, Grief, and Pathological Mourning in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century German Thought and Literature and of Michael Spang, Wenn sie ein Mann wäre. Leben und Werk der Anna Maria van Schurman 160 -1678 appeared in The German Quarterly Summer 2011. She continues to serve as a co-editor of the journal Daphnis. Zeitschrift für Mittlere Deutsche Literatur und Kultur der Frühen Neuzeit and of the series CHLOE. Beihefte zum Daphnis. She presented lectures at the University of Göttingen and at the FU-Berlin during the summer of 2012. In November 2011 she traveled to Wroclaw, Poland where she was invited to participate with a lecture during the 200 Year Anniversary Celebrations of the University of Wroclaw (Breslau) and where she will teach a special seminar on Bettina von Arnim in November 2012. Bettina von Arnim in the literary field of Romanticism and Realism is also the subject of her present research for a book to be published by De Gruyter and for her graduate seminar for spring 2013. She enjoyed a sabbatical leave during fall and winter quarters 2011-12.

Katra Byram published an article on integrating cultural and grammatical instruction in the language classroom [Foreign Language Annals 44.3 (2011): 525-543]. She also presented papers at the German Studies Association and the International Society for the Study of Narrative about how mother biographies have reckoned with the National Socialist past.

Kathryn A. Corl, together with project research assistants Berit Jany and Sylvia Fischer, continued work on Ohio State’s contribution to the computational linguistics research project “Comparing Meaning in Context: Components of a Shallow Semantic Analysis” funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to the Universität Tübingen. Ohio State’s contribution is the creation of an annotated corpus of learner data for the project.

Bernd Fischer, Kathryn corl, and Bernhard MalKMus


John E. Davidson is the director of the OSU Film Studies Program and the executive editor of the Journal of Short Film.

Helen Fehervary continues as general editor of the Anna Seghers Werkausgabe. The edition’s eleventh volume (Bd. II/3) is appearing this fall: Anna Seghers, Erzählungen, 1947-1949, volume editor Robert Cohen (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2012). Fehervary presented “Anna Seghers’s Socialist Project and the Meta-Narrative of First-Century Jewish Christianity” at the German Studies Association Annual Conference, Louisville (Sept. 22-25, 2011), “Der China-Komplex in Seghers’ Roman Die Gefährten” at the 21st Annual Conference of the Anna-Seghers-Gesellschaft: Das China-Bild in der Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts, Universität Potsdam (Nov. 18-20, 2011). She continues work on a scholarly monograph and an edition of literary translations.

Bernd Fischer’s scholarly activities in 2011 were largely prompted by the international commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Heinrich von Kleist’s death. He published Kleist and Modernity. Rochester: Camden House, 2011 (ed. with Tim Mehigan). His Companion to the Works of Heinrich von Kleist (Rochester: Camden House) appeared in a paperback reissue. He also published „‘Wo Hermann steht, da siegt er, / Und mithin ist Cheruska da.‘ Der Zusammenfall von Wissen und Handeln bei Fichte, Müller und Kleist.“ Wissensfiguren bei Heinrich von Kleist. Ed. Anthony Stephens & Yixu Lu. Freiburg: Rombach, 2012 and „Zur Metaphysik der Gewalt bei Kleist.“ Heinrich von Kleist: Konstruktive und destruktive Funktionen von Gewalt. Ed. Ricarda Schmidt, Sean Allan & Steven Howe. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2012; and he reviewed Peter Horn, Verbale Gewalt oder Kleist auf der Couch. Über die Problematik der Psychoanalyse von literarischen Texten (Oberhausen: Athena, 2009) in Acta Germanica (2011). He presented “Was bewegt Kohlhaas? H. v. Kleist und E.L. Doctorow,“ International Conference: “Schreiben nach Kleist,” Universität Bonn, Germany, 22 Oct. 2011, and „Zur Metaphysik der Gewalt bei Kleist,“ International Conference: “Constructive and Destructive Functions of Violence in the Works of Heinrich von Kleist,” University of Exeter, UK, 19 Jul. 2011 (keynote speaker), where he also moderated a session on “Language, Violence and Form” on 20 Jul. 2011. He served as respondent to the session “Kleist Legacies” at the annual meeting of the German Studies Association, Louisville, KY, 24 Sep. 2011 and moderated the session “Post Holocaust Literature” on 25 Sep. 2011. He organized and hosted an international conference on “Literature and the Public Sphere: The Case of Heinrich von Kleist” at the Humanities Institute, Columbus, OH, 21-22 Sep. 2011 and delivered the opening talk of the conference on “Heinrich von Kleists Öffentlichkeitsstrategien.” He also co-organized an international conference, “Transformations of the Public Sphere,” at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies in Columbus, Apr. 2012.

Anna Grotans is stepping down from her duties as chair after four years of service. She looks forward to devoting herself more to her research and in particular to completing her project on “Multilingualism in the Carolingian World.” This past year she presented on “Ekkehard IV of St. Gall” at the 10th Annual Marco Institute Symposium at the University of Kentucky. She published the section “The German Language” for the Virtual Tour of the the Andrew Mellon sponsored web site “Carolingian Culture at Reichenau and St. Gall.” Two articles on “Alemannic Minuscule” and “St. Gall” are forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook of Paleography. This autumn she will present an invited lecture on “Cathedral School – Monastic School,” at a conference on Ekkehard IV of St.Gall at the University of Vienna. In spring semester she will teach a graduate seminar on “Languages In Contact, Past and Present,” and an undergraduate senior seminar on “German in the 20th Century.”

FacUlty newS


Gregor Hens translated David Ballantyne’s classic 1968 novel Sydney Bridge Upside Down (Hoffmann & Campe, 2012) and a selection of Jonathan Lethem’s essays (Bekenntnisse eines Tiefstaplers, Tropen-Verlag, 2012). His poetry was published in Neue Rundschau and Signum. He is working on a new book and preparing a new translation of Leonard Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers.

Merrill Kaplan is very pleased to have been granted tenure and promotion to associate professor. In other news, her monograph Thou Fearful Guest has been published as volume 301 of Folklore Fellows Communications (Tartu, Finland) and the volume News from Other Worlds: Studies in Nordic Folklore, Mythology, and Culture, edited with Timothy R. Tangherlini, has hit the bookstands. She writes from the Árni Magnússon Institute in Reykjavík, Iceland where she has stopped off on the way to the International Saga Conference in Aarhus, Denmark to read about how best to cross-examine a severed head.

Bernhard Malkmus published The German Picaro and Modernity: Between Shape-Shifter and Underdog (New York 2011) and essays on W.G. Sebald’s “Nach der Natur” (Gegenwartsliteratur 2011) and on Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird (Shofar, summer 2012), and co-edited (with Ian Cooper) Dialectic and Paradox: Configurations of the Third in Modernity (Oxford forthcoming fall 2012). He is continuing work on his study on the “Ethics and Poetics of Kulturlandschaft” and started editorial work (with Heather Sullivan) on a special issue of New German Critique on “The Challenge of Ecology to the Humanities: Post-Humanism or New Humanism?” He is member of the transatlantic research network “Environmental Humanities” (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation).

May Mergenthaler’s book, Zwischen Eros und Mitteilung: Die Frühromantik im Symposion der “Athenaeums-Fragmente,” has been published (Schöningh, 2012). She has also published several book reviews, and presented talks on theories of Romanticism and Mayröcker’s poetic reception of Hölderlin’s latest poetry.

Rebecca Schuman published “Kafka’s Verwandlung, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the Limits of Metaphorical Language” in Modern Austrian Literature (Fall 2011) and “Unerschütterlich: Kafka’s Proceß, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the Law of Logic” in The German Quarterly (Spring 2012); joined on as co-editor of A Companion to Robert Walser (under contract, Northwestern U Press), and signed an Advance Contract for her monograph currently in progress, Kafka and Wittgenstein: The Case for an Analytic Modernism (Northwestern U Press); presented “Nothing Matters: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Walser’s Jakob von Gunten” at the 2011 GSA conference, and “’Logical Modernism’ or Reading Literature like a Philosopher,” an invited presentation as part of the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS, the organization that sponsors her position at Ohio State as part of the prestigious New Faculty Fellows Program). Most recently, she spent summer 2012 in Cambridge, Mass., working with Harvard’s Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé on a contribution for the new edited volume Wittgenstein and Literary Modernism. Prof. Schuman’s 2011-2012 course offerings concentrated on modernism, advanced content-based language acquisition, and introductions to literary prose; her 2012-2013 offerings include “Sex and/or the City,” a course on sexuality in the urban milieu and a new upper-level course, “Vienna-Prague-Berlin” (Spring 2013) for the redesigned major’s Intellectual History track.

FacUlty newS


Tom Baginski, PhD 1990 published Die Grausamkeit des Schmelztiegels: Identitätskonstruktion und das Problem der Anerkennung in der Lyrik von Gino Carmine Chiellino. Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, 36.2 (2011): 313-339.

Cynthia Chalupa, PhD 2001, is associate professor of German and director of the Basic German Language Program at West Virginia University. In 2012 she published with Heiko ter Haseborg Neue Blickwinkel: Wege zur Kommunikation und Kultur, a standards-based textbook targeting students at the intermediate and high-school Advanced Placement levels. She presented with ter Haseborg at the 2011 ACTFL convention in Denver “Cultivating Lifelong Learners: Student Autonomy in the Foreign Language Classroom.” She also conducted a a session on teaching the AP German Course at the 2012 NECTFL conference in Baltimore. Chalupa accompanied her seventh group of students to Fulda, Germany during the summer of 2012, where she directs an intensive study-work abroad program. She will be on sabbatical during the spring semester of 2013 during which time she plans to finish work on projects dealing with learner autonomy in the language classroom and intercultural communication. She will return to Fulda, Germany for an extended period in 2013 to teach and conduct research.

Elizabeth Loentz, PhD 1999, is associate professor and (since Jan 1, 2012) head of the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2011-12, she served as associate dean for Academic Affairs in the UIC Honors College. Last year, she published: “The Literary Double Life of Clementine Krämer: German-Jewish Activist and Bavarian ‘Heimat’ and Dialect Writer,” Nexus: Essays in German Jewish Studies 1 (2011) and “Das Jüdisch-Deutsche ist doch auch ein Reis vom Stamme unserer Muttersprache”: Die Germanisierung der jiddischen Sprache/des Jiddischen im ersten Weltkrieg. Konzept Osteuropa. Der ‘Osten’ als Konstrukt der Fremd- und Eigenbestimmung in deutschsprachigen Texten des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Ed. Ingrid Spoerk and Dagmar Lorenz. Königshausen, 2011.

Barbara Mabee, PhD 1988, recently became professor of German Emerita at Oakland University. This year she published with the author team Moeller, Mabee, Berger, Adolph, Kaleidoskop. Kultur, Literatur und Grammatik, 8th ed. (Cengage) and a book review, Schädlich, Anna, and Susanne Schädlich, eds. Ein Spaziergang war es nicht. Kindheiten zwischen Ost und West.” Munich: Wilhelm Heyne, 2012. In The German Quarterly 85.3 (2012). An article and an interview with Susanne Schädlich are in press: Mabee, Barbara and Regina Weiss, “Erinnerungsarbeit und Identität in Susanne Schädlichs Texten.” In Steven R. Huff and Dorothea Kaufmann, eds. “Es ist seit Rahel uns erlaubt, Gedanken zu haben.” Essays in Honor of Heidi Thomann Tewarson. Würzburg: Könighshausen & Neumannn, (forthcoming 2012). In the same volume: Barbara Mabee and Regina Weiss, “Interview mit Susanne Schädlich (per E-Mail) im August 2011.”

Jennifer William, PhD 2002, continues as chair of the Department of German and Russian in the newly-named School of Languages and Cultures at Purdue University. Her recent publications include the article “Cognitive Poetics and Common Ground in a Multicultural Context: The Poetry of Zehra Çirak” in The German Quarterly, and an essay “Beyond Sonnenallee: Leander Haußmann’s Wendefilm Comedies Herr Lehmann (2003) and NVA (2005)” in the volume Strategies of Humor in Post-Unification German Literature, Film, and Other Media (Ed. Jill Twark). She also continues as co-editor for German entries to The Literary Encyclopedia; please contact her at [email protected] if interested in contributing an entry to this ever-growing resource. Jen looks forward to reuniting with friends from Ohio State at this year’s GSA convention in Milwaukee!

Alumni News

Dear friends / alumni: Please keep in touch by sending us your news for the next issue of Germanic Tidings. As always, we very much look forward to hearing from you.


ProductionEditing: Natascha Miller with Graduate Assistants Amber Suggitt and Michael Kich.Hearty thank you’s go out to Anna Grotans, Gregor Hens, Teresa Doan, Monica Hamblet and to all those who submitted information and photographs. Our gratitude to Sandi and Karin and the staff at ASC Communications Services for their coaching and assistance.

© 2012 Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

Friends of the DepartmentIf you would like to become a friend of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, please make your check payable to the The Ohio State University, indicate the desired fund (below), and mail it to: Chair, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, 498 Hagerty Hall, 1775 College Rd., Columbus, OH 43210-1340.

If you prefer to donate through a secure, online connection, you can find the name of each fund on Ohio State’s igive Web site: https://www.giveto.osu.edu/igive/

Our sincere thanks to all past donors. We appreciate your continued support!

Friends of German ~ 307589Max Kade visiting professor; student and departmental activities at the German House;field trips

German Support Fund ~ 303610Dieter Cunz Award; Undergraduate Essay Award; Graduate Student Service Award;Graduate Student Research Paper Award; Goethe testing for undergraduates

Henry Kratz Jr. Fund ~ 480961Supports graduate student research

Henry Schmidt Drama Fund ~ 309300Supports student play productions

Ilsedore Edse Fund ~ 308792Scholarships for first time study abroad students

Scandinavian Support Fund ~ 309434General Scandinavian program support

Yiddish Program ~ 303878Conference Support; Faculty and Graduate Student mini grants

Documents

Tidings - Volume 31/2012