Dear Friends of Germanics and Alums,
As fall quarter is drawing to a close, I would like to share with you the accomplishments and endeavors of our students, faculty, and alums, and the story of a wonderful gift. Attached please find the link to the fall 2014 UW Germanics Newsletter. You’ll find information about our innovative Humanities courses for students across the disciplines and other fall quarter news. I hope that some of it will be of interest to you. We always welcome more alumni news.
“Be boundless” is the new motto of the University of Washington. We have creatively adopted it and put it to play: Dare to be boundless? Learn German if you DER. Yes you can. For more examples on how to be daring and bold and for staying in touch with us throughout the year, please see our Facebook and Twitter accounts. Thanks to the zest and drive of our new colleague, Dr. Kye Terrasi, and the artistic staff at the Germanics main office, Misha Neininger, our undergraduate program specialist, and Stephanie Welch, our esteemed administrator, we have a lively social media presence and great visual design to go hand in hand with an academic program of exceptional strength. Yes we DER.
Happy Holidays and best wishes for the year ahead.
Brigitte Prutti
Professor of German and Chair
Brigitte Prutti
Kye Terrasi comes to the University of Washington from Los Angeles, California. She received her Ph.D in Germanic Languages and Literature at UCLA. She also studied German literature and language at the Albert-Ludwigs Universität and the Goethe Institut in Freiburg. Her teaching and research interests include fin-de-Siècle Vienna, Weimar literature and culture, gender studies and visual culture. Her dissertation, entitled “'The Gay Apocalypse': Sexuality and Dissolution in Fin-de-Siècle… Read more
I began my career post-undergraduate as a journalist working for a small wire service based in Jerusalem. I spent most of a year reporting on events in Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, and Egypt for English language news outlets throughout the Middle East.
After my time in the Middle East I made my way back to Seattle, where I found a place working for a start-up company called Wavii. At Wavii we were focused on building a technology that automatically aggregated news content from… Read more
We are very happy to announce the very first “mentoring lunch” with Germanics alumni and current majors. This event, which we plan to make a regular feature of the program, had a very promising kick-off on October 21st, 2014 in the UW club. Evan Elise Easton-Calabria (class of 2009) joined three German majors for a lovely chat over sandwiches. Present were our bright young seniors, Lauren Nemitz, Alex Phengsavath, and Sophie McDonnal. The students and Evan exchanged stories… Read more
Where are they now? Examples of what people have done with a degree in Germanics
Evan Elise Easton-Calabria began learning German as an early-entrance student in her first quarter at UW. Her longstanding interest in the Holocaust and the Second World War led her to major in Germanics and minor in Human Rights. While at UW, she took part in the Germanics Department spring study abroad in Vienna and studied independently at Berlin’s Humboldt University. After matriculating, she completed a… Read more
Generous donation brings history, art, and Einstein to UW Germanics
Dear Friends of Germanics:
I wanted to share with you one of the great moments of being chair of Germanics that happened just before the summer. In April 2014, I received an email enquiry by Peter Neurath, son of Dr. Hans Neurath from Vienna, who built the UW Medical School’s biochemistry department in the 1950s and chaired it for 25 years, and Hilde Bial Neurath from Berlin. Peter Neurath was wondering if the German Department… Read more
On Friday, November 7, members of the UW Community filled the Rey Library in Germanics to enjoy lunch and to discuss the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Prof. Steve Pfaff (UW, Sociology) gave a luncheon address on the political and social changes experienced in Germany since the wall came down 25 years ago.
Steve Pfaff
This successful afternoon was made… Read more
Karin Bauer is Professor of German Studies at McGill University in Montreal. From 2000-14, she has served as departmental chair, first of German Studies and then of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. She is co-editor of Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, past president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers of German, and member of several editorial broads and committees of professional associations and funding agencies.
Karin received her… Read more
Olivia Albiero, PhD Candidate:
-Joff Hanauer Fellow for Excellence in Western Civilization, 2014-15
-presented paper “Knotty Plot and Dense Text: Crime, Espionage and Epigraphs in Wolfgang Herrndorf’s Sand" at GSA conference in Kansas City, September 18-21, 2014
- participated in the 9th Annual DAAD-Workshop “DaF in den USA: Grundzüge und Perspektiven” at the University of California, Berkeley, October 2014
-… Read more
Rick Gray and Sabine Wilke received the Hood Fellowships at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, for a two-week residency in March 2015 to give a series of lectures at the University and at the Goethe Society in Auckland.
The Hood Fund is a special fund that has been created to mark Dr John Hood's Vice-Chancellorship at The University of Auckland.
It aims to enhance the interaction between University staff and leading international talent in order to retain our leading researchers, and to… Read more
Germanics courses in English, 2014-15
AUTUMN 2014:
German 275A: Crime Scenes: Investigating the Cinema and its CulturesCross-listed with Scandinavian Studies (SCAND 275A) and Comparative Literature (C LIT 270A)Instructors: Eric Ames and Andy Nestingen
Acts of violence and mysterious motives have fascinated cinema audiences for more than a century. This… Read more
GERMAN 322: Intro to German Cultural StudiesAutumn Quarter 2014, Instructor: Brigitte Prutti
Student Presentations on"Divided Berlin and the Fall of the Berlin Wall"
Tuesday, December 2 & Thursday, December 41:30-2:50pm, Denny 308Pizza and refreshments on Thursday, December 4
Sponsored by the UW Department of Germanics and the German Embassy's 25 Years Fall of the Berlin Wall program
We are delighted that Britta Simon (PhD 1998) has joined the Department as Affiliate Assistant Professor this year.
Britta holds a master’s degree in Medieval Latin and Medieval German from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg, Germany, and a PhD from University of Washington where she wrote her dissertation on the significance of non-verbal communication in “Nibelungenlied.” Her doctoral advisor was C. Stephen Jaeger. After a brief teaching stint at University of Iowa, she worked at… Read more
This book originated as the result of almost fifty years of teaching and history of the German language dating from the PIE (Proto-Indo-European) of about 3000 BC until the present era. The students were German language learners, native speakers and linguistics students unfamiliar with the language. The book was written with a similar audience in mind.… Read more
Steffi Günther-Gneiting (former Lecturer, UW Germanics) and her husband, Tilmann Gneiting (Affiliate Professor of Statistics, UW Statistics), are overjoyed with the arrival of their twin girls Madita Anna and Felicia Sophia on July 25, 2014 in Heidelberg, Germany. Congratulations, Steffi and Tilmann!
Steffi was teaching and doing research on literature pedagogy at the Pedagogical University in Heidelberg, and is now on an extended maternal leave. Tilmann has a new position as group leader at… Read more
Thanks to the following donors for their generous support of the Department of Germanics. Private contributions help us support undergraduate and graduate students, sponsor public lectures, and provide resources for faculty and student research. If you would like to donate to the department, please visit Support Us for more information.
Hellmut and Cheryl AmmerlahnAustrian/American CouncilUrsula R. BannisterMarie E. BardinMargarete… Read more