Ambika Athreya (she/sie/ella) joined the Phd program in German Studies in 2021. She works in translation and migration studies, the history of science, and, broadly speaking, transnational German Studies, as it intersects with Latin American and South Asian Studies. She enjoys teaching language classes in both German and Spanish, and loves translating (and thinking about translation). Prior to joining Berkeley, she received an MA in Economics from the University of Arizona.
Andrew Blough is a graduate student in the German Literature and Culture program. He joined the department in 2019 after receiving an M.A. in Philosophy from Duquesne University that same year. He is interested in the interrelation of mediality and knowledge construction, particularly as they pertain to historical interpretation and the construction of political spaces and temporalities. This includes the relation of science, technology, and political thought; legal dramas; and translation theory. He plans on pursuing the critical theory Designated Emphasis. He has also worked as a...
Anna Lynn Dolman is a second-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of German who plans to pursue Designated Emphases in Dutch Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies. Before coming to Berkeley she received her B.A. in Deutsche Sprache und Literatur and English Studies from the University of Cologne, and her M.A. in Germanic Languages and Literatures from Washington University at St. Louis. Her major research interests include late 18th- to 20th-century German literature, psychoanalysis, exile literature, women’s and gender studies, translation theory and practice, poetry and...
Molly Krueger is a PhD candidate in the Department of German with a Designated Emphasis in Jewish Studies. She received her MA from UC Berkeley in 2019 and her BA in German from Bowdoin College in 2013. She is currently at work on a dissertation that focuses on questions of history, memory, temporality, and literary form in contemporary German-Jewish writing.
Sean Lambert is a PhD candidate in the German department, with a Designated Emphasis in Film and Media Studies. His research focuses on modernity, technology and everyday experience. He is co-managing editor of TRANSIT, UC Berkeley’s graduate student journal of migration studies in the German-speaking world. He is also the co-organizer of the interdisciplinary Townsend Center working groups on the Emergence of German Modernity (which collaborates with members from Tübingen, Harvard and Vienna), and (formerly) the working group on Fear, Horror and Anxiety. His academic writing has...
Linus Mao joined the Department of German in 2023 after receiving their B.A. in College of Letters (Comparative Literature) and German Studies from Wesleyan University. Their research interests center around twentieth century and contemporary German literature and film, with a theoretical focus on Marxist aesthetic theory, the Frankfurt School critical theory, psychoanalysis, and narrative theory. Particularly, they are interested in the works of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder and writer W.G. Sebald. They plan on pursuing Designated Emphases in Critical Theory and Film and Media...
Be is a PhD candidate in the Department of German with a Designated Emphasis in Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies. Before coming to Berkeley, they studied in Berlin, where they received their B.A. (2016) and M.A. (2019) in Art History and Comparative Literature. They work as a translator and editor, and often collaborate with artists. At Berkeley, they serve on the editorial boards of TRANSIT, Qui Parle and Ki. They teach German as well as composition classes, on topics such as “Women and Labor in 20th century German Culture” or “Trans Reading and Writing Practices”. Be studies...
Lou Silhol-Macher is a seventh-year PhD candidate in the German Department at UC Berkeley with a Designated Emphasis in Film & Media. Her research engages with new media, installation art, film and video, queer theory, philosophy of media, critical race studies, and science and technology studies. Lou’s dissertation “Of Goo and Dust: Aesthetic Theories of Formlessness” investigates the role of form/lessness in film, video, and new media art, bringing into focus what emerges from the encounter between states of matter, minoritarian aesthetic practices, and racialized histories of...
Elizabeth Sun is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of German with Designated Emphases in New Media Studies and Dutch Studies. She holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Columbia University and an M.A. in Transcultural Studies from Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg. Her work engages with the remediation and mediatization of the migrant and refugee figure in literary, filmic, and digital texts. Elizabeth has taught classes on topics including "Refugees in a Mediated World" and "Migration, Labor, Gender."
Since 2021, Elizabeth has been Managing Editor of TRANSIT, a...
Sonja Thiel is a curator, philosopher, and historian who joined the department for the PhD program. She studied philosophy and history at the Humboldt University in Berlin (M.A. The Negative Moral Philosophy of Theodor Adorno in the Context of German Post-War Morality). After her studies, she worked as a participatory museum curator in Frankfurt, Freiburg, and Weißenfels, and as an academic coordinator for digital training in museum studies at the University of Freiburg. Most recently, she worked as a digital catalyst for artificial intelligence in museums in Karlsruhe, where she...
