Germanic Languages andLiteratures Newsletter

Spring 2002Volume 3, No. 1

University ofOregon

Helmut Plant: Emeritus et Amatissimus

See Plant, page 3

Head’s CommentsSpring is in the air with rhododendrons

in full bloom on our beautiful campus. A fewmore weeks and it is again time to saygoodbye to another group of graduates;today’s graduates who are tomorrow’salumni and, hopefully, readers of and con-tributors to our newsletters. With summercomes also our yearly migration to Europewhere many of us, students and faculty alike,spend at least part of our summer months inthe dusty, but oh so alluring, libraries andarchives. 2001 and 02 have been marked bytransitions. Colleagues have left and newones have joined the Department since ourlast Newsletter. Professor Karla Schultz re-tired, prematurely, we felt, and Kathy

Saranpa, after eight years of successfulteaching, left the University at the end ofSpring 2001. Fortunately, Karla returns eachFall to direct a German play performance,already a popular tradition at the UO, cap-ping our winter term. Saddest of these tran-sitions was, of course, the untimely death ofour long-time office assistant, Judy Finch,in February 2001 (see page 3) This Fall, twonew colleagues joined the Department, Dr.Dorothee Ostmeier in German and Dr.Michael Stern in Scandinavian (see page 5and 6). An extensive program review whichthe Department underwent in Spring 2001gave us an opportunity to assess our pastaccomplishments and to articulate visions forthe future. Over the past decade, our instruc-

What’s Inside...German Play 2001………...……...……2Faculty News and Notes……………….2Judy Finch...……………………………3Meet our New Faculty………………....4Pathways to the Future………………..4Meet our GTFs…………………...….....5Guest Lecturers..........……...…………..7Alumni Whereabouts…………………..7

“Hel-mut - Hel - mut - Hel - mut ...”  Anenthusiastic choir of fifty voices celebratedthe man who had organized an unforgettabledidactic event for them.  This was the way theUO’s 2002 International Language Retreatended, highlighting the spirit of those eigh-teen hours of complete abstinence from En-glish, which the students of German, Span-ish, French, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, andFinnish had just savored.  As a guest I had thechance to participate in what has become atradition at the UO over the past twenty years. The simultaneously exhilarating and exhaust-ing experience left me with a puzzling ques-tion regarding Associate ProfessorHelmut Plant:  What is his secret to vitality? Let’s try and find out:

After joining the UO faculty in 1967, Planttaught German language and culture courseson the undergraduate level, and on the gradu-ate level history of the German language,Middle High German, introductions to Gothic,to Old High German and Old Saxon, and con-trastive English and German phonetics.  Hisscholarly publications show an interest inearly Bible translations (Syntaktische Studienzu den Monseer Fragmenten , TheHague:Mouton 1969) and the language of

medieval prose manuscripts (Die sogenannte“Mainauer Naturlehre” der Basler Hs. BVIII 27, Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1972, whichhe co-edited). He received two grants fromthe State of Oregon: one for $4,571.01 to de-velop a beginning German language course,and one for $14,278.- to develop an inter-mediate course based on audiovisual media(Helmut Plant and Christian Stehr, “GutenTag at Oregon: An Audio-Visual Experi-ment,” DIE UNTERRICHTSPRAXIS, Spring1973, Vol. VI, No.1). 

Plant served on many UO committees,was faculty adviser to the German Club(1967-90), president of the Oregon chapterof the American Association of Teachers ofGerman (1969-70), resident director of theoverseas study program in Stuttgart (1971-2), taught for the Oregon Summer StudyAbroad program in Austria and Germany(1977, 1982), was undergraduate adviser(1978-90), and director of the language labo-ratory (1979-89).  After he retired in 1990,he continued teaching two courses per yearunder the terms of Oregon’s early retirementsystem until 1995.

In 1983 when most people still main-tained distance to the hi-tech revolution,

Plant already started to attend professionalworkshops on internet and educational tech-nologies.  While keeping up with cutting edgeteaching technology Plant does not neglectthe past either:  He has participated in theannual medieval poetry readings organizedby the UO’s medieval studies committee.

From 1985 on, he repeatedly traveled toMexico to improve his Spanish and to learnabout culture and history. His interest inSpanish stems from his early love for Latinand its daughter languages, “with Spanishseemingly being the most faithful daughter.”William Prescott’s The Conquest of Mexico,a classic of literary historiography, stimulatedhis imagination to the point that he was ea-ger to see some of the major sites of this early

tional program has been restructured alongincreasingly interdisciplinary lines. With eachnew faculty hire we have broadened our in-terdisciplinary reach and strengthened links

See Head’s Comments, page 8

Learning German in the Spotlight: Bertolt Brecht’s

Faculty News and NotesCongratulations to Susan C. Ander-

son! She has been promoted to full pro-fessor. Anderson co-edited, with BruceTabb, two books. The first, entitled Water,Culture, and Politics in Germany and theAmerican West, was published in the Ger-man Life and Civilization Series, series ed.Jost Hermand (New York: Peter Lang,2001). Also in collaboration with BruceTabb, she recently finished editing the in-terdisciplinary book Water, Leisure, andCulture: European Historical Perspectiveswhich will appear in September in the Lei-sure, Consumption, and Culture Series, se-ries ed. Rudy Koshar (Oxford, UK: Berg,2002). Susan has two forthcoming articles:“The Power of the Gaze: Visual Metaphorsin Schnitzler’s Prose Works and Dramas”in A Companion to Arthur Schnitzler, ed.Dagmar Lorenz (NY: Camden House,2002), and “Outsiders, Foreigners, and

Aliens in German Narratives from the 1980sand 1990s” German Quarterly (2002). Su-san enjoys teaching “Diversity in Germany”,which is attracting increasing numbers ofstudents each spring, and has had excellentstudents in her courses for majors and mi-nors, such as “Das Fremde”, and in hergraduate course on Narrative. She is cur-rently conducting a survey of thedepartment’s alumni since the 1940s andhopes to receive enthusiastic responses.

Kenneth S. Calhoon recently visited theJohns Hopkins University, where he deliv-ered a paper entitled “Ghost Medium: Trans-parency and Transition in C. D. Friedrichand F. W Murnau.” He is editor of Periph-eral Visions: The Hidden Stages of WeimarCinema , which was published this past sum-mer by Wayne State. Other recent publica-tions include: “Reading and the Art of Lei-sure in Mörike’s ‘Wald-Idylle,’” Modern

Language Notes 116 (2001): 536-550; “TheGothic Imaginary: Goethe in Strasbourg,”Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für deutscheLiteraturgeschichte und Geisteswissenschaft(2001): 5-14; “Leinwand: ZurPhysiognomie des Raumes in F. W. MurnausNosferatu ,” in Sigrid Lange, ed.,Raumästhetik in der Moderne, (Bielefeld:Aisthesis, 2001), 289-97.

At the Twenty-Fifth Annual GermanStudies Association Conference, AlexanderMathäs presented a lecture entitled “Colo-nizing the Bourgeois Subject: Self and Otherin Sturm und Drang Drama” in October2001. In May 2002, he gave a lecture at theUniversity of London within the frameworkof the Institute of Germanic Studies’ Con-ference “Seelenarbeit an Deutschland.” Thetitle of his talk was “Kafka-Metamorphosen:Martin Walsers frühe Erzählungen und ihreFolgen.” The following articles recentlyappeared in print or are forthcoming: “The

See Faculty, page 4

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“I know three of the actors,” a professorof German commented during the intermis-sion of the final performance, “in my lan-guage and culture classes they were wall-flowers who barely dared to speak. Now Isee them on stage, animated, self-possessedand proficient. What happened?” The an-swer is simple: Ten weeks of hard work paidoff. Apart from acquiring a vast repertoireof German phrases and idiomatic expres-sions through memorizing their lines and

listening to those of fellow actors, the stu-dents of GER 425 (Play Performance) re-ceive one-on-one diction, singing and act-ing coaching, all of which boost their speak-ing ability and self-confidence tremen-dously. In addition to language learning, thecast of 2001 studied and discussed Brecht’stheory of epic theater and put it into praxis,gaining expertise in acting, set and costumedesign, make-up, lighting and choreography.They all shared in the experience of a syn-ergistic collaborative effort working towarda common goal.

In the fall of 2001 twenty undergradu-ate and four graduate students tackled a chal-lenging project, Brecht’s The ThreepennyOpera, under the experienced guidance ofProfessor Karla Schultz. To the great dis-appointment of everyone involved, Karlahad to leave in mid-term due to a familyemergency. However, Karla had provideda solid structure for the course and, moreimportantly, she had set the tone — one ofhigh motivation. Everyone was infectedwith her enthusiasm and agreed that theshow must go on. Under the leadership ofHildegard Regele, a Ph.D. student in Ger-man literature, the rehearsals continued.Karla was still very much part of the projectthrough nightly phone conversations withthe insecure “green” director. During thetransitional period, the production was in asevere state of crisis when a network of sup-

port, of which Brecht would have been veryproud, rapidly unfolded within the Depart-ment. Along with the relentless efforts ofthe theater troop, it was the unanimous sup-port of faculty and staff that made two ex-cellent final performances possible.

An interview in which Nigel Cottier,ABD, questions Hildegard about her expe-riences as a Brechtian director will appearin an upcoming issue of Communicationsfrom the International Brecht Society. KarlaSchultz and Penelope Heinigk co-authoredan article on pedagogy and theater at the UO,which uses the 1999 production of Goethe’sUrfaust as an illustration of Karla’s teach-ing methods: “Urfaust: Magic on Stage,”Body and Language. Intercultural Learn-ing through Drama , ed. Gerd Braeuer(Atlanta:Greenwood Academic Publishers,2002).

Please join us in the fall of 2002 whenwe celebrate the 20th season of the UO’sGerman play tradition with the performanceof Ludwig Tieck’s Der gestiefelte Kater.

...

Plant, from page 1

In Memory of Judy Robertson Finch (1945-2001)

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“clash of civilizations” for himself. He spentthe fall of 1992 at the Universidad de lasAméricas in Cholula teaching German andEnglish — for a free room in the dorm.

Inspired to add a Spanish retreat to theexisting German language retreats, Plant hadto realize that such a move would excludethe French and Italian students of the de-partment of Romance Languages. So backto school he went, until in 1997 he felt readyto offer the first international language re-treat, for students of German and the threeRomance languages. With the help of theteachers of Swedish (Ursula Wiljanen) andDanish (Jan Nielsen) in Spring of 2000, andof Norwegian (Linda Gunn) and Finnish(Hanna-Marika Mitrunen) in Spring of2002, he has been able to offer two trulyinternational language retreats. Plant wouldlike to continue holding German languageretreats himself, and hopes to find peoplewilling to offer separate Romance and Scan-dinavian retreats.

Plant’s other hobbies, which are a vitalpart of the language retreats, are music anddancing; he plays the harmonica but wisheshe knew how to play the guitar or accor-dion, as “it is difficult to simultaneously singand play the harmonica.” Plant also likes

both folk- and ballroom dancing (his favor-ite dance is the waltz, from English to Cajunto Viennese). In 1999 he joined the OregonBallroom Dance Club (“It’s more fun thana commercial exercise club, and timeflies!”).  In addition, Plant has offered work-shops on German folkdancing on variousoccasions, and he has acquired a modestrepertoire of French, Italian and Mexicandances. 

For 35 years Plant has enjoyed organiz-ing hikes in summer and cross-country skitrips in winter for students and other mem-bers of the campus community. (Anyonewishing to get on his “hikers email list” iswelcome to send an email with the request:“Please put me on your hikers’ list”).

As everyone in the Department of Ger-manic Languages and Literatures knows, thelist of services which Plant continues to of-fer to colleagues, GTFs and students is long. He has been tutoring ESL and German andhas been offering “help with homework”sessions on a drop-in basis every Thursdayat 3PM in 206 FR to any students of Ger-man. He has freely shared his time, exper-tise and reassuring presence in various other“states of emergency.”  To give just one ex-ample:  When Professor Schultz had to leavethe 2001 play production, Plant spent many

hours on diction and acting coaching andconsulting.

Plant’s life appears to evolve aroundsharing and learning, two poles which mu-tually reinforce each other in an ever ex-panding vitalizing spiral. But let’s ask himdirectly: What is your secret to vitality?­ –“Keep moving - physically and mentally!”

Helmut Plant can be reached at<hplant@oregon.uoregon.edu>.

Månen by Edith SödergranVad allting som är dött är underbartoch outsägligt:ett dött blad och en död människaoch månens skiva.Och alla blommor veta en hemlighetoch skogen den bevarar,det är att månens kretsgång kring vår jordär dödens bana.Och månen spinner sin underbara väv,den blommor älska,och månen spinner sitt sagolika nätkring allt som lever.Och månens skära mejar blommor avi senhöstnätter,och alla blommor vänta på månens kyssi ändlös längtan.

Judy Finch began working in our depart-ment in September 1986. She was usuallythe first person faculty and GTFs would seeafter arriving at Friendly Hall, and her wel-coming greeting always helped get the dayoff to a good start. Judy was a constant inour frequently changing work environment.She was also more often than not the firstperson our students encountered whenever

they stopped by the main office for adviceor assistance. She put a human face on ourdepartment. There are countless peoplewhose lives Judy has touched, and her pa-tience, calm manner, and good cheer bright-ened the disposition of hundreds of studentsand colleagues over the years. She was thegrounded center amidst our sometimesstormy world of impending deadlines, ad-

vising crises, budget anxieties, and copy-machine breakdowns. Just as she nourishedthe plants she brought to the office, she nur-tured the people around her, ready to listento our complaints or share a laugh. Judywas a kind human being, whose light willshine on in the memories of all those whohad the honor of knowing her.

Kathy Saranpa and Susan Anderson readthe poems at her memorial service.

by Susan Anderson Mondnacht by Joseph von Eichendorff

Es war, als hätt der HimmelDie Erde still geküßt,Daß sie im BlütenschimmerVon ihm nun träumen müßt.

Die Luft ging durch die Felder,Die Ähren wogen sacht,Es rauschten leis die Wälder,So sternklar war die Nacht.

Und meine Seele spannteWeit ihre Flügel aus,Flog durch die stillen Lande,Als flöge sie nach Haus.

Welcome to New FacultyWithin the past two years, three new fac-

ulty members joined the Department of Ger-manic Languages and Literatures: ElkeHeckner, Dorothee Ostmeier, and MichaelStern.

Elke Heckner received her Ph.D. in2000 in German from the Johns HopkinsUniversity. She was excited to join a de-partment that focuses on German as well ason Scandinavian languages and cultures.

Professor Heckner’s interdisciplinaryresearch and teaching interests range fromgender studies and film theory to recent de-bates on the politics of memory in Berlin.She brings new approaches in literary andcultural studies to canonical 19th- and 20th-century authors of German literature, suchas Kleist and Brecht.

She is currently working on a book en-titled Unruly Modernities: Gender, Sexual-ity and the Temporality of Exclusion. Thebook argues that modernity’s politics of ex-clusion can be critically addressed by ex-amining strategies of resistance within vari-ous discourses of modernity (e.g. philoso-phy, drama, and criticism). Heckner re-ceived a CSWS grant for the project andpresented parts of her manuscript in April2002. Part of a book chapter on Kleist’snovella “Die Verlobung in St. Domingo”was published recently in the Kleist-

Faculty, from page 2Presence of the Past: Martin Walser onMemoirs and Memorials,” German StudiesReview 25 (2002), “Self-Perfection - Nar-cissism - Paranoia: Ludwig Tieck’s Derblonde Eckbert,” Colloquia Germanica 34.3/4 (2001), and “Colonizing the BourgeoisSubject: Self and Other in Sturm und DrangDrama,” Body Dialectics in the Age ofGoethe  (Rodopi) (2002). Professor Mathäshas also accepted an invitation to serve onthe Editorial Board of the journal GermanStudies Review.

Karla Schultz retired in spring 2001, butwill continue to direct fall-term play pro-ductions until 2005 under the terms ofOregon’s early retirement system. Togetherwith Penelope Heinigk, Karla has a bookarticle in press entitled “Urfaust: Magic onStage,” Body and Language. InterculturalLearning through Drama (2002).

Jonathan Skolnik was awarded theOregon Humanities Center “Coleman-Guitteau Professorship in the Humanities”for 2001-2002. This Spring he is teaching a

new team-taught course on “Philosophy andTragedy.” In the Fall, he taught a seminaron “Exile in L.A.” His article “Le juif er-rant et le temps historique” appeared in theexhibit catalogue Le temoin du temps. Im-ages du juif errant. He presented papers atGeorgetown University, the Modern Lan-guage Association, and the German StudiesAssociation, and treated the UO to a talk on“Jewish Pasts, German Fictions” in March2002. Skolnik was awarded a MeyerhoffFellowship for post-doctoral research in theDepartment of Jewish Studies at the Uni-versity of Maryland and will be on a leaveof absence from the UO in 2002/03.

Virpi Zuck’s article “Accounts of theEffervescence of Life or Autopsies of Na-zism: Two Eyewitness Reports from theThird Reich” appeared in The Journal ofFinnish Studies 5:1 (2001). She alsoauthored a book review of George C.Schoolfield’s A History of Finland’s Litera-ture, which appeared in Scandinavian Stud-ies 73:4 (2001).

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Jahrbuch.In the past two years Heckner offered

courses such as “Bodies and Law” and“Feminism and Hysteria” which attractedboth students inside the department as wellas from other disciplines. In the fall of 2002she will teach a course on representationsof gender and sexuality in German film asthey pertain to issues of history and nationalidentity.

Most recently she has written on issuesof urban memory in the reconstruction ofBerlin. Her article “Berlin Remake: Build-ing Memory and the Politics of Capital Iden-tity” is forthcoming with Germanic Review.Heckner is particularly interested in howBerlin’s construction of a new post-unifica-

See New Faculty, page 5

In terms of the number of German ma-jors enrolled, the UO’s Department of Ger-manic Languages and Literatures ranks inthe top 3% of 400 U.S. colleges and univer-sities according to statistics published in thejournal Monatshefte (summer 2001). Whyare so many undergraduates attracted to ourprogram? What makes us so special? Oneof the reasons is the relentless endeavors offaculty and staff to continuously evaluateand adapt our program to meet the rapidlyshifting demands of our times.

In an effort to accomplish this mission,our department, represented by ProfessorsSusan Anderson, Virpi Zuck, MarilynLinton, and Alex Mathäs joined forces withthe Romance Languages Department toembark upon an interdisciplinary UO projectby the name of Pathways, with the goal ofhelping Freshmen and Sophomores enrolledin their programs to complete general edu-cation requirements in a coherent mannerby complementing language courses withculturally focused seminars. The GER/SCAN/RL Pathway was entitled VoicingDiversity. A one-credit seminar encouragedthe multilingual and multicultural group ofstudents to investigate connections betweenlanguage and culture courses and learn aboutother cultures. Pathways is a cutting edgepedagogical program, developed to meet theneeds of our time. In Professor Anderson’swords, “the students in Voicing Diversity arehighly aware that confronting cultural di-versity is a major challenge of the 21st cen-tury and they are eager to actively partici-pate in building bridges between cultures.”

Professors Dorothee Ostmeier and Su-san Anderson are in the process of imple-menting another innovative new project bythe name of Outreach (see Ostmeier, p. 5),which is modeled after an initiative devel-oped by Ostmeier in Seattle and a projectcreated by the head of the Germanic Depart-ment at the University of Texas-Austin.

Pathways to the Future

Meet Our GTFsNigel Cottier (GTF in German) from

London has been in the Ph.D. program inGerman for six years and is currently writ-ing his dissertation.  His prospectus, entitled“From the Beautiful to the Sublime: Read-ing Peter Weiss’s  ‘The Aesthetics of Resis-tance’ in the Shadow of the Postmodern,”was published in the International PeterWeiss Yearbook (Feb. 2002).  He conductedan interview with Hildegard Regele entitled“Learning German in the Spotlight: BertoltBrecht’s Die Dreigroschenoper at the Uni-versity of Oregon” to be published summerof 2002 by Communications from the Inter-national Brecht Society.

Hildegard Regele (GTF in German)from Munich is in her first-year of Ph.D.studies in German. She served as acting-director of the 2001 play production (seearticle page 2). In spring 2002 she producedthis Newsletter. She is finishing hercoursework this year and is looking forwardto devoting herself to her dissertation projectin which she will compare SamuelHahnemann’s healing art of homeopathy toconcepts of Friedrich Nietzsche andSigmund Freud.

Dissertations 2000 - 2002

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May 2001 Penelope Heinigk “The Other Side of the Tracks:Representaions of Gender in Early Railroad Turmoil.”August 2000 Dan Gilfillan “From Monstrosity to Liberation:Situating Technology in the Work of Alfred Andersch.”

See GTFs, page 6

tion identity intersects with the question ofJewish memory in Berlin.

She is looking forward to taking a trip toAstoria in the near future to enjoy the mostrecent revival of Scandinavian cultures in thePacific Northwest.

Dorothee Ostmeier joined the UOfaculty in fall 2001. After completing herM.A. and Staatsexamen in Germanistik,Mediaevistik, and philosophy at the RuhrUniversität Bochum with a thesis onGoethe’s early classic dramas, she was in-vited to the Johns Hopkins University inBaltimore where she received her Ph.D. in1993. Her dissertation entitled Sprache desDramas – Drama der Sprache: Zur Poetikder Nelly Sachs was published as a book in1997.

In 1993 Professor Ostmeier accepted anassistant professorship at the University ofWashington, Seattle, where she moved withher “husband-friend” Steve Golledge andwhere they “both became very fortunatewhen our two angels Lyssandra and Felixjoined our lives.” At UW, Ostmeier designedand taught a broad variety of graduate andundergraduate courses in German literature

and culture, participated in numerous dis-sertation defenses and Master’s exams,chaired two dissertations, initiated severalinternship programs, served on several de-partmental and university committees,worked intensely with the faculty senate,organized a 5-day Wim Wenders festival,and was local director of the 1996 GermanStudies Association’s international confer-ence in Seattle. She developed her secondbook project Poetic Encounters: Constructsof Gender in texts of the Early 20th Cen-tury, which she plans to complete soon.Three of her recently published essays —addressing gender debates between Rainer

Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome,Gottfried Benn and Else Lasker-Schüler, andin Brecht’s feminized utopias — cover someof the materials she investigates. The bookin its entirety will ask how specific gender/sexuality debates of the early 20th centurytake issue with the stereotypes of this pe-riod. Ostmeier has lectured on these topicsand will explore further aspects in two up-coming talks entitled “Visual Art vs. Poetry:Rainer Maria Rilke’s Poetic Reception ofFemininity in Renaissance Art” and “ElseLasker-Schüler and Peter Hille as St. Peterand Tino.” She is an active collaborator onthe new edition of the Brecht Handbuch(Metzler): two articles have already ap-peared, a third is invited. She is also inter-ested in Brecht’s media theory. An essay on“Brecht and the Internet” appeared in thepeer-reviewed journal The Brecht Yearbook26 and she led a well-attended panel on“Brecht Cineast: Scripting and MakingFilms” for the International Brecht Societyat the 2001 MLA conference. 

Ostmeier is conceptualizing a teachinginternship program with Crest Drive El-ementary School to offer our advanced un-dergraduates the opportunity to gain teach-

New Faculty, from page 4

See New Faculty, page 6

Elizabeth Agner (GTF in German)from Florida received her B.A. in biologyfrom Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.  Shewill finish her master’s studies in Germanthis year with an emphasis on translation.

Doris Pfaffinger (GTF in German)from Arnstorf, Niederbayern, received herB.A. from the Universität Regensburg inGerman and English. Her special interestis the role of woman in literature.

Amber Hollers (GTF in German) fromLos Angeles received her bachelor’s degreein art history (emphasis on history of Gothicarchitecture in France and early Christianart) at the Universität Heidelberg. She is afirst-year M.A. student of German.

Kathrin Klotz (GTF in German) fromClausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, completedher first Staatsexamen in Grund- undHauptschullehramt atthe UniversitätHildesheim. In her firstyear of M.A. studies inGerman, she is espe-cially interested indrama, 20th-century lit-erature, cultural studies,and German film.

Sabina Pasic (GTF in German) fromBosnia-Herzegovina received herBachelor’s degree in German at the UO. Sheis now in the first year of our M.A. program.She is especially interested in nineteenthcentury German literature. After her gradu-ation, Sabina wants to spend a year abroadand then pursue a Ph.D.

Kalsang Phari-Vespignani (GTF inGerman) from Tibet acquired her Laurea inpolitical sciences at the Universita di Bolo-gna. This is her first year in the M.A. pro-gram in German. She is especially inter-ested in the political dimension of life.

Kerry Bannister (GTF in Swedish)from Yorkshire, U.K., received her B.A. inScandinavian studies at the University ofHull, U.K. She is in the second year of her

Production Staff

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M.A. studies in linguistics. Her special in-terests are second-language perception andproduction of sounds. Kerry was awardedthe Annual Bakony Professional Develop-ment Grant 2002. This is the second yearthe award has been offered in connectionwith the Yamada Language Center’s ForeignLanguage and International Studies Day.Kerry is the first GTF to receive the $ 1,000prize which she intends to use “to give theSwedish program a fighting change and putit on more equal footing with other popularlanguage programs at the UO.” To this endKerry will create a multimedia library ofSwedish language and culture materials atthe Yamada Language Center, which willinclude films, music and radio programs onCD, magazines, books, CD-Rom softwareand other interactive materials for learningSwedish, supplementary course materials,and a website with links to web-based re-sources for Swedish language and culture.The multimedia library will be available toSwedish students and other interested par-ties. In addition Kerry will design a cur-ricular framework (which is currently notavailable) to help create a sense of continu-ity in Swedish language teaching from yearto year. This will include a catalog of re-sources to supplement the syllabi and a lan-guage teaching manual and database. Kerrywill also research currently available teach-

ing material, choose an up-to-date textbookfor future use in the department, and inves-tigate modes of financial assistance to helpfund the continuation and extension of thisproject and facilitate further projects.

Karina Frederiksen (GTF in Danish)from Copenhagen earned a degree in mar-keting management at Copenhagen BusinessSchool. She is currently working on herM.B.A. in marketing and sports marketing.Upon her graduation in June 2002, she plansto stay in the U.S. and work in the field ofstrategic planning, sponsorship, and brandbuilding (ideally for a subsidiary of a Dan-ish company).

Hanna-Marika Mitrunen (GTF inFinnish) from Tampere, Finland, receivedher B.A. in Finnish language at the Univer-sity of Tampere from where she will alsoreceive her M.A. this fall. Currently, shetakes courses in linguistics. Her special in-terest is second-language acquisition (espe-cially Finnish) and her aim is to concentrateon this area in her Ph.D. studies when backin Finland. This spring, she received a grantfor her studies from the Finnish CulturalFoundation.

Kathryn Olsen (GTF in German) fromKingsport, Tennessee, graduated with a B.A.in English from Winthrop University inRock Hill, South Carolina. She is now en-rolled in the Ph.D. program in comparativeliterature. She is very interested in 20th-cen-

GTFs, from page 5

ing experience (Outreach). The programwill begin in fall 2003 in collaboration withSusan Anderson.

Ostmeier is also organizing a researchgroup on “Philosophies of Nature as Basisfor Alternative Medicines: Healing throughNature,” and envisions an interdisciplinaryteaching and lecture/conference project onthis topic.

Ostmeier is looking forward to excitingyears “in the stimulating and creative atmo-sphere of Eugene and the department.”

Michael Stern received his PH. D.in Scandinavian Studies from the Univer-sity of California at Berkeley in the fall of2000. His first job was as a visiting Assis-tant Professor in the German Department atthe University of Chicago. He came to Or-egon in the fall of 2001. Stern’s researchfocus is the construction of subjective posi-tions in nineteenth-century philosophicaland literary discourse. He is currently work-ing on a book manuscript entitled Nietzsche’s

Ocean, Strindberg’s Open Sea, which inves-tigates both the encounter between the twomen and the commonality between theirauthorial projects. Stern posits that this com-monality can be found on the level of auto-biographical narrative through the construc-tion of what he calls the genealogy of self.Stern’s next project will be an investigationof the Jewish critique of the Danish philoso-pher, Søren Kierkegaard.

Stern has taught five classes this year. Afreshman class, “Masks and Ecstatic Expe-rience”, explored aesthetic responses to

New Faculty, from page 5 trauma. “Nietzsche in Scandinavia” pro-vided the students with both an introduc-tion to the philosopher’s work and enabledthem to analyze literary instantiations of thephilosophical content. “Realism and Anti-realism” traced the development of the psy-chological novel in Scandinavia. Stern’sspring offerings were “The Emergence ofScandinavian Cultures”, a survey course thatinvestigated belief systems in the north be-fore 1800, and “From Stage to Screen”, anexploration of film adaptations of nine-teenth-century drama. Future course offer-ings will include a seminar on the notion ofRepetition in philosophy and literature, asurvey of Ibsen’s prose cycle, and a coursefeaturing Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous pro-duction.

The Department of Germanic Lan-guages and Literatures is proud to welcomethese new faculty members who boast theefforts for increased interdisciplinaritythrough their specializations in philosophy,gender studies, and German and Scandina-vian intellectual history.

Editor: Hildegard RegeleLayout & Design: Dan Gilfillan,Hildegard Regele, and VanessaPfeifferTechnical Support: Wenlan HuProofreader: Elizabeth AgnerGuardian Angel: Jeff Magoto

tury English, French, German, and Danishfiction, with a special focus on the commu-nity of American expatriates between WWIand WWII, who settled in Europe, and theirEuropean contemporaries. Her future plans/hopes are to teach literature at the univer-sity level.

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In conjunction with the course “Philosophyand Tragedy,” co-taught by Professors JonathanSkolnik and Peter Warnek, the Oregon Humani-ties Center and the Coleman-Guitteau Profes-sorship in the Humanities sponsored a series oflectures in April and May 2002:

Alejandro Vallega, professor of philosophyfrom California State University at Stanislaus,started the series with a talk on “The Myth ofReason and the Philosopher’s Tragic Voice: OnPlato’s Phaedo.”

John Sallis , Edwin Erle Sparks professorof philosophy from Pennsylvania State Univer-sity, spoke on “Hegel and the Tragedy of Phi-losophy.”

Dennis Schmidt, professor of philosophyfrom Villanova University, presented a lectureon “Hölderlin, Heidegger, Tragedy.”

In February 2002, the Department of Com-parative Literature invited Prof. Dr. HelmutSchneider from the Universität Bonn give apresentation on “Modernisierung der Natur: DieEntstehung des Weimarer Parks und das Bilddes Parks in Goethes Dichtung.”

In May 2002, the Department of Compara-tive Literature featured David E. Wellbery,University of Chicago, speaking on“Nietzsche’s Theory of the Tragic Imaginary”

within the framework of the public lecture se-ries “Of Words and Worlds.”

The Germanic Department invited Profes-sor Diana Behler from the University ofWashington to present on “Sexual Fantasies:Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story and StanleyKubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut” in May 2002.Behler is a world renowned scholar on Ger-man Romanticism and its influences on 20th-century literature. Her work builds a bridgebetween the fields of Germanic literature andfilm studies. The visit was also co-sponsoredby the Office of the Vice Provost, the Depart-ments of English, History, Philosophy, and the

Distinguished Lecturers Visit Campus

Dan Gilfillan is nearing the end of his sec-ond-year as a Research Associate for the Cen-ter for the Study of Women in Society’s Femi-nist Humanities Project, where he has designeda collection of online teaching modules basedon current research being accomplished on is-sues of women and gender in historical contextat the University of Oregon.  He is also excitedto announce that he has been offered a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor of In-formation Literacy at Arizona State Universityin the Department of Foreign Languages andLiteratures.  He will begin this next stage of hiscareer in August 2002.<dgilfil@darkwing.uoregon.edu>

Monika Fischer is presently teaching in theGerman Department at Hunter College in N.Y.<monika_@hotmail.com>

Gudrun Hommel is ending her first of threeyears as co-chair of the Modern LanguagesDepartment at Linfield College. In this capac-ity she particularly likes her work as thedepartment’s liaison to Linfield’s InternationalPrograms Office. Together with a colleaguefrom the business department, she developed acourse, “Business Culture and Culture in Ger-

many and Austria.” In Jan. 2003, the two pro-fessors will teach fifteen students on site inMainz, Munich, and Vienna. Gudrun contin-ues to teach two German courses per term, any-thing from first-year German to a topics in Ger-man culture course on German film.<ghommel@linfield.edu>

Martina Kolb is in her fifth year of Ph.D.studies in comparative literature at Yale Uni-versity. She passed her comprehensive examsand is working on her dissertation.<martina.kolb@yale.edu>

Angela Schaefer completed a licensure forGerman in high school. She is now in her sec-ond year at Elmira High School which main-tains a strong German program (levels 1-4).“Despite funding cuts in education,” she writes,“German continues to gain support here, andstudents and staff are great.” This summer shewill travel to Germany with twelve of her stu-dents. <katzen27@yahoo.com>

Yasmin Staunau teaches German (levels1-4) at South Eugene High School and sheloves it. <staunau@4j.lane.edu>.

Carsten Strathausen is preparing for hispromotion to associate professor at the Uni-versity of Missouri, Columbia. His manuscript“The Look of Things: Poetry and Vision around

Alumni Whereabouts

Oregon Humanity Center.Alexander Mathäs invited

Ekkehard Sprenger from the GoetheInstitute to offer a workshop on teach-ing methodologies for the GTFs. Dr.Sprenger presented on “Using Film inthe Foreign Languages Classroom”(October 26, 2001).

In early April, Kyllikki Rantala,a lecturer in music education at theUniversity of Tampere, Finland, gavea public presentation titled “Hip Hoi,Musisoi: About Early Childhood Mu-sic Education in Finland.”

1900” is currently being edited by Uni-versity of North Carolina Press and isscheduled for publication early next year.Carsten’s latest project involves digitalmedia. He recently received a majorteaching award from the University ofMissouri. He can be reached at:<StrathausenC@missouri.edu>.

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with adjacent programs, such as Film Stud-ies, Judaic Studies, Philosophy, andWomen’s and Gender Studies as well asbetween the German and Scandinaviansections of the Department. We continueto explore ways to further intensify thiscollaboration, in instruction as well as re-search, particularly with colleagues in thedepartments of Philosophy and Historywho are specializing in German philo-sophical and historical traditions. Lookinginto future, we thus see our task less oneof setting new goals than of consolidatinggains already made. These are also my fare-well words as Head of the Department.Looking back at my eight plus years in thisposition, I see years filled with challengesbut also with many rewards. Perhaps thegreatest of them has been the opportunityto interact with the graduate students in theDepartment, an experience which I cher-ish and on which I would otherwise havemissed out as we have no graduate pro-gram in Scandinavian. My sincere thanksto colleagues, past and present, for theirsupport and collaboration and best wishesto all of our alumni.

Head’s Comments, from page 1

Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures,UO © 2002

The UO is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-actioninstitution committed to cultural diversity and compliancewith the Americans with Disabilities Act. This publicationwill be made available in accessible formats upon request.

Donations are Welcome: Donationscan make a great difference in boostinga department’s capacity to offer educa-tional opportunities to students and re-search / instructional resources to fac-ulty. You may be contacted by UO An-nual Giving and invited to make a con-tribution to the university. Should youdecide to do so, please consider desig-nating the Department of Germanic Lan-guages and Literatures as a recipient ofyour gift. If you wish to make a contri-bution now, please make your checkpayable to the University of OregonFoundation, designated for the Depart-ment of Germanic Languages and Lit-eratures and send it directly to the UOFoundation at 1787 Agate Street, Eu-gene, OR, 97403.

Linda Gunn (visiting instructor ofNorwegian) and Hanna-MarikaMitrunen (GTF in Finnish) in traditionalfolk dresses at the 2002UO Foreign Language & InternationalStudies Day.