Qingyang Freya Zhou, a graduate student in the Department of German, has been awarded a one-year dissertation fellowship by the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, co-hosted by the Freie Universität Berlin and the German Studies Association.
Former Graduate student, Jon Cho-Polizzi translation of Max Czollek's Desintegriert Euch! (De-Integrate: A Jewish Survival Guide for the 21st Century) was awarded the prestigious Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize
On February 28, the Berkeley Language Center and the Language and AI working group at the Townsend Center for the Humanities will be hosting a half-day conference Language and AI: Generating Interdisciplinary Connections and Possibilities(link is external).
Congratulations, Freya! Here's the laudatio: "Qingyang Freya Zhou's illuminating article, 'Queering the Screen: Spectral Figures and German-Taiwanese Encounters in Monika Treut’s Ghosted,' which appeared in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 58.3 (2022): 251-270, adroitly connects Terry Castle’s notion of the 'apparitional lesbian' with Chinese beliefs about ghosts".
Priscilla Layne, author of White Rebels in Black: German Appropriation of Black Popular Culture (2018), is Professor of German and Director for the Center of European Studies at the University of North Carolina.
The link to the talk is here
This work addresses the issue of magical communication found in the Elder Futhark runic inscriptions. It examines the Kragehul Spear Shaft (DR 196), Björketorp runestone (DR 360), the Horn(s) of Gallehus (DR 12), Gummarp runestone (DR 358), Lindholm amulet (DR 261), Straum whetstone (KJ 50), Ribe skull fragment (DR EM85; 151B), the Noleby runestone (KJ 67), and the Eggja runestone (N KJ 101).
Freya collaborated with Ricky W. Law (Carnegie Mellon University) and Zach Ramon Fitzpatrick (University of Wisconsin–Madison) to curate a two-part panel series titled “Asian Diaspora in the German-Speaking World.”
This series brought together seven scholars who explored facets of Asian-German interactions across diverse mediums, including art, film, television, and new media, as well as delving into Asian migration history and activism in Germany.
September 1, 2023: 3rd year PhD student Elise Thora Volkmann recently performed the role of Susanna in Mozart's Figaros Hochzeit. The production premiered in Middlebury, Vermont as part of the Middlebury German for Singer's program and then travelled to Scharbeutz, Germany where Elise performed several additional shows. Photos taken by Bettina Matthias featuring other members of the cast.
4th year PhD student Sean Lambert has published a review of Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World in the journal Post45 Contemporaries. The essay appears as part of a cluster of writings on "heteropessimism." Click here for article.
Lou is finishing her dissertation titled "Of Goo and Dust: Aesthetic Theories of Formlessness." Congratulations!
Damani's book examines the relationships between European Enlightenment, Holocaust memory, and “Black” futures in modern Germany.
Damani is Professor of of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.
Wir gratulieren, Damani!
The GSA Prize 2022 for the Best Essay in German Studies by a Graduate Student is awarded to the best unpublished, article-length manuscript written by a graduate student during the previous year.
Freya's award-winning essay, "'A Temporality of Imminent, Never-Consummated Arrival’: Contemporary German Documentaries on North Korea,” will be published in an upcoming issue of the German Studies Review.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch, Freya!
She presented a paper titled “Redefining Media Literacy” at a three-day seminar on “German Studies Approaches to Media Literacy,” co-organized by Thomas Küpper, Tanja Nusser, and Rolf Parr. This paper grew out of Prof. Lilla Balint’s seminar on “Digital Literatures, Critical Practices” last semester.
Freya's article "Queering the Screen: Spectral Figures and German-Taiwanese Encounters in Monika Treut’s Ghosted" was published in Seminar (University of Toronto Press) vol 58 Issue 3 September 2022, pp. 251-270.
Elizabeth presented her paper titled "Halbzeug Realities: How do we interpret machine-generated literature?" as part of the "Modeling IR-Reality" panel.
Molly's paper was titled "'Was übrig bleibt:' Max Czollek and the ‘Lachrymose Aesthetic’ in Contemporary German-Jewish Poetry”; it was part of the panel “Jews - Holocaust - Poetry." The LBI fellowship was awarded for her dissertation project with the working title, After Auschwitz: Contemporary German-Jewish Poetics and the Persistence of the Past). Since the grant is geographically flexible, she will spend a year in Berlin.