Appreciations of Brigitte Prutti
from students and colleagues
upon the occasion of her retirement
Brigitte Prutti is a formidable scholar: she has authored five monographs on Austrian and German literature from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, edited multiple collections of essays, and published countless articles in all the leading journals of the field. She provided many years of dedicated service to German Studies at UW, including as chair from 2014-2019. As the following testimonials attest, however, her most cherished impact has been on students and colleagues who are incredibly grateful for how much she has enriched our lives.
Morgan Koerner
To my knowledge, I am Brigitte Prutti’s first-born Doktorkind (UW PhD 2007). When I asked Brigitte to be my dissertation advisor, probably in 2002, it likely came as a surprise to her because the topic – German theater since the 1990s – was not in her direct scholarly wheelhouse, at least in terms of the outdated category of literary era (her fantastic 2012 book on Bernhard’s acceptance speeches was only a twinkle in her eye at that point). I asked her because I had taken a seminar on melodrama and then on comedy with her, thought she was brilliant, and concluded that having someone with her critical acumen as an advisor would make it less likely that I would produce a rubbish dissertation. Looking back, this was probably an accurate assessment – my B- dissertation like would have been C- or D+ or – more likely – gone unfinished had I asked someone else. Let me take a moment to express my regret, Brigitte, that your firstborn Doktorsohn wasn’t much of a Gambetti to your Murau, and to thank you a thousand times over for taking me on nevertheless and your endless patience during the process.
While her intellect and academic considerations may have drawn me to her, where I really connected with Brigitte was in her sense of humor and appreciation for performative shenanigans. Beneath her reserved demeanor as a professor at the time lay a delightful sense of humor and appreciation of comedy and the absurd, and my fellow grad students and I in her seminars noticed it and would try to work in puns, riffs, irreverent critiques of canonical authors into our presentations to get her to laugh. She, in turn, shared her own with us one on one and occasionally with the whole seminar. One of my favorite is Brigitte’s devastatingly hilarious suggestion that Friedrich Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe be renamed Der Limonadenmörder, an idea that remains on my bucket list for a student production and send-up of Schiller (expect an invitation to the performance, Brigitte!).
One fall quarter, The Department of Germanics Lecturer Series invited two or three very old, old school male scholars who gave misogynistic talks, with one of them going on in an aside about “Nicole Kidman als Nackedei” in a performance he saw. Afterwards, Amy Emm brilliantly renamed the speaker series the “Department of Germanics Lecherer Series” and I passed that name on to Brigitte when we were meeting to discuss my dissertation progress. A month later, Amy was meeting with Richard Block and he dropped the term “Department Lecherer series” with a knowing smile in conversation – clearly Brigitte had found the turn of phrase so amusing that she passed it on! To this day I remain envious of Amy’s renaming of the lecturer series, especially because it amused Brigitte so much, something my fellow graduate students and I so strived to do.
I have many recollections of Brigitte’s kindness and two in particular come to mind immediately. Once, she witnessed Amy in tears after a student had berated her and she immediately took her for a walk and a coffee and didn’t say much, just gave her space and empathy until she recovered.
When I came into her office for a meeting in tears and hardly to speak because I was unsure if I wanted to finish my dissertation, she gave me space and understanding until I resurfaced with an email a few months later declaring my intent to continue. The title of that email was “the prodigal dissertator” (or “der verlorene Doktorsohn,” I can’t recall which) and when I met with Brigitte she joked “how could I be mad when you gave it that title?” -- I laughingly conceded that it was a strategic attempt to encourage mercy.
Brigitte and I both share a catholic upbringing (I grew up in Louisiana), something that surely influenced our mutual appreciation of spectacle and the absurd as we discussed a few times over the years. I think that those discussions, and reading Bakhtin with her in her comedy seminar, likely led me to improvise a fateful answer at a job interview with the College of Charleston at the MLA conference in 2006. While being escorted into the hotel room for the interview by my future colleague, he asked in German “Wie sind Sie auf Theater gekommen? Warum Theater?” I was not expecting a question formulated that way, much less in German, and didn’t have an answer prepared; what came out of my mouth as I sat down, and elicited in cathartic laughter from my interviewers, was: “Naja, ich bin katholisch erzogen worden, also habe ich schon immer etwas mit Spektakel zu tun gehabt . . .”
Olivia Albiero
When I joined the Department of Germanics, I knew Brigitte was one of the faculty I wanted to work with because of the literary interests we shared. We ended up also sharing many intellectual and advising conversations as she was both my M.A. and dissertation advisor.
One of my fondest memories of Brigitte was her seminar on Thomas Bernhard, which was also one of the first classes I took with her. I remember that the thought of spending 10 weeks on Bernhard’s writings made that quarter feel very daunting. However, what I hadn’t anticipated was Brigitte’s talent to provide thought-provoking entry points to each text we read, her ability to highlight theatrical moments in apparently somber readings, and the encouragement she offered to students to develop their interpretations.
Brigitte set high expectations for her students, but she balanced that with humor and always made time to listen to upcoming travel plans or share exciting readings she was looking forward to doing.
When Brigitte gifted me her new publication on Grillparzer’s autobiographical writing, titled Unglück und Zerstreuung, shortly before I defended my dissertation and started my first faculty job, I remember hoping this would not be a warning for the years to come. I am glad to report it was not. I am grateful for Brigitte’s support and collegiality over the years, the guidance and mentorship she offered throughout my dissertating years, and the interactions at the PAMLA Conferences we shared.
I wish you a wonderful retirement in Austria, Brigitte. I hope this new chapter of your life is filled with relaxing moments, great times with family and friends, and exciting readings.
Amy Emm
Congratulations on your retirement, Brigitte! Back in Denny Hall, we grad students admired you so much that we were very interested in impressing you, and just in case we weren’t up to impressing you, we hoped to amuse you. I don’t know if you can call it a success that some of us became known to you as “die Säufertruppe,” but at the time we were proud of being thought significant enough for you to name. In your wonderful melodrama course, you called Grillparzer’s heroine “die sanfte Bertha” in just such a way that we were all captivated, and to this day I can hear it, and sometimes find an occasion to repeat it. I loved that class: it kept me going. And I have also never forgotten how you spoke once about a project you had doubts about, and about making up your mind to just “dare to do this”. It’s been a while since you were on my dissertation committee, I’m still out here trying to be daring, and I wish you all good things in Austria for the next phase!
Imke Meyer
It’s hard to believe Brigitte is retired now. German Studies will not be the same—and, almost as importantly, neither will conference dinners: they will be far less entertaining than they were up to this point in my professional life. Brigitte joined the UW Department of Germanics, as it was then called, in 1991, when I was a PhD student there. She brought with her an approach to literature that was as rigorous as it was creative, as philologically astute as it was brilliant, as serious as it was witty. Collectively, as grad students, we were enormously impressed with this new junior faculty member, who struck us simultaneously as approachable--because she was closer to us in age than most other faculty in the department were—and as intimidating, because she was enormously well read already back then—and is, of course, even more so now. It also became clear to us fairly quickly that she didn’t suffer fools gladly—if you wanted to take her seminars, you had better be sure to show up prepared and ready to explain clearly any argument you wanted to make in class. As a scholar and teacher, Brigitte became a role model for us, albeit one that I, for one, have yet to manage to emulate.
Brigitte’s scholarship in particular in Austrian Studies has always been an inspiration to me—her work on writers such as Grillparzer, Stifter, or Thomas Bernhard is simply brilliant. I’m a Northern German who also happens to speak a noticeably Northern German German--in Vienna, for instance, I usually am not even perceived as a native speaker of German and have thus been complimented there on my German proficiency. My provenance, in other words, did not exactly predestine me to pursue Austrian Studies, yet here I am. While I was a grad student, the clash between Brigitte’s Austrian German and my Piefke German was a frequent source of amusement—such as when my Piefke ears did not understand what on earth a “Beltsgelee” was supposed to be—“ein Pelz-Gilet,” of course, in case you, too, are wondering.
Brigitte was an amazing mentor to me and so many others during my time in grad school, but she also was just fun to be around. I don’t remember how this came to be, but at some point, Brigitte’s Doktorvater, Helmut Schneider, came to town to give a talk in the department. For some reason, he and Brigitte ended up having coffee at the house I shared with three other graduate students. One of them, Jochen Liesche (who is a very good friend of Brigitte’s to this day) had just baked a German-style Marmorkuchen and invited Helmut Schneider and Brigitte to try it. They enthusiastically accepted, so Jochen cut two very generously sized pieces for them. As the rest of us were also served cake, we could not fail to notice that the Marmorkuchen was quite considerably burned. Being good sports, though, Helmut Schneider and Brigitte were completely unfazed and politely finished their giant burnt and crumbly pieces of Marmorkuchen.
I could regale you with stories all evening, but I have taken up more than enough of your time. Brigitte, I wish I were there to help celebrate you and your career. You’ve been an inspiration to me for decades, and while we will miss you at conference dinners, I hope to have many more dinners with you in the years to come—in Europe, in the US, or anywhere in between.
Heidi Schipphacke
Brigitte and I arrived at the University of Washington in the same semester – in Fall 1991. She was a new assistant professor, and I was beginning my M.A. studies in the department. I remember being wowed by a lecture she gave in the department that first year, on Emilia Galotti. I’ve long admired Brigitte’s intellectual flexibility and brilliance, her uniquely elegant and sometimes hilarious writing about Lessing, Grillparzer, Bernhard, among others, though I’ve sadly never been able to emulate this style. In my second year of graduate studies, I enrolled in Brigitte’s course on the topic of “Virtue.” This course was mind-blowing for me. In fact, the seminar paper I wrote (also on Emilia Galotti!) was the seed for one of my very first published articles (in the Lessing Yearbook). Brigitte’s intensive engagement with and enthusiasm for my approach helped open up an intellectual path for me that felt authentic. She heard what I was trying to convey and helped me articulate an argument in my own voice. For me, this was a pivotal experience, and I will always be grateful to her.
Since receiving my Ph.D., Brigitte has remained a stalwart supporter; and she has become a collaborator and a friend. I continue to be awed by her ability to read literary texts in ways that are jaw-droppingly original and convincing. Brigitte, you are retiring from teaching, but your unique scholarly voice continues to inspire.
Jeff Jarzomb
I very vividly recall the interaction that made me choose Brigitte for my dissertation committee. In her graduate course "Europe in Four Novels" (I believe this was the title), each of the students had to pitch their initial ideas for their seminar papers. I cannot remember what my pitch was exactly (something with Marx), but what will remain an important point in my development as a scholar was Brigitte's reaction: she told me in no uncertain terms that it was a bad idea. It was this honest and candid assessment—tempered at moments out of politeness—that I valued most from Brigitte. I am a better scholar and educator because of her and I wish her the very best in retirement!
Rachel Lundeen
It is challenging to find words that do justice to Professor Prutti’s impact on my intellectual development and academic trajectory over the course of my undergraduate studies. Nearly five years ago, I met Professor Prutti on my very first day of in-person classes at UW. Since then, she has been one of my most important mentors, and is a model of the kind of scholar I hope to become. Her combination of intellectual rigor, curiosity, and kindness, along with her particular set of research interests, made me want to learn from her again and again. In total, I have taken six classes with her, including three seminars and three independent study courses that she generously agreed to supervise. From Viennese poetry to Swiss travel writing, I came away from every lecture and conversation enthused and awed by her brilliant insights that never failed to transform my view of the texts at hand. Professor Prutti is an inspiration who energizes me in my research and has been a steadfast supporter of my academic pursuits. She sends me tips on interesting journal articles, literary texts, and events, patiently reads my (often very long) papers, points out hidden connections and additional nuances that hadn’t occurred to me, makes helpful suggestions on next steps as I prepare for graduate study, and lets me stop by her office to chat about literature. I will greatly miss her presence in Denny Hall, but I am deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from her and grow as a German Studies scholar thanks to her generosity with her time and expertise. Vielen Dank und alles Gute, Professor Prutti!
Shannon Paeth
I feel so blessed to have had the chance to be a student of Professor Brigitte Prutti at the University of Washington. Her brilliance, sincerity, and kindness will be remembered by all her students. The breadth and nuance of her expertise always made her lectures compelling, and the genuine thoughtfulness she put into her attentive, insightful feedback consistently helped her students grow their skills and expand their perspective.
I will always remember the gentle concern and understanding Professor Prutti showed me when I had to put school on pause years ago and leave her class due to medical issues. At that time I hoped that when I eventually got a chance to come back to UW I would be able to take a class with her again. When I returned to UW many years later, I applied to the Spring in Vienna program only to discover that she was the professor in charge of the program and that she still remembered me after all that time. Restarting classes after so long was a process that had taken a lot of courage for me and her kindness made me feel welcomed back into the school environment. My fellow students and I all grew an immense respect for her during that trip and it was an honor to share in so much of her knowledge and familiarity with the city.
The German Department is so fortunate to have had such a remarkable professor and she will be dearly missed by her students and colleagues. We all wish her a fulfilling retirement!
Cassandra Benson
Brigitte is one of those professors who makes a real difference in her students’ lives.
Studying abroad with Brigitte in Vienna changed my life. In Vienna, Brigitte encouraged us to visit the city and surrounding area as much as possible. She would invite us to local cafes to practice our German with her, or on hikes outside the city, and it was clear that she really wanted her students to experience as much as they could. Brigitte is extremely passionate and intelligent, and it was always a pleasure to listen to her lectures about Vienna and have conversations about reading material.
Brigitte encouraged us to practice our German at every opportunity, and I felt very comfortable speaking German with her. Without Brigitte’s support, I wouldn’t have been able to improve my German so quickly in Vienna. She is understanding and patient and was just happy to hear us try our best.
Brigitte cares about her students and wants them to succeed. I feel very lucky and grateful to have studied abroad with Brigitte and taken classes with her. She is always interested in what we have to say and values our opinions and perspectives highly. She is a teacher who wants her students to succeed, and cares about their futures. Brigitte supported me by writing a letter of recommendation for me to study abroad in Switzerland, as well as for teaching English in Austria. I am so grateful for Brigitte and the fact that she wants her students to go far. Without Brigitte, I would not feel as comfortable taking chances to get out of my comfort zone and study abroad. Vienna was the first time I had ever left the USA, and Brigitte’s support made the experience life changing.
Ich bin so dankbar, dass ich sie als Professorin hatte. Sie hat mein Leben zum Besseren verändert! Danke Brigitte, und alles Gute zur Pensionierung!
Isabelle Drain
You are going to be so missed here at UW! Looking back, I cannot even believe how influential you have been on me and my college experience. Thank you for everything you have done. From leading the Spring in Vienna program to teaching 301 and leading my senior seminar, you have made every experience so special. I still have all of the gifts you got for us in Vienna and I use my Manner Wafer tote bag all the time. You were such a wonderful guide and made sure we noticed all of the nuances of Vienna’s history. As a teacher, you have taught me how valuable curiosity is as a trait. You have always shown so much interest in what I am doing and have always given such thoughtful feedback on my work. I have not met a more compassionate, caring, and curious professor. It was such a gift to be part of your last quarter teaching at UW and I loved how small our class was. It was a great way to connect with the texts and I loved every single reading. You always make me feel like my comments are heard, and it is so easy to see how much you love your work. I had so much fun in your seminar class this Fall. It was also so special to receive a letter of recommendation from you for my application to teach abroad next year. You gave me the tools to succeed on my own in a foreign city, and your recommendation feels like such a full circle moment. Your care for the success of your students is a really incredible quality and I am so grateful to you. I wish you success with everything you do and thank you so much for making my time at UW so special.
Jane Brown
I was asked to be brief, and will do so, if only out of respect for Brigitte’s exemplary modesty. In my letter to the dean when the department hired Brigitte in 1991 I find the statement: “I am as confident as one can be at this point in someone's career that she will be a significant scholar.” That is the single most accurate prediction I ever made. In her career she has written copiously, brilliantly, wittily and productively on eighteenth-century aesthetics, critical theory, feminism, Grillparzer, modern and contemporary Austrian literature and culture, all on the basis of inventive close readings of the highest possible standard. She became one of the most respected scholars in her field(s) and in our department, while she inspired and trained some of our most talented students. I continue to be grateful to her as a colleague whose intellectual breadth both confirmed some of my own vagaries (including chocolate and books) and led me down paths I would otherwise never have followed. Brigitte, I wish you all the best in your retirement and I hope you leave with all the good feelings you deserve for your contributions during your career here.
Jason Groves
Here’s a memory from Spring 2016, the end of my first year at UW. It is typical of Brigitte’s graciousness:
For the final class meeting of a travel writing course, I had a special guest, Michael Swaine, who convinced me to let him blindfold my 20 or so students and spend our class time aimlessly walking around outside of our windowless room in Condon Hall. (Michael and I were not blindfolded). At some point during our very awkward walk, whose pedagogical value I was questioning along with a number of students, we crossed paths with my chair, Brigitte Prutti. I was getting embarrassed about the spectacle that we were putting on in a parking lot, but I recall that Brigitte flashed me a very encouraging if quizzical smile, and all of my anxieties melted away. The class turned out to be a memorable one for all of us, and after her positive response when we next met, I felt much more emboldened to take more risks in my teaching.
Kye Terrasi
I first came to know Brigitte when I cited her seminal work on Arthur Schnitzler in my dissertation. I was already suitably in awe of her based solely on her scholarship; imagine my surprise and the twinge of nervousness I felt when I found out she would be interviewing me for my position at UW! So it didn’t help that when I told my Germanist husband that Brigitte Prutti was on the hiring committee, he looked at me gravely and said, “Oh, she is really famous, you know.” I did know, but what I couldn’t know at the time was what a powerful impact she would have on the trajectory of my own career, or that her warmth, kindness and wicked sense of humor would lay the foundations of a decade-long friendship. When I look back at the pivotal moments of my time at UW, they were due to her unwavering support, mentorship and patience. As my chair, she constantly advocated for me and was on the lookout for ways to bolster my position, and to help me grow and to navigate the academic system as a teaching faculty. I relied on her counsel and she was generous and unstinting in her willingness to help me with whatever project or application I was working on; I was always astounded at her ability to look at my writing, immediately know how to improve it and to deliver this feedback in an accessible and encouraging way. As a friend, there were evenings at the opera and ballet, countless happy hours at our favorite izakaya, trips to the museum, dinners at a myriad of conference locations, spontaneous lunches and long chats. When I first came to UW, I admired her work as a scholar. Twelve years later, I also admire her charisma and wit, her quick intelligence and sensitivity, and her generosity of spirit. I am deeply grateful to her, and I will miss her.
Ellwood Wiggins
Brigitte was on the committee that hired me, and then as chair she proceeded to ferry my tenure case successfully through all its rocky straits, so I quite literally owe her my career here at UW. Throughout that time, Brigitte took great care to ensure that I fulfilled—and documented—all the requirements properly; she saved me from my own wooly-headed carelessness more than once. Of course, this also means that my colleagues can blame her for being saddled with me—but I, for one, am grateful!
Brigitte is an incredibly gifted scholar and teacher, as two incidents in my early years at UW demonstrate. One of my first graduate seminars was on Lessing and Mendelssohn. When a student in the class wanted to write his paper on gender in Lessing’s Emilia Galotti, he said he’d been inspired by one of the articles I’d assigned as secondary reading. What the student didn’t realize was that the author of that brilliant essay was right down the hall: our own Brigitte Prutti. Even in my own course, the best teacher was Brigitte!
But it’s not just her incisive and innovative scholarly work that inspires students. Brigitte’s personal care for and attention to students in her classroom leaves a lasting impact. We hear about the influence Brigitte has had on her students every year during the commencement ceremony when graduating majors stand up to share their memories. Just last June, two of our award-winning students credited Brigitte as their major inspiration in German Studies.
But one example from years ago has stuck with me. While I was serving as undergraduate advisor, a student came to my office hours to ask if it would be okay to invite Brigitte to dinner. Her sorority hosts a meal every year in which members bring a professor who has had a meaningful impact on their lives. This student wanted to invite Brigitte, but was afraid it wouldn’t be appropriate. She regaled me with stories of how much time and attention Brigitte had dedicated to teaching her how to observe and to think. The student felt that Brigitte had given her the skills to succeed not just in German literature, but in her other classes—in business and science—as well. She credited Brigitte with making her not just a better student, but a better thinker and actor in the world. I tried to assure her that Brigitte would appreciate hearing all this, but I don’t know to this day whether she communicated to Brigitte her debt of gratitude to Brigitte.
But that student’s plight is emblematic of our own tonight: how can we communicate our huge admiration for Brigitte to her when she is too modest to want to hear it? Tonight’s meal is very much like that sorority dinner, and we are all celebrating Brigitte as a favorite, impactful teacher from whom we have learned, and whom we strive to emulate.