Please join us for Professor Wiliarty’s talk on the upcoming German election.
Wednesday, September 13 from 12:15-1:15 PM in FISK 208.
Lunch will be served!
German Studies Faculty News
Krishna Winston
Krishna Winston translated three early screenplays by Werner Herzog (Signs of Life, Even Dwarfs Started Small, and Fata Morgana) for the first of two volumes she is translating for the University of Minnesota Press.
Uli Plass
At the University of Potsdam, Ulrich Plass lectured on debates over literary realism from the 19h century to the present and led a workshop on the same theme. At the ACLA conference in Utrecht, he presented a paper on the mediations of social and aesthetic form in Schiller, Lukacs, and Adorno. He also wrote an article on liberalism, neoliberalism, and the literary representation of economic inequality for a forthcoming essay collection on literature and economics.
Martin Bäumel
Martin Bäumel’s chapter entitled “Cognitio poetica – Rational and Sensate Cognition in Hagedorn’s Poetry,” was accepted for inclusion in a collection of papers from the 2013 GSA Seminar “For a New Enlightenment,” ed. by Hans Adler and Rüdiger Campe, Random House.
Iris Bork-Goldfield
Iris Bork-Goldfield’s book Wir wollten was tun, published by Metropol in 2015 was reviewed in the German Studies Review, Vol. 40, No. 2, 2017. Her teaching materials for her book and documentary film were accepted for publication for a digital textbook to be published by EDUVERSUM, Wiesbaden, Germany.
German Studies Majors and Minors—an update
Kamryn Wolf ’12 Recently, Kamryn was accepted at Union Theological Seminary in New York and will be starting her graduate studies this fall.
Madalene Smith-Huemer ’14 Since graduating from Wesleyan in 2014, Maddy has lived in Washington, DC, where she works as Assistant Director for Campaigns and Stewardship at the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank that promotes constructive US engagement in global affairs. At the Atlantic Council, Maddy has led fundraising campaigns for various programs and centers, including the Atlantic Council’s Future Europe Center and Middle East Center. This summer, Maddy is backpacking through Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, and Germany, where she hopes to brush up on her German. In the fall, she will enroll in the Master of Science in the Foreign Service program at Georgetown University, where she hopes to concentrate in global politics and security with a focus on immigration in Europe.
Colin O’Connor ’15 Currently, Colin is living in New York working for an environmental organization on state policy. He also runs a website on patient-centric care for people with Parkinson’s Disease.
Philip Katz ’17, a German Studies and College of Social Studies double major, received the German Studies Blankenagel Prize for his excellent work in German. He wrote a senior essay entitled Germany’s Sickness Funds during and after the Nazi Seizure of Power, 1933-1938, which he presented at our annual end-of-semester party in May. This summer, he will be heading back home to Taiwan for a short while before starting work as a paralegal in New York.
Ezra Kauffman ‘17, a German Studies and History double major, received the German Studies Blankenagel Prize for his excellent work in German. He wrote a senior essay, which examines how environmentalism played a role in economic and political decisions in both Germanys during the Cold War. This summer, he will be traveling in Asia, before taking data analysis courses in New York in the early fall. In October, he will depart for Innsbruck, Austria, where he will be an assistant English teacher under the aegis of Fulbright Austria.
Toys Koomplee ’17, a German Studies and Psychology double major, will be returning to Thailand. There he will be working in the Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection, under the Ministry of Justice for the Royal Thai Government in Bangkok. His work involves both researching and developing the programs for rehabilitation and education for juveniles in detention centers.
Lisa Shepard ’17, a German Studies and Earth & Environmental Science double major is planning to go to Munich until the end of the summer to work as a program coordinator with Education First. Her subsequent plans involve moving to either Durham, North Carolina, or New York to spend time with family and to pursue a Master’s in Earth Science. Eventually, she hopes to find a long-term job in Germany.
Ethan Yaro ’17, a German Studies and College of Letters double major, wrote an honors thesis entitled Herder: A World that We Each Create by Ourselves. He shared his work with us at our end-of-year party in May. This summer he is working with Professor Jesse Torgerson on a data analysis project where they are mapping a Byzantine manuscript, looking at the geographical nature of the text, and ascertaining how the geography in the text changes over time.
Luisa Chan ’18, a German Studies and Anthropology double major and Lizzie Whitney ’19, a German Studies and College of Letters double major, have been studying in Hamburg, Germany, since March. They write from Germany: “…This program has been a great choice so far. It offers enough support to make taking classes in German at the University of Hamburg not only possible but enjoyable; yet we still have plenty of freedom and time to explore Hamburg and the rest of Germany on our own. The relatively small program facilitates close friendships with students from other colleges, and yet Smith has enough history in Hamburg that people at and around the university recognize the name and are willing to help us succeed.”
Carter Deane ’18, a College of Social Studies major with a German Studies minor, will spend his summer in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, to investigate the history of Islamic religious education in German schools. Carter will also look at the legal challenges Muslim communities have faced in their efforts to organize these classes, and at the recent critiques of these classes by the ascendant right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Carter received funding for his project from several sources, among them the German Studies Arthur Schultz fund.
Hannah Fritze ’18, an Astrology major and German Studies minor, will be spending this summer on campus, conducting astronomy research with professor Roy Kilgard. Her research focuses on characterizing extremely bright X-ray sources both inside and outside the Milky Way, primarily in an attempt to find black holes of a particularly interesting mass. This research will likely be the topic of her senior thesis. Later this summer Hannah will be taking a road trip to see the total solar eclipse this August.
Jack (Hans) Guenther ’18, a German Studies, College of Letters, and History triple major, will spend the end of his summer in Hamburg, Germany researching the Hamburg’s development as one of Europe’s leading port cities. It will be the topic of his honors thesis. Until then, Jack will be in his native Washington, D.C., working for the National Endowment for the Humanities, where he is helping the Endowment evaluate and award research fellowships. Two of Jack’s colleagues are native Germans, and he has been delighted to find German is the office’s unofficial second language!
Katherine Paterson ’18, a Theater and Environmental Studies double major with a German minor, received the Prentice Prize for her excellent work in German. Katherine will be spending the summer doing research for her honors project in New York City. She will be working at community gardens and gathering information and data on how they build community. She will use this information to devise a theater performance in the spring that explores community building in community gardens and in theater. Katherine is also looking into a project for the fall that will introduce the Wesleyan community to the Swiss drama Biedermann und die Brandstifter by Max Frisch.
Sophia Shoulson ’18, a German Studies and College of Letters double major will spend this summer at the Steiner Summer program in Amherst, MA, learning Yiddish language and culture. She also works as an intern at the center on the “Wexler Oral History” project. She listens to interviews in Yiddish of people from all over the world and describes the content of the interviews. Sophia received the Scott Prize this year for her excellent work in Germany.
Chris Steidl ’18, a German Studies and History double major, will spend this summer in Boston working for a non-profit organization, Community Rowing Inc. (CRI). His future intentions include traveling to Germany and teach English.
Anna Apostolidis ’19, a German Studies and Anthropology double major, sang Lieder by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann beautifully at our end-of-semester party. She was accompanied on the piano by Olivia Backal-Balik ’20. Anna will be spending this summer in Berlin studying German at the Humboldt University and traveling through Germany.
Will Bellamy ’19, a German Studies and English double major, will be driving across country over the summer and spending some time in Los Angeles before attending a one-year study abroad program in Hamburg, Germany. Undoubtedly, he will improve his German and learn about the city and its culture there. He is hoping to get an internship in Hamburg in some field related to translation, as that is what he hopes to be doing after graduation.
Joanna Paul ’19, a Psychology and Sociology double major with a German Studies minor, will spend the first month of her summer interning at a therapeutic preschool called LEEP Forward in Chicago that helps children who experience challenges with social communication, sensory, and emotional regulation. She will spend the remainder of her summer working at their Wediko Summer Program in New Hampshire, a program for young people 9-19 years old that provides social, behavioral, and academic support. She will then be returning to campus two weeks early for her third year as an Orientation Leader, welcoming incoming students to Wesleyan.
Elisabeth Lauffer, ‘07 to speak at WesFest
Liz double majored in COL and German Studies. She spent her sophomore spring semester in Regensburg,
Germany. Her senior thesis was the translation of Russian émigré humorist Vladimir Kaminer’s The Trip to Trulala, which she completed under the mentorship of Professor Krishna Winston. Liz then moved to Germany, where she spent a year at Hamburg University through a DAAD Study Scholarship, before relocating to Berlin.
In 2011, Liz returned to the States to complete her Master’s in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Since then, she has dabbled in various educational pursuits (including teaching in and directing the Middlebury Interactive Summer German Academy) and committed herself to literary translation. In 2014, Liz was awarded the Gutekunst Prize for Emerging Translators through the Goethe Institute New York. In 2016, her first full-length book translation, Animal Internet by Alexander Pschera, was published with New Vessel Press. Liz is currently under contract for two titles with the MIT Press and works as Production Editor at Chooseco, publishers of the Choose Your Own Adventure children’s book series.
Deutscher Mittagstisch
Eat and speak German
Faculty Dining Room
USDAN im dritten Stock
Mittwoch, den 22. Februar
12.20 – 13.20 Uhr
Radicals and Art in Weimar Germany
Panel discussion in conjunction with the exhibition
Changing Visions: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs during the Weimar Republic and After
Friday, February 17, 2017 at 12:00 noon
Fisk Hall, 262 High Street, Room 208
Speakers will include Erik Grimmer-Solem, Associate Professor of History; Ulrich Plass, Associate Professor of German Studies; and Krishna Winston, Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature.
Moderated by Clare Rogan, Curator, Davison Art Center, and Iris Bork-Goldfield, Chair and Adjunct Professor, German Studies.
Lunch will be served and the panel discussion will begin at 12:20 pm.
The event is sponsored by the German Studies Department and Davison Art Center
Krishna Winston receives the Order of Merit
The German Consul General will bestow the Order of Merit to Professor Krishna Winston on Monday, February 13. The Order of Merit, in Germany also referred to as the Bundesverdienstkreuz, was instituted by Federal President Theodor Heuss in 1951. It is the highest tribute the Federal Republic of Germany pays to individuals for services to the nation or contributions to enhancing Germany’s standing abroad and its relations with other countries. The Order of Merit may be awarded to Germans as well as to foreign citizens for achievements in the political, economic, social, or intellectual spheres and for outstanding service to the nation in the field of social, charitable, or philanthropic work. In awarding the Order of Merit, the Federal President wishes to draw public attention to achievements that he believes are of particular value to society in general. Krishna Winston will receive this honor for her excellent translations, her work with Fulbright, the German Exchange Board (DAAD), and the Baden-Württemberg exchange as well as for her advancing the role of German language and culture in the U.S. for many years.
Laudatio given by Mr. Ralf Horlemann, Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany on February 13, 2017 at Wesleyan University.
Handke’s Moravian Night translated by Krishna Winston
Krishna Winston, the Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature, translated The 
Moravian Night: A Story by German novelist Peter Handke. The American translation was published in December 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.
Reviews of the translation have appeared in The New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and Kirkus.
Win
ston specializes in literary translation and has translated more than 35 works of fiction and non-fiction from Handke, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Günter Grass, Christoph Hein, Golo Mann, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Hans Jonas. Her translations make available to the entire English-speaking world works originally written in German, and she has received three major literary prizes for her translations. She also was awarded the The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Bundesverdienstkreuz, by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The Moravian Night, as summarized by the book’s publisher, explores the mind and memory of an aging writer, tracking the anxieties, angers, fears, and pleasures of a life inseparable from the recent history of Central Europe.
Mysteriously summoned to a houseboat on the Morava River, a few friends, associates, and collaborators of an old writer listen as he tells a story that will last until dawn: the tale of the once well-known writer’s recent odyssey across Europe. As his story unfolds, it visits places that represent stages of the narrator’s and the continent’s past, many now lost or irrecoverably changed through war, death and the subtler erosions of time. His story and its telling are haunted by a beautiful stranger, a woman who has a preternatural hold over the writer and appears sometimes as a demon, sometimes as the longed-for destination of his travels.
by Olivia Drake
Gutekunst Prize for Emerging Translators
To all our German students, and recent GRST graduates! Here is an exciting opportunity in German-English literary translation. Applicants will translate a text from a contemporary German novel into English and compete to win a $2,500 prize. Past winners have gone on to publish distinguished book-length translations. More information at: https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/kul/ser/uef/gut.html
The Gutekunst Prize for Emerging Translators is open to all translators under the age of 35 who, at the time the prize is awarded, have not yet published, nor are under contract for, a book-length translation. Applications will be accepted only from permanent residents of the United States. Team translations will not be accepted.
Each applicant is required to translate a literary text of approximately 18 pages, available on request from the Goethe-Institut New York. To receive the text and the application form, please send an email to: GutekunstPrize@newyork.goethe.org
The translation and application form must be mailed electronically to the Goethe-Institut New York by Friday, March 17, 2017 11:59pm EST. Full information on the submission procedure is included on the application form.
Translations will be submitted to a jury consisting of three experts in German literature and translation. The winner will be notified in early May 2017. The jury’s statement and the name of the winner will be published on the website of the Goethe-Institut.
The winner of the Gutekunst Prize will be invited to an award ceremony to take place at the Goethe-Institut New York. The $2,500 prize will be awarded at this time and the winner will have the opportunity to present his or her translation and network with professionals from the translation and publishing world.
Thank you for Smoking. The Unintended Consequences of Lucky Strikes
On Dec. 8, Wesleyan will hold Wesleyan Thinks Big, a biannual TED-talk style event featuring Wesleyan faculty and administrators giving 10-minute speeches on an experience, a personal passion, an existential question or another topic of their choosing. The event will take place at 5 p.m. in Memorial Chapel.
This year’s event is being coordinated by Catherine Wulff ’18, with help from Rachel Godfrey ’19 and Kaiyana Cervera ’19.
“Wesleyan Thinks Big is a way to bring the community together outside of the classroom, by shedding light on the strength of personal testimony and human connection,” said Wulff. “Our main goal is for the audience to leave energized and hopeful.”
Wesleyan Thinks Big will feature:
- Iris Bork-Goldfield, adjunct professor of German studies and chair of the German Studies Department: “Thank you for Smoking. The Unintended Consequences of Lucky Strikes;”
- Danielle Vogel, visiting assistant professor of creative writing in English: “Narrative & Nest;”
- Renee Johnson-Thornton, dean for the Class of 2018: “How to Excel in College by Cultivating Membership in a Community of Practice;” and
- Khalil Johnson, assistant professor of African American studies: “Settler Colonial Blues: Musings from the Margins of Black and Indigenous History.”
by Laurie Kenney • December 5, 2016
German&Jews – A Documentary
Please join us this Thursday, November 17 at 8:00PM for the fabulous documentary German&Jews at the Powell Family Cinema. For more information about this documentary visit the website German&Jews.
Oktoberfest
Come and celebrate and try some
Wurst , Sauerkraut, Kartoffelsalat (potato salad) and Apfelsaftschorle (sparkling apple juice)
at the German House on 65 Lawn Ave.,
on October 29, at 2-5 p.m.
sponsored by the German House and the German department