Alumni

Recent Alumni News

Goethe Society of North America

UW and Goethe Studies

Multiple ‘generations’ of UW German scholars were represented at the Atkins Goethe Conference in San Antonio, Texas in November. Both the current and incoming presidents of the Goethe Society of North America received their PhDs from the University of Washington. It was hosted by Trinity University, home of Prof. Heather Sullivan (UW Phd, 1995), the current president of the GSNA. The conference is held every three years, and in 2027 it… Read more
Time

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  Your donation helps us to:                    Engage important speakers and scholars for public events. Provide research support for our graduate students. Subsidize tuition for our summer programs. Fund student… Read more
Detlev Weber

Four UW German Studies PhDs land Jobs at Colleges across the Country

Academic jobs in the Humanities in general, and in German Studies in particular, are not easy to find these days. We're immensely proud that all four of our graduating PhDs received offers from excellent colleges and universities across the country this year!  We asked how they were doing in their new digs; you can read their replies below. Aaron Carpenter: Allegheny College Matthew Childs: Wake Forest University Jeff Jarzomb: University of Nebraska Detlev Weber: University of Kansas… Read more
GSA

Germanisten in the World of Coca-Cola

A tropical storm bore down, and water flowed thick and fast in the streets. But inside the conference hotel, the mood was apollonian, speech was level and thoughtful, and the activity was, well, German Studies: the writing, reading, speaking, and learning about the arts, cultures, and histories of German-speaking peoples. It was, that is to say, the German Studies Association’s 48th Annual Conference, held September 26-29 in Atlanta, Georgia. And while Denny Hall lay some 2,600 miles to the… Read more
Tribute to Rosalie

Tribute to Rosalie Motz Russell

Ida Rosalie Motz Russell was born in Bessarabia, then lived in Poland with her parents and two brothers. They had to flee to Germany, and after the war emigrated to Canada. She attended the University of British Columbia before coming to the University of Washington (as Rosalie “Lee” Wright), completing her Master’s degree in German in 1970, and her PhD in 1978. Her dissertation, “Poetic Consciousness in Günter Kunert's Prose,” is obtainable through the UW Library. Prior to finishing the… Read more
Alex Minami

Alumni Update: Alex Minami, Seattle Opera

Opera 101 at SEATTLEOPERA.ORG begins November 7! In this six-part beginner’s guide series, join Associate Director of Community Engagement Lokela Alexander Minami for lively and informative multimedia presentations that will help you make sense of this larger-than-life art form by giving you some essential terms and taking you on a listening tour of some of the most… Read more
Manfred Bansleben

In Memoriam: Professor Manfred Bansleben (1941-2022)

The German Studies Department mourns the loss of our beloved friend and colleague, Manfred Bansleben. Manfred passed unexpectedly on December 1, 2022, after a brief bout with pneumonia, just one day before his eighty-first birthday. For over 20 years, Manfred was the creative and organizational force behind the German Department’s highly successful language program. As German Language Program Coordinator and TA Supervisor, he trained generations of graduate student teaching assistants in… Read more
miah robert on a fulbright in dresden

News from our Alums: Miah Robert (BA 2022)

Greetings from Dresden, Germany! Since graduating in June with a B.S. in speech and hearing sciences and a B.A. in linguistics and Germanics, I have moved 5,000 miles away to my new home in Dresden, Germany. I was fortunate to find a wonderful apartment in the Löbtau area with three fantastic roommates who have quickly become good friends. A few trips to IKEA and a number of EBay Kleinanzeigen purchases later and I am finally feeling settled.  As an English Teaching Assistant in the… Read more
Richard Sperber

News from our Alums: Richard Sperber (PhD 1995)

Greetings from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin where I have been teaching all levels of German and Spanish not long after graduating from the Department of Comparative Literature. In the Modern Languages Department, we do not primarily teach literary history or literary scholarship but combine textual comprehension with cultural competency and language proficiency. Skills development culminates in skills integration in our capstone course, an independent research project. Feedback and… Read more
sam romanelli

Graduate Student Update: Sam Romanelli

My name is Sam Romanelli, and I am a returning student to UW. I finished my undergraduate degree in 2016, and now I am back for a Masters program. I am starting my year off with Professor Oehme's Seminar in Medieval German Literature, a reading course with Professor Wiggins, and a mentorship in Professor Wiggins' German 120 class. This quarter I will be co-hosting a film series with my fellow graduate student Hannah Bradley Kondo on Jewish life in Germany. Anyone who is… Read more
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