Curriculum Vitae

JULIA K. BAKER, Ph.D.
118 Big Springs Circle * Cookeville, TN * 38501-4881 * (931) 562-6886 * bakerju@uc.edu

DEGREES AND CERTIFICATES:

2007 Ph.D. German Studies University of Cincinnati

2006 Certificate Holocaust Studies for Educators Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati

2002 Certificate Translation Technology University of Wales, Swansea

2000 M.A. Master of Arts (German Literature) Bowling Green State University

1999 Certificate Teaching English and German as a Karl-Franzens-Universität, Graz
Foreign Language

1998 Mag. Phil. Magistra der Philosophie (Deutsch, Karl-Franzens-Universität, Graz
Englisch, Lehramt)

Teaching and Research Interests:

20th and 21st Century German, Austrian and American Literature; (Documentary) Film; Madness in German Literature; Transnational Literature; Austrian Writers; The City in Literature and Film; Translation; Holocaust Studies; Exile Studies; Theories of Memory, Postmemory, (Childhood) Trauma, and Transgenerational Trauma; Methodologies of Teaching German Language and Literature; Teaching with Technology and Computer-Assisted Language Learning; Second Language Acquisition.


EDUCATION:

2003-2007 Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Department of German Studies

Dissertation: "The Return of the Child Exile: Re-enactment of Childhood Trauma in Jewish Life-Writing and Documentary Film"

Dissertation advisor: Prof. Katharina Gerstenberger
Dissertation committee: Prof. Gerstenberger, Prof. Friedrichsmeyer, Prof. Herzog

2006 Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, USA
Holocaust Studies for Educators Certificate

2000-2002 University of Wales, Swansea, UK
Department of German
Postgraduate Certificate in Translation and Language Technology

1999-2000 Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA
Department of German, Russian and East Asian Languages
Master of Arts (German Literature)

Thesis: “Wahnsinn bei Ingeborg Bachmann und Charlotte Perkins Gilman unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der sprachlich bedingten Außenseiterposition von Frauen in der österreichischen und amerikanischen Gesellschaft”(Advisor: Prof. Geoffrey Howes)

1998-1999 Karl-Franzens-Universität, Austria
Postgraduate Certificate in English as a Foreign Language

1997-1998 Karl-Franzens-Universität, Austria
Postgraduate Certificate in German as a Foreign Language

1991-1997 Karl Franzens Universität, Austria
Magistra der Philosophie (Germanistik, Anglistik,

Amerikanistik und Linguistik, Lehramt)

Thesis: “Female Aboriginality in Colonial Women’s Texts.” (Advisor: Prof. Wolfgang Zach)

1994 University of Queensland, Australia
Year abroad

PUBLICATIONS:

Articles:

Baker, Julia K. “Smiling bonds and laughter frees: Marginal Humor and Modern Strangers in the Works of Hung Gurst and Wladimir Kaminer.” Finding the Foreign: Proceedings of the Thirteenth Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference at the University of California, Berkeley. New York: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007. 47-58.

Baker, Julia K. “‘Where is the child I used to be?’ Childhood remembered - Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum, Christa Wolf’s A Model Childhood, and W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz.” Moveable Type 1 (2005). http://www.ucl.ac.uk/english/graduate/issue/1_1/1_1.htm

Book Reviews:

Baker, Julia K. Review of Vienna by Eva Menasse. Focus on German Studies 13 (2006): 169-172.

Baker, Julia K. Review of Weggeküßt by Angela Krauss. Focus on German Studies 10 (2003): 239-242.

Interviews:

Baker, Julia K. in cooperation with Aine Zimmerman. On and Beyond Academic Journals, Globalization and Literary Canonization: A Conversation with Hans Adler. Focus on German Studies 11 (2004): 273-280.

Baker, Julia K. in cooperation with Laura Vas. Room for Curiosity. Interview with Liliane Weissberg. Focus on German Studies 12 (2005): 215-221.

Baker, Julia K. Creativity in the Midst of Cruelty. Interview with Michael A. Meyer and George Brady. Focus on German Studies 13 (2006): 197-205.


PUBLICATIONS IN PROGRESS:

Baker, Julia K. “Fragments and Beyond: Childhood Trauma in Binjamin Wilkomirski’s and Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt’s Holocaust Testimonies and Life-writing.” [accepted for publication by Cambridge Scholars Press].

Baker, Julia K. “Acknowledging Personal Presence in the Embodied Nature of Scholarship - A Conversation with Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer.” Interview with Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer [accepted for publication by Cambridge Scholars Press].

Baker, Julia K. in cooperation with Imelda Rohrbacher. Interview with documentary filmmakers Ruth Beckermann, Käthe Kratz and Mirjam Unger. [scheduled for March 2008].


TRANSLATIONS:

Mommertz, Monika.“The Invisible Economy of Science—A New Approach to the History of Gender and Astronomy at the Eighteenth-Century Berlin Academy of Sciences.” Translated by Julia Baker. Men, Women and the Birthing of Modern Science. Ed. Judith Zinsser. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005. 159-178.

Currently assisting a Holocaust survivor in gathering, editing and preparing his childhood memories for publication. Henry Blumenstein was the youngest passenger on the St. Louis. He fled to the Netherlands where he was hidden by a Dutch farmer´s family. After the war, Blumenstein reunited with his father in the United States.


CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS:

“Childhood in Exile and the Creative Product.” German Studies Association Annual Conference October 2- October 5, 2008 St. Paul, Minnesota 2008.

“Postmemorable Family Stories: Reflections on Eva Menasse’s Vienna (2005).” German Studies Association Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 28 September-1 October 2006.

“Could this be me? Reflections on Childhood Memory in Binjamin Wilkomirski’s Fragments and Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt’s Die Absonderung.” Trajectories of Memory: Intergenerational Representations of the Holocaust in History and the Arts. Bowling Green State University, Ohio, March 2006.

“The Return of the Child Exile – Remembering and Reinventing Childhood in Autobiographies by Survivors of the Holocaust.” M/MLA Milwaukee, November 2005.

“Where is the Child I used to be? - “Childhood remembered in Christa Wolf´s Patterns of Childhood and W.G. Sebald´s Austerlitz.” Third Annual Interdisciplinary University College London, March 2005.

“Wer sind hier die Exoten? - Alterität und interkulturelle Begegnungen in der zeitgenössischen
deutschen Literatur am Beispiel von Texten von Uwe Timm, Hung Gurst und Wladimir Kaminer.” Thirteenth Annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference, University of California, Berkeley, March 2005.

“A Nightmare – America in the German and French mind.” Indiana University, Department of
Germanic Studies. Graduate Student Conference, Indiana University Germanic Studies, February 2005.

“Austria versus Germany: Differences in Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior.” Ohio Foreign Language Conference, Toledo, April 2000.


TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

2008 - present Assistant Professor, Tennessee Technology University, USA

2007 Visiting Instructor, Northern Kentucky University, Kentucky, USA

German 320. Survey of German Literature

2006-2007 Teaching Assistant, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

German 321. Upper Level German Language and Culture

2005 Teaching Assistant, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
German Readings 897. Translation course for graduate students of all

disciplines

2003-2004 Teaching Assistant, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Elementary and Intermediate German (101/104/201).

2000-2002 Lektor, University of Wales, Swansea, UK
Elementary, intermediate and advanced German courses for

undergraduate and international graduate students
Austrian Facts and Figures lecture
German Conversation Class for retired university employees

1999-2000 Teaching Assistant, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA

Elementary and advanced German
Pedagogy class for high school teachers of German

1998-1999 German and English High School Teacher, Graz, Austria
German literature and English grammar and language classes for

seventh and ninth grade students

German as a Foreign Language Teacher, Karl-Franzens-Universität,

Graz, Austria
Elementary and advanced German courses for international students

English as a Foreign Language teacher, Adult Education Center, Graz,

Austria

Elementary and intermediate English grammar and conversation

Responsibilities as Language Instructor and Teaching Assistant included:

Designing and collaborating on syllabi and weekly lesson plans; creating assignments, classroom and internet-activities; holding regular office hours; assisting students with their work and giving them written feedback; designing and grading tests and exams; creating essay and blog prompts, conducting oral exams; administering grades on Blackboard; organizing German film-nights, Christmas events, German Day, outreach programs and activities with high schools.

EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE:

2006-2007 Editorial Assistant, Lessing Yearbook, University of Cincinnati.

2004-2005 Editor-in-Chief for Volume 12 of the journal Focus on German

Studies, University of Cincinnati.

2003-2004 Book Review Editor for Volume 11 of the journal Focus on

German Studies, University of Cincinnati.

2003-2005 Copy editor for the journal Focus on German Studies, University

of Cincinnati.

2003-2007 Member of Editorial Board and Board of Referees. Focus on
German Studies. University of Cincinnati.


RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

2008 Moderator at the Thirty-Second Annual Conference October 2- October 5, 2008
St. Paul, Minnesota

2006-2007 Preparing Future Faculty Program at the University of Cincinnati

for students considering an academic career in higher education.

2006 Moderator and Respondent at the Eleventh Annual Graduate

Student Conference, University of Cincinnati.

Audiovisual Textbook Material
Designed, recorded and filmed dialogue on intercultural marriage

for a German textbook.

2005 Moderator and Respondent at the Tenth Annual Graduate Student

Conference, University of Cincinnati.

Conference Coordinator. “Forgetting and Remembering – Memory

Discourse in German Literature.” Ninth Annual Graduate Student

Conference. University of Cincinnati, October 2004.

2004-2005 Voice Recording
Designed and recorded (own voice for) dialogues between native

speakers for the development of teaching material. Monterey

Institute of International Studies.

2003-2006 Member of Conference Organizing Committee. Focus on German

Studies, University of Cincinnati.

2003-2003 German Teacher
Teaching Business German at Private Language Schools

International Language Plus, Cincinnati and Cendant Mobility,

Employee Relocation Services, Chicago, USA.

1999-present Freelance Translator English>German translations in areas

including: Arts and Humanities, official documents, Marketing &

Advertising, Tourism, Literature & Publishing, Computer &

Software, Manuals & Employee Handbooks.

1998 Workshop Coordinator Kulturinstitut, Graz, Austria. Organized and

conducted a monthly workshop attended by 20-50 international

professionals: “Basic German and Austrian Culture in 60 minutes.”


SERVICE-RELATED ACTIVITIES:

2006 Member of a Jewish-Christian committee
Co-organized Rabbi Dr. Gottschalk’s visit to Oberwesel, Germany.

Coordinator of a school project in Oberwesel.

Translator/interpreter for Hebrew Union College and the

University of Cincinnati.

2003 Project Coordinator, University of Cincinnati and The Academy of

World Languages, Outreach Program.

Co-organizer of German Day, University of Cincinnati

A traditional event hosted by the Graduate Students at the Department of

German Studies. Attended by 500 high school students, German Day offers

students and their teachers to get in touch with the German language and

culture.

HONORS AND SCHOLARSHIPS:

2007 Max Kade Dissertation Summer Grant, Washington University in

St. Louis.

2006 Taft Graduate Enrichment Award, University of Cincinnati.

URC Summer Graduate Student Research Fellowship, University

of Cincinnati.

2005-2006 Charles Phelps Taft Advanced Graduate Fellowship, University of

Cincinnati.

2005 Charles Taft Graduate Student Travel Grant, University of

Cincinnati.

Graduate Student Governance Association Travel Grant, University

of Cincinnati.

2003-2007 University Graduate Scholarships. Tuition Fellowship, University

of Cincinnati.

2000-2002 Research Grant, Österreichkooperation, Austria/Wales, UK.

1999-2000 Fulbright Scholarship, Austria/USA.

1997 MA Thesis Research Grant (Australia), Karl-Franzens-Universität, Austria.

1994-1995 Joint Study Scholarship (Australia), Karl-Franzens-Universität,

Austria.

LANGUAGES:

German native speaker
English near native proficiency
French intermediate (completed university language requirement)
Latin reading knowledge


PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS:

Modern Language Association (MLA)
Midwest Modern Language Association (M/MLA)
German Studies Association (GSA)
American Association for Teachers of German (AATG)
Women in German (WiG)


CITIZENSHIP:

Austrian citizen; US Permanent Resident (Green Card Holder) since December 2002.


REFERENCES:

Northern Kentucky University:

Thomas H. Leech
Associate Professor of German
Foreign Language Coordinator
Department of Literature and Language
Landrum 500
Phone: 859/572-5514
Fax: 859/572-6093
leech@nku.edu

University of Cincinnati:

Katharina Gerstenberger

Department Head, Associate Professor

730 Old Chemistry Building

513-556-2751 513-556-2750

gerstek@email.uc.edu

Todd Herzog

Associate Professor

731 Old Chemistry
513-556-2972
herzoghr@email.uc.edu 513-556-2746

Sara L Friedrichsmeyer
Graduate Director, ProfessorA&S

730 Old Chemistry Building

513-556-2750

friedrsl@email.uc.edu

Jennifer Kelley-Thierman
Assistant Professor and Director of Language Instruction

SWLCA&S Germanic Languages

742 Old Chemistry Building

513-556-2746

kelleyjr@ucmail.uc.edu

Monterey Institute of International Studies:

Dr. David L. Colclasure
david.colclasure@miis.edu

Bowling Green State University:

Geoffrey Howes
Professor
419-372-2268

ghowes@bgnet.bgsu.edu

Christina Guenther

graduate coordinator

Shatzel Hall 111

419-372-7589

419-372-7589

cguenth@bgnet.bgsu.edu

Temple University:

Dr. Racelle Weiman
Executive Director
Institute for Interreligious, Intercultural Dialogue
Temple University (022-38)215-204-7251 or 215-477-1080
rweiman@temple.edu

Additional Information available upon request or on my blog online at http://juliakarenbaker.blogspot.com/Teaching Portfolio including statement of teaching philosophy and scholarly interests; sample syllabi; sample teaching activities; materials prepared for courses and workshops, evidence of teaching excellence.

Dissertation Abstract

“The Return of the Child Exile: Re-enactment of Childhood Trauma in Jewish Life-Writing and Documentary Film” is a study of the literary responses of writers who were Jewish children in hiding and exile during World War II and of documentary films on the topic of refugee children and children in exile.

Chapter 1 discusses the reception of Binjamin Wilkomirski’s Fragments (1994), which was hailed as a paradigmatic traumatic narrative written by a child survivor before it was discovered to be a fictional text based on the author’s invented Jewish life-story. In this chapter, I also review established adaptations of trauma in literature, as introduced most prominently into the humanities by Shoshana Felman, Dori Laub and Cathy Caruth, and subsequently propose a more clinicial view of trauma informed by childhood trauma research and cognitive psychology. My methodological approach thus links recent scholarship on Holocaust literature with contemporary trauma theory.

Fragments then serves as a point of departure to discuss the links between traumatic memory, fantasy and narrative in Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt’s pseudo-autobiographical texts Der Spiegeltag, Ein Garten in Deutschland, Die Absonderung, Der unterbrochene Wald, and Die Aussetzung, as well as his autobiography Über die Flüsse (Chapter 2), Stefanie Zweig’s two autobiographical novels Nirgendwo in Afrika and Irgendwo in Deutschland (Chapter 3), and Lore Segal’s memoir turned novel Other People’s Houses (Chapter 4).

I interpret Goldschmidt’s, Zweig’s and Segal’s texts as the literary outcome of the authors’ traumatic childhood experiences and their coming of age in the culture of exile. My study explores the relationship between the experiences of early separation from parents, loss of home and language and (sexual) abuse that have caused trauma, the ways in which the authors remember, and the representation of these memories in the language and form of their life stories. I suggest that the authors’ childhood trauma has impacted their memory and examine how the narrative structure of their texts registers both their trauma and memory. While each author chooses particular narrative modes and genres to posit him/herself as the protagonist in the autobiographical action, all texts convey a tone of trauma and a similar emotional or narrative content.

Following Lenore Terr’s and other childhood trauma specialists’ insights, I locate the four most common characteristics found in traumatized children in Goldschmidt’s, Zweig’s and Segal’s texts. These characteristics are: strongly visualized or otherwise repeatedly perceived memories, repetitive behaviors, trauma-specific fears, and changed attitudes about people, aspects of life, and the future.

Finally, in chapter 5, I show how childhood trauma and child exiles have been depicted in documentary films such as Into the Arms of Strangers (2000), My Knees Were Jumping (1995), and Vielleicht habe ich Glück gehabt (2003).

The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the relationships between trauma, memory, fantasy and narrative in a close reading/viewing of different forms of Jewish life-writing and documentary film by means of a scientifically informed and more practical approach to trauma.

Interview

Acknowledging Personal Presence in the Embodied Nature of Scholarship - A Conversation with Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer

This interview was conducted at the conference Trajectories of Memory: Intergenerational Representations of the Holocaust in History and the Arts. Bowling Green, Ohio, United States, 23 to 26 March 2006. [accepted for publication by Cambridge Scholars Press].

JULIA K. BAKER: I am always surprised at how much both of you share about your personal lives in your academic work. I have never come across anybody else who reveals so many personal details, photographs, letters, and memories in their writing. From my point of view as a reader, this is one of the many aspects that make your work so approachable and attractive. Have you always written like that or how did this writing develop? Do you sometimes regret your strong presence in your texts?

LEO SPITZER: I have not always written like that. I am a historian and, generally speaking, academic historians tend to avoid the personal voice. In “orthodox” academic historical practice, the historian is not supposed to be evident in the text. Such historical work is characterized by a seamless narrative and impersonal, omniscient, historical voice – by the avoidance of the historian’s personal voice, and a masking of the constructed nature of historical inquiry and writing. What happened was that I began to resist these conventions – these presentations of an omniscient, “objective,” historical voice devoid of personality and subjectivity. I wanted to show how the historian is invested in the construction of a historical account – how he or she shapes and constructs it as an embodied being, with a subjectivity and personal history that needs to be taken into account. So I therefore began to introduce my personal voice into my historical writing.
In the first book I wrote, The Creoles of Sierra Leone: Reactions to Colonialism, my personal voice is actually not very evident in the narrative text. But when I started working on my second book, Lives in Between, I became very interested in comparing Jewish emancipation, assimilation and exclusion with that of Africans and Afro-Brazilians over the course of the late 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. My idea was to carry out that analysis through comparative family history. And in the early stages of my research an incredible thing happened. Searching for materials on Jewish families on whom I might focus, I went to the Leo Baeck Institute in NY to see what, in their rich archival holdings, they might have on the family of Stefan Zweig (who had been one of my parents’ favorite authors). When I examined their catalogue, I found that, among other holdings, they owned a Zweig family genealogy. But the catalogue reference I had found read: “for Zweig, see Spitzer.” This was so weird. The explanation for this of course was that in the 18th century, Zweigs and Spitzers had intermarried in the Habsburg realm -- and, indeed, when I then began to unravel the genealogy of that family and to expand on it, I realized that I was researching not only the story of the family of Stefan Zweig but also that of a branch of my own family. And I became so personally invested and involved in that story that I felt that my personal voice needed to be apparent in the book I was writing. And after competing that book I decided that my voice should certainly be visible in my subsequent work, Hotel Bolivia, which is a book about Jewish emigration to Latin America in the era of World War II – a story in which I was both a personal participant and of which I became a historian. And in the aftermath of that book – at this point – I can no longer conceive of writing history without acknowledging my personal presence.
So there you go, a very long answer to a short question.

MARIANNE HIRSCH: I probably have a long answer for you too. No, I did not always write that way because that is not how we were taught to write at all. When I was first in college and graduate school, we did not even use “I” in our papers, and in fact I “grew up” with New Criticism and Structuralism, so even the authors of the literary works we were writing about remained almost anonymous. We were interested in the text which was not even historically contextualized. The author’s biography was not important, and then, in structuralism, there was the death of the author in favor of the text. It’s really been a long route from then to where I am now. On the other hand, I would say that almost everything I have written and published has been personal. My dissertation was about exile and emigration, about how different worlds interact with one another in the space of narrative. As an immigrant myself, I closely identified with Henry James’s, Michel Butor’s and Uwe Johnson’s characters and with the narrative choices the author’s made. Later, when I became involved in feminist work, I wrote about mothers and daughters, and that also was very personal. Mostly the personal part was in the introduction and preface; the rest was a theoretical and literary discussion of mothers and daughters. It was when I started working on family photography, that I found that you could not analyze that genre without actually looking at your own photographs. To account for the power of these objects, of why a small square of paper is invested with so much affect, we really have to look at our own family images and think about them closely. And that is where the self-revelation and the more autobiographical writing came in for me, and became important not only to do, but also to interrogate.

But of course none of this is separate from what was happening in the world of scholarship at large: I think there has to be a permission to do that kind of work. When we first started to do that, we were actually fellows at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina, and we were involved in a seminar on personal criticism and personal scholarship. We read a lot of examples and talked about them. It was a moment: Alice Kaplan had published French Lessons, for example, and Nancy K. Miller Getting Personal. There were some who were very skeptical, they thought this kind of writing to be too narcissistic, too exhibitionist. By reading examples, you could tell that often there is a very fine line of saying too much or too little. And, as you said, using personal material to make a larger theoretical point or just telling the story for its own sake, in which case it is something else – it is not an easy thing to do. But people were really beginning to do that in the 90’s; and there was also the question: who had the permission to do that? Do you have to have tenure, for example? For me it comes out of feminist theory and understanding that the personal is the political and the personal is the scholarly. I believe in the embodied nature of scholarship. So, I am a great advocate of it but I don’t think that the autobiographical element is essential.

You know I was the editor of PMLA for the last three years, and I am reading a lot of scholarly work and mostly it is not at all autobiographical. I always look for the story of a mind working through a problem, even if I don’t know the personal story of that person; you really want to feel that scholarly work is grounded in some way in the world. That is what I would advocate. And I don’t think that I will always write like that, but I will always write about things that I care deeply about and in that sense, I will be in them.

JULIA K. BAKER (to MARIANNE HIRSCH): In your article "Past Lives: Postmemories in Exile" you wrote about your efforts to organize a trip for yourself and your parents back to Czernowitz, how you kept checking back with them, and how you finally found out that they really did not want to go. During your key-note-address on Thursday [“Strolling the Herrengasse: Street Photographs in Archival and Personal Memory,” held at the conference “Trajectories of Memory: Intergenerational Representations of the Holocaust in History and the Arts,” at Bowling Green State University, Ohio March 23, 2006], it was nice to learn that your parents apparently did eventually go back with you. I thought it was also interesting to see the photo you took of your parents in the Herrengasse. How does this photo (in which they are standing) compare to those that show them strolling the Herrengasse as a young couple? And, a more general question to both of you: How does your current book project fit into this idea of a return?

MARIANNE HIRSCH: That’s interesting. When we took the photo of them in 1998, I don’t think we were consciously thinking of all those other street photos, particularly. But somehow, through some lucky stroke, we took it around the same spot that they were taken by street photographers in the 1920’s, 30’s and early 40’s. The Herrengasse was a ‘Begriff,’ of course we went right there, and they told us about it; it was an obvious place to take a photo of my parents. Perhaps we were thinking of that little picture of them in the same spot in 1942, during the worst time of persecution, subliminally, because that picture was in the album, but we had not really investigated it or thought about it. Our link to it, in 1998, was just a subliminal pull.

LEO SPITZER: That photo, actually, was taken with a video camera. So we do have them walking on the Herrengasse as well. We can animate the photo.

JULIA K. BAKER (to MARIANNE HIRSCH): What do you think of your parents in the photo from 1998?

MARIANNE HIRSCH: Well, it is a completely different moment in their lives. Not only have they changed, but the place has changed as well. You can see it even in the photo, how quiet it is, how little street activity there is. It was much more lively in the 30’s, there were more stores, more people, more activity, and in 1998, it was a very quiet place. Then when we went back in 2000, it was more lively again. But yes, we went on that trip, it was probably related to my parents’ reading the article you mentioned and they said “I guess you really want to go.” And we also found out through other people that the trip was not as complicated as we had thought. It was a great trip, they loved it. We actually wrote an article about the trip, it is called “We would not have gone without you.”

JULIA K. BAKER (to LEO SPITZER): You turned the old photo of your parents to find the year in which it was taken. This process of turning the photo to find something so interesting and to make it the basis for a scholarly investigation, is something I found Prof. Spitzer also did in “The Album and the Crossing.” Didn’t you also turn a photo around and found something new and interesting? Have you come to turn all old photos around to look at their backsides? Could you reflect on that process? Do you think of yourself as detectives?

LEO SPITZER: Yes, that’s right, I first wrote about turning photos in a piece that subsequently became part of a chapter in Hotel Bolivia. There, I had been puzzled by a series of photos in an album that my parents had put together of their shipboard “crossing” from Europe to South America in 1939 – photos, in effect, of their forced emigration from Nazi Austria to Bolivia. There was a tremendous incongruity in those photos between what they appeared to depict – a relatively pleasant shipboard voyage aboard the Italian Line’s SS Virgilio, and the reality that they were in fact refugees who not only had just escaped the horrors of post-Anschluss Austria but who were also in mourning for my grandfather Leopold, who had died aboard the very ship on which they were traveling. It was only when I accidentally turned the photos over, after trying to remount and fix them more securely in the old album, that I found my father’s handwritten comments that totally contradicted the pleasant images the photos seemed to reflect. This clearly demonstrated what seems like an obvious point, but one very often missed: that when we “read” photos for the historical evidence they might provide, we need to read them not just for their indexicality – for their connection to something that stood before the camera lens in the past – but also for what they don’t show, or mask, or hide. In a sense, I guess, when we remain aware of that and try to read images beyond their frame and beyond the apparent, we are doing a form of detective work.

JULIA K. BAKER You are working on a book together. Are you going to do that again? Do you work well together?

LEO SPITZER: A book project is a big undertaking and I hope that we are reaching the conclusion of this project by the end of this year. It has been a rich and fascinating experience for me because Marianne and I have very different working styles. And in order to work together, we had to adjust our practices. I tend to be a slow writer. It has always been difficult for me to go on to a next sentence before I feel that the previous sentence is “right,” well written and reflective of my intent. When I complete a piece I don’t like to revise very much – I revise and revise again while I am in the process of creation. Marianne works much faster, completes more than I do in a session, and revises in subsequent drafts. I think that in the course of our collaboration, however, we have influenced each other, and we have managed to work out a writing practice that seems to work well and that leaves both of us satisfied. I feel very fortunate to be married to a partner with whom I enjoy collaborating intellectually, and to be immersed with her creatively in a project in which we share similar backgrounds, and to which we bring different disciplinary training. I am of course not from Czernowitz, the place we are writing about, nor is my family. Her family is from there. But I do have an Austrian-Habsburg background (Czernowitz was the capital of the Habsburg province of the Bukowina), and the experience of Jewish emancipation, assimilation, and emigration that is so central to the story of Czernowitz Jews is extremely familiar to me from both my work on Viennese Jews and from my own family history. In my work on Czernowitz, that historical and familial background has been incredibly influential. And for me personally, it has been a tremendous advantage to benefit from Marianne’s literary imagination and theoretical sophistication – to look at things in a different way, and to learn how to read documents and visual materials in a manner that is different from the way a historian might approach them. Collaboration has been a great and rich learning experience for me. When we finish this project, I look forward to working together again, perhaps not on such a large project, but on many more smaller ones.

MARIANNE HIRSCH: Yes, our work came together in our previous two books. I was working on family photography and Leo was working on Hotel Bolivia. And I am not sure whether he would have done so much with the photos if I had not looked at photos all the time. And my own work, until very recently, has not been particularly historically inflected. I just did not really know how to do that kind of research, and how to write historical narratives; as I told you, I was not really trained that way. I have learned to pay much more attention, and to learn. When we first started doing this, we were worried because we do have such different writing styles, but the adjustment has been great. It has been really exciting. I am not sure whether we will do another book together, but I am sure there will be articles and smaller pieces. And now we get invitations and we drag each other along and say, “do this with me.” Somehow it feels more reassuring and it is a lot more fun. So we do these presentations together. One of the biggest challenges in the book is the voice. As a genre, this book is a second-generation memoir. But the voice in a memoir cannot be “we,” so we had to solve that problem. We did it by writing different chapters in different first person voices - perhaps, a bit of a challenge for the reader, but most of the time it is really clear who is speaking.

JULIA K. BAKER (to LEO SPITZER): What does it mean to you that your book Hotel Bolivia: The Culture of Memory in a Refuge from Nazism was recently translated into German and published by an Austrian publishing house (Picus)?

LEO SPITZER: It has a great meaning to me. It still needs to be translated into Spanish. But to have it translated into German is very important. And to be published in Vienna and presented there for a public reading at a well-publicized conference – I wish my parents had been alive to see the book in German, they would have been really pleased. Personally, I love the translation, it is a very good translation. And the book looks good in the German edition. I feel that it is important that the book exists in Vienna and am very happy that it is being sold there.

MARIANNE HIRSCH: Its translation and publication there was a sort of reparation for you.

JULIA K. BAKER (to MARIANNE HIRSCH): What are your thoughts about the effect the word “postmemory” has had on academia? Do you welcome people’s interpretations and expansions of the term? Yesterday, during a panel, you were repeatedly quoted (and it is always the same quote) and in your response, I sensed that you were slightly amused but also a bit irritated. Have you come across something/someone particularly productive in the context of the expansion of your ideas? Does it sometimes bother you that people are using your ideas to such great extent?

MARIANNE HIRSCH: I wish it was not always the same quote! Somehow I had no idea, you know, I wrote this book on family photographs and there were a number of terms I tried to define there. All kinds of gazes and looks; I thought that that would be the thing that people would pick up from the book. I defined ‘postmemory’ as best as I could through the examples I had, but then in subsequent articles I have continued to define it and redefine it and have tried to be more specific but unfortunately those have not come out in a book yet. So then everybody comes back to that one quote, which I still don’t disagree with, but I recently have written a piece trying to lay out precisely how I think postmemory works. I also respond to a number of critiques that I have seen. No, I am not irritated, you know, obviously it is useful to people and it has enabled some really important and interesting work by scholars and artists. And I have questions about it too, you know, people ask me as though I were the ultimate memory authority and obviously I have been wondering about it too: Does it apply to different situations, different traumata, do children of perpetrators also have postmemory? Is it limited to trauma in the first place? How do individual and group experiences relate to each other? Lots of questions. These are questions I keep thinking about and I am actually grateful that other people are thinking about them as well. Now I am trying to define my understanding of postmemory very carefully because you never know how your work is going to come back to you. At this point, I think it has a life of its own and people do what they want to do with it. I can’t control it. I can only try to respond and those responses will hopefully take it further.

JULIA K. BAKER: In After Such Knowledge Eva Hofmann writes: “The story of the second generation is, above all, a strong example of an internalized past, of the way in which atrocity literally reverberates through the minds and lives of subsequent generations. That is the way the story is usually told: as personal, affective, intricately psychological. But the Holocaust past, aside from being a profound personal legacy, is also a task. It demands something from us, an understanding that is larger than just ourselves, that moves beyond the private vicissitudes of the inner life.” (103) Do you agree that the Holocaust is a task, and if yes, what is your task?

MARIANNE HIRSCH: The way that question is generally answered, is with the phrase “Never again.” At this point in our history, however, it is clear that there have been other genocides and that, as mass murder and genocide repeats, it has a compounding traumatic effect on our collective history and cultural identity. Memory of atrocity does not prevent atrocity. What does it do? The Holocaust has been used as a paradigm for memory and memorialization of massive violence and of cultural and collective trauma. The task, I believe, now, is to examine this role carefully, to insist on historical specificity, not to allow the enormity of one event to obscure the seriousness of others.

JULIA K. BAKER: This is a question I ask for graduate students who working towards a career in academia. On a scale from 1-10, how much do you enjoy your job? What is great about it? What is not so great? What is your message to your colleagues in the profession, experienced ones, and those who are at the beginning of their careers?

LEO SPITZER: As in any profession, there are good days and there are bad ones – and my response to your scaled question would probably depend on the occasion. For the most, however, I love my job and feel privileged to be a teacher and historian, and to have a job that actually pays me to do research, read, write, think and be creative. And, given my international and comparative interests, it also supports my research and my participation in conferences all over the world. What more can one ask? A 10 in that respect. Of course I would be dishonest if I told you I love to grade student papers and enjoy reading student exams. And yes, there are stressful occasions: deadlines, too many commitments, and too little time to chill out. Nonetheless, for colleagues young and old, I would underscore the positive about what we do both as teachers and scholar/writers – the intellectual excitement, creativity, and joyful collaborative exploration of ideas that our profession enables and, for the most part sustains.

MARIANNE HIRSCH: I love my job, probably 10 a lot of the time. Of course there are tedious aspects to it, like in any job. Often it’s hard. I mostly take on too much and am stressed about getting it done. But -- I get to do what I most like to do -- read, talk with friends, colleagues, students about what I read, think about things, try to make a difference. I’d say to colleagues, work on things you are really passionate about, not on things you think others will consider important or impressive. Don’t teach or write anything that you are not genuinely curious about yourself.

JULIA K. BAKER What would you ask each other if you were conducting an interview with each other?

MARIANNE HIRSCH: What unique contributions has your work made to the field of history?

LEO SPITZER: Whose turn is it to have the last word…?



Marianne Hirsch is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University where she also has an appointment in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She was born in Romania, and educated at Brown University where she received her BA/MA and Ph.D. degrees. Before moving to Columbia, she taught at Dartmouth College for many years, most recently as the Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities. Her recent publications include Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory (1997), The Familial Gaze (ed.1999), Time and the Literary (co-ed.2002), a special issue of Signs on "Gender and Cultural Memory" (co-ed. 2002), and Teaching the Representation of the Holocaust (co-ed. 2004). Over the last few years, she has also published numerous articles on cultural memory, visuality and gender, particularly on the representation of World War Two and the Holocaust in literature, testimony and photography. Currently, she is writing a book with Leo Spitzer Ghosts of Home : Czernowitz and the Holocaust. She is the editor of PMLA and the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the ACLS, the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute, the National Humanities Center, and the Bellagio and Bogliasco Foundations. She has served on the MLA Executive Council, the ACLA Advisory Board, the Board of Supervisors of The English Institute, and the Executive Board of the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature.


Leo Spitzer
Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor of History
Department of History
Dartmouth College

His teaching a publishing interests range widely — from questions concerning emancipation and reactions to exclusion and domination in Latin America, Africa, and Central Europe, to issues of historical memory, refugeehood, and representations of the Holocaust in film and video. His most recent book, Hotel Bolivia: The Culture of Memory in a Refuge from Nazism (Hill & Wang: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998), was recently translated into German and published in Vienna by Picus Verlag. He is also the author of Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil and West Africa (Cambridge, 1990; 2nd ed. 1999, Hill & Wang; trans. Vidas de Entremeio, UERJ, 2002), The Creoles of Sierra Leone: Responses to Colonialism (Wisconsin 1974, Ife Press 1976), and is co-editor of Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present (UPNE, 1999). He is currently working in collaboration with Marianne Hirsch on a book, Ghosts of Home: Czernowitz and the Holocaust. He is also co-editing with Ilan Stavans, Against Oblivion: Latin America and the Holocaust.


Julia K. Baker recently completed a Ph.D. in the German Studies Department at the University of Cincinnati.

Book Review

EVA MENASSE. Vienna. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2005. 428. € 19,90. [Focus on German Studies 13 (2006): 169-172.]


„Das Angenehme an Berlin ist, dass es so wahnsinnig groß ist und viel Platz lässt, auch zum Denken, im Gegensatz zu Wien,” erklärt Eva Menasse in einem Interview mit dem deutschen Fernsehsender 3Sat. Und so hat wieder einmal ein junges, österreichisches Schreibtalent der jungen AutorInnen allgemeinhin wenig wohlwollend gesonnenen österreichischen Verlagslandschaft den Rücken gekehrt, um in deutschen Landen Karriere zu machen. Sprachlich bewegt Menasse sich allerdings nach wie vor auf österreichischem Terrain. Wie andere österreichische AutorInnen vor ihr, liefert sie im Anhang des Romans deshalb auch eine (unvollständige) Vokabelliste, die die wichtigsten österreichischen Wörter ins Hochdeutsche übersetzt und sie dadurch ihres idiolektalen Charmes beraubt.
Eva Menasse, geboren 1970 in Wien, begann als Journalistin beim Nachrichtenmagazin “Profil” in Wien. Sie wurde Redakteurin der “Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung” und begleitete den Prozess um den Holocaust-Leugner David Irving in London. (Das Buch dazu wurde im Jahr 2000 als Der Holocaust vor Gericht. Der Prozess um David Irving im Berliner Siedler Verlag veröffentlicht.) Nach einem Aufenthalt in Prag arbeitete Menasse als Kulturkorrespondentin in Wien. In Kooperation mit Robert und Elisabeth Menasse bzw. Gerhard Haderer erschienen 1997 Die letzte Märchenprinzessin. Moderne Mythen, reale Märchen und 1998 Der Mächtigste Mann. Seit 2003 lebt die Autorin in Berlin.
Vienna ist Eva Menasses erste literarische Veröffentlichung. Darin porträtiert sie auf amüsant wie kurzweilige Art mehrere Generationen einer jüdischen Familie in Wien. Der Vaterstadt der Autorin kommt dabei, wie sich schon am Titel ablesen lässt, eine besondere Rolle zu: „Es war mir sehr wichtig, die Stadt über ihre Menschen zu porträtieren [...], aus denen sich Wien in meinem Kopf zusammensetzt.” Es ist das Wien der Vorkriegszeit, in dem die Juden im Kaffeehaus Kartenspielen (wie die Großeltern der Erzählerin), das Wien während des Krieges, aus dem die Juden fliehen (wie der Vater, Onkel und die Tante der Erzählerin) oder entfernt und ermordet werden (wie zahlreiche Verwandte der Erzählerin) und schließlich das Wien der Nachkriegszeit, in dem nur eine Handvoll Juden überlebt haben und in das nur wenige Juden zurückgekehrt sind.
Der mit 428 Seiten um eine Spur zu lang geratene Roman handelt in 17 Kapiteln von der Familie der namenlos bleibenden Erzählerin, die sich selbstkritisch als „die Zuschauerin [und] perfekte Erbin der Frieda-Oma, alles nachgezählt und nachgeprüft, aber kein Gramm Inspiration,” bezeichnet (388).
„Against all odds“ ist das „geheime Thema” (107) der klassischen Familienanekdoten, auf die sich Menasses autofiktionaler Roman stützt. Entgegen aller Wahrscheinlichkeit überleben die Großeltern der Erzählerin den zweiten Weltkrieg in Wien. Entgegen aller Wahrscheinlichkeit wird nach dem Krieg der Vater der Erzählerin österreichischer Fußballstar, Lichtdouble für Orson Welles und schließlich erfolgreicher Geschäftsführer eines „Ramschladens.” Als Achtjähriger war er gemeinsam mit seinem älteren Bruder auf einem der Kindertransport-Züge nach England geflohen, um dem Holocaust zu entkommen. Nach neun Jahren kehrte er nach Wien zurück, der deutschen Sprache kaum mehr mächtig und der österreichischen Kultur bzw. seiner Familie entfremdet. Entgegen aller Wahrscheinlichkeit bricht diese Familie schließlich nach einem Familienstreit, in dem eine Seite die jüdische Identität der anderen anzweifelt, auseinander.
Das Erzählen und Weitergeben der Geschichten hält das Familiengefüge bis zum alles auflösenden Eklat zusammen. Als Kind in der „wortgewaltigen Familie,” deren Sprüche und Anekdoten die Erzählerin wiedergibt, hatte sie sich nur eines gewünscht, „eine eigene Meinung” (388). Jedoch musste dieser Wunsch unerfüllt bleiben, denn in dieser Familie, „wo das Faktische oft ungewiss war, wo alles nur gut und ganz wurde, wenn man es zu einer Geschichte mit einer Pointe machen konnte,” (389) da kann man sich keine eigene Meinung leisten.
Und wirklich scheinen die Nachkommen der Kriegsgeneration vereinnahmt, ja geradezu besessen, vom Leben, den Freuden und vor allem den Leiden der vorhergehenden Generationen zu sein. Als Historiker spezialisiert sich der Bruder der Erzählerin auf den Nationalsozialismus und entlarvt in einer seiner Publikationen den in Österreich vergötterten Skiverbandpräsidenten als ehemaligen Naziverbrecher. Die Figur des Bruders erinnert stark an Robert Menasse, den Halbbruder der Autorin. Als Historiker und Autor bereichert dieser in Essaysammlungen wie Das Land ohne Eigenschaften (1992), Erklär mir, Österreich (2000) oder zuletzt Das war Österreich (2005) die deutschsprachige Literaturszene seit Jahren mit seiner scharfsinnigen Österreichkritik.
In Vienna lernt die vom Krieg nicht mehr unmittelbar betroffene Generation, sich über die Familie und die über sie ausgetauschten Erzählungen zu definieren. Erst eine Angehörige der dritten Generation erkennt: „Ihr habts doch alle einen Vergangenheitswahn” (391) und stellt die schonungslose rhetorische Frage, die sie auch gleich selbst beantwortet: „Was aber ist unsere Familiengeschichte? Sie besteht doch nur aus geschönten Anekdoten einerseits, aus um so auffälligeren Lücken andererseits. Das bildet doch keinen Zusammenhalt, das ist doch nur blödes Gerede” (ebda.). Der Streit um die jüdische Identität setzt dem Geschichtenerzählen im Familienkreis ein Ende und führt dazu, dass sich die Wege der einzelnen Familienmitglieder zerstreuen.
In seinem Artikel “Identity and the Life Story,” definiert der Entwicklungspsychologe Dan P. McAdams Identität als eine Art Geschichte, die mit einem Ort, Szenen, Charakteren, Themen und Handlungsabläufen komplett ausgestattet ist. Lebensgeschichten, so McAdams, basieren auf autobiografischen Fakten, aber sie gehen über diese hinaus. Wenn Menschen ihre Lebensgeschichten erzählen, wählen und interpretieren Sie diejenigen Situationen, die ihnen für sich selbst und ihre ZuhörerInnen (bzw. LeserInnen) am sinnvollsten erscheinen. In bestimmter Hinsicht, schlussfolgert McAdams, basiere Identität auf Selektion und Interpretation und deshalb sei Identität auch zu einem gewissen Teil ein Produkt freier Wahl. Dementsprechend hält Eva Menasse gegen Ende des eingangs zitierten 3Sat-Interviews fest: "Vienna ist kein Schlüsselroman über meine Familie.. [...] Vielleicht wollte ich meine Familie gerne auch so haben, wie sie jetzt in dem Roman ist.” Möglicherweise hat Menasse die internationale Bezeichnung für Wien aus ähnlichem Grund als Titel ihres beeindruckenden wie lesenswerten Debuts gewählt: Vienna ist Wien, wie es sich die Autorin wünscht: eine angenehme Stadt mit viel Platz, auch zum Denken.

University of Cincinnati Julia K. Baker

Writing sample

Smiling Bonds and Laughter Frees: Marginal Humor and Modern Strangers in the Works of Hung Gurst and Wladimir Kaminer [Finding the Foreign: Proceedings of the Thirteenth Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference at the University of California, Berkeley. New York: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007. 47-58].

Julia K. Baker


Some scholars may have reservations towards the topic of humor in literary texts, particularly when such texts are written by non-native German authors. In fact, most transnational literary criticism is dedicated to literary works, which focus on problematic rather than humorous aspects of being a foreigner in Germany. This might help explain the lack of secondary literature on Hung Gurst’s work as well as the slightly derogatory treatment of Wladimir Kaminer as a multi-talented Russian immigrant and popular author whose main intention is seen as “merely” making his German readers laugh. While I am particularly interested in the role, power, and effect of humor in literary texts by these two authors, the overall aim of this article is to examine the connections between humor (as created by the authors in their texts), and smiling and laughter (as intended effects on the reader).
While laughter is most often associated with humor or contentment, sociologists, psychologists, and theologians have pointed out that we also laugh to avoid being hurt or controlled by someone else. We laugh when we are nervous, afraid or in order to conceal our fear. Sometimes laughter liberates, while other times it threatens. According to religious comparatist Klaus Heinrich, laughter shares one aspect with other convulsive gestures of the body such as hiccupping and crying: people who laugh are on the verge of disaster; their laughter expresses their relief to have escaped certain catastrophic situations (Heinrich 1986, 18-19).
Three theoretical perspectives of humor are considered in this article: the superiority theory, the incongruity theory, and the relief theory. Developed by Plato and Aristotle, the superiority theory explains laughter as the result of feelings of superiority over others or over our own former position. It thus can help us to gain status. In this context, humor researcher Anthony Chapman notes that laughter not only occurs, but even prospers when people are oppressed, impoverished, or in acute pain (Chapman 1983, 151). Originally introduced by Kant and Schopenhauer, the incongruity theory suggests that amusement is the result of the unexpected. Finally, the relief theory—best represented in the work of Sigmund Freud—describes humor as an expenditure of excess psychic energy. Freud distinguished between “innocent” and “tendentious” jokes: “Where a joke is not an innocent one, there are only two purposes it may serve. It is either a hostile joke (serving the purpose of aggressiveness, satire or defense) or an obscene joke (serving the purpose of exposure)” (Freud 1960, 90-91). According to Freud, the characteristic of jokes depends on their hearer’s reaction to them. In the case of the innocent joke, the joke is an end in itself and serves no particular aim. Tendentious jokes, on the other hand, have an ulterior motive. Thus, they run the risk of meeting with people who do not want to listen to them.
For the person who makes others laugh, and who laughs at and about him- or herself, marginality is key. According to Lesley D. Harman, marginalized individuals have become “modern strangers” who seek a paradox “to accomplish distance through membership and membership through distance.” As Joanne Gilbert has pointed out, sociological marginality tends to stigmatize, but rhetorical marginality may actually empower: “A comic’s marginality…grants him or her the authority to subvert the status quo; in this way, deviance from social norms and dominant cultural traits serves as a license for social criticism.”
A theoretical discussion of humor in literature must consider Mikhail Bakhtin’s analysis of carnival literature. As Bakhtin pointed out, carnival—during which a temporary destabilization of order takes place—traditionally gives people the chance to relax in an otherwise strictly regulated environment. However, it also allows them to address social injustice and instability. Based on Bakhtin’s observation that humor reflects the cultural setting in which it is used, I suggest that the humor used by Hung Gurst and Wladimir Kaminer to depict intercultural encounters and every day life in Germany immediately following unification provides insights into power relations and the status of foreigners in contemporary German society.
For both Germans and foreigners facing the reality of a reunited Germany, uncertainty, change and confusion became a way of life. The narrator in Hung Gurst’s story “Moru, der kleine Elefant,” most of the characters in Kaminer’s Russendisko, as well as the authors themselves have experienced the crumbling of political systems in their home countries. They coped with the loss of jobs, homes and relationships prior to their arrival in Germany. As a consequence, they are able to look at the humorous side of the chaos that comes with the unification of two different worlds, making Gurst’s and Kaminer’s characters generally more relaxed and in a way also superior to their neighboring Germans. Very few of them ever lose their patience; none of them becomes violent; all of them seem to find better ways than the Germans to cope with the difficult situations they face. In the scenes described by both Gurst and Kaminer, people who are otherwise separated by insurmountable barriers find themselves united, sharing a common humor. They cope with extraordinary situations and laugh together at what Bakhtin has referred to as “scandal scenes, eccentric behavior, inappropriate speeches and performances, which indicate the potency of the earth and the body, and the system of carnevalistic humiliation” (Bakhtin 1984, 117).
Gurst and Kaminer use humor to entertain their readers, but also to make a statement about the destabilization of the political and social situation in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification. In my analysis, I focus on the different ways humor, smiling, and laughter are used to depict relationships between foreigners and Germans. I ask how a foreigner must act in order to live peacefully and successfully among the “locals” and whether the use of humor generally helps foreigners earn the right to question, to criticize, and to overcome social and cultural norms.


Hung Gurst

In an interview with Lerke von Saalfeld, Vietnamese author Hung Gurst reflects on the role of smiling and irony in his work:

Ich muss über die Dummheit der Menschen, die andere einschüchtern oder sogar schlagen wollen, ein wenig lächeln. Ich lächele, damit es mir ein bisschen besser geht. In der Geschichte über Moru bin ich wieder der Verlierer, aber der Verlierer muss lächeln und Ironie annehmen, um sich zu beruhigen. Ohne Ironie kann ich diese Geschichte nicht schreiben. (Saalfeld 1998, 240).

In “Moru, der kleine Elefant,” Gurst writes about a Vietnamese man’s experience with xenophobia in the former GDR. The narrator takes a train from Berlin to Leipzig a few days after the Wall came down. The train compartment serves, in Bakhtin’s words, as “a place of encounter and contact between diverse people” (Bakhtin 1969, 56). The Vietnamese compares the fall of the Wall and the current political situation with the unification of North and South Vietnam and concludes that democracy makes much more sense here because all Germans seem to love democracy. While he is celebrating the victory of democracy, four Germans enter the compartment. They begin at once to attack the foreigner by calling him a Fiji: “Damit meinten sie mich, denn die meisten Ostdeutschen glauben, alle Asiaten kommen von der Fidschiinsel, und wissen nicht einmal, dass die Indianer doch aus Asien kommen und nicht umgekehrt” (Gurst 1998, 240).
In communicating with the foreigner, the German youth use a grammatically incorrect language, and the narrator decides to play along by speaking the same language as well, despite the fact that his German is nearly flawless. When they ask him what he is studying in Leipzig, he lies: “Wäre ich ehrlich gewesen und hätte gesagt, dass ich Germanistik in Leipzig studierte, wäre es arrogant und zu intellektuell gewesen und das hätte als neue Provokation aufgefasst werden können” (241).
An advertisement for Kitekat (cat food) in the train compartment reminds him that Germans supposedly love animals, and so he invents the story of Moru, the little elephant. According to this story, he and his family own five elephants, among them three elephant babies—Doku, Karu, and Moru, his favorite elephant. He then adds that he is studying German elephants in a zoo. When the Germans ask why he studies elephants in Germany although he owns five of them himself at home, he praises the German elephants for their discipline. Thus he is saved because the Germans enjoy talking about well-behaved German elephants. They continue to ask many questions, and of course they are also curious about how elephants procreate. The narrator feels inclined in the situation to adapt to their rather crude level:

Die Elefanten immer schämen, nicht zeigen, wie sie bumbum machen...Aber alte Menschen erzählen, Elefantenmann und Elefantenfrau suchen ein Gefälle. Die Elefantenfrau stehen unten, und lehnen die Schultern an einen großen Baum, und Elefantenmann laufen schnell von oben und springen auf seine Frau...Und wenn der ganzen Wald wackeln, dann weiß man, daß die Elefanten bumbum machen. Ich schämte mich, die Elefanten so blöd darzustellen, aber ich hatte gar keine Wahl. (Gurst 1998, 240)

According to Don Nilsen, when a person tells a joke, s/he is in the position of control; but when s/he hears a joke, it is the other person who is in control (Nilsen 1993, 289). The German youths’ laughter at the narrator’s story about the elephants reflects their feeling of superiority. They find him funny because he gives them reason to believe that they are not like him, a “foreigner from the jungle.” However, it is really the foreigner who proves to be superior, as he takes control of the situation by telling a joke. When Gurst’s story takes an obscene turn, it does so because the narrator knows the youths better than they know themselves. The narrator’s humor enables him to form a bond with and at the same time to maintain a distance from them. He overcomes the threatening situation by approaching it in a non-threatening way. He knows what his fellow travelers find funny and that by being obscene, by telling what Freud refers to as a tendentious joke, he plays on their repressed aggression and desires. In Freud’s terms, Gurst’s joke can be placed somewhere between the hostile and the obscene joke. It serves the purpose of defense (a characteristic of the hostile joke) and exposure (a characteristic of the obscene joke). It protects him against the others’ aggressiveness and simultaneously exposes their hostility. By making the passengers laugh, the narrator deflects their initial aggression. Although he seemingly humiliates himself by speaking poor German, by emphasizing and at the same time falsifying his foreignness, and by making himself the center of his own joke, he is still able to smile at the situation.
At the beginning of the story, the narrator praises the Germans for their ability to appreciate democracy and to live according to its values and beliefs. By the end of story, the narrator has reason to doubt this judgment. As a foreigner, the Vietnamese feels the need to protect himself against an aggressive group of locals. He does so by using his own weapon, marginal humor. At the very end of the story, when the narrator finally gets off the train, he hears a group of people chanting: “Deutschland, Deutschland.” Disillusioned after his intercultural encounter on the train, he assumes that their chanting most probably is not political, but refers instead to an Oberliga soccer game being held that day. Gurst’s foreigner defends himself by using humor but on a subtler level, he also makes a political statement concerning the state of democracy in a unified Germany after the fall of the Wall.


Wladimir Kaminer

When asked why he came to Germany, Wladimir Kaminer explains: “I was young—twenty-two—so nobody was really calling for me. I had friends there that I had met in Moscow. This was 1990, you didn't need a visa, not even a passport. All you needed was an invitation. And it was inexpensive” (Fischman 2003).
In his first collection of stories, Russendisko (2000), Kaminer’s narrator adds another reason why he chose the GDR: he claims he is Jewish. In order to emigrate to Germany in the 1990s, one could pretend to be Jewish. The Russians do not really understand why Judaism is a prerequisite to emigrate to a country that, a few decades earlier, had expelled, persecuted, and killed people for being Jewish. It puzzles them that Germany of all countries would make arrangements for Jews to prove their Jewishness. Kaminer’s narrator has his own theory: “Vielleicht war es bei den ersten Juden im Polizeipräsidium am Alex nur ein Missverständnis, ein Versehen, und dann wollten die Beamten es nicht zugeben und machten brav weiter? So ähnlich wie beim Fall der Mauer?” (Kaminer 2002, 17).
This is one of Kaminer’s oblique criticisms of life in Germany after reunification. He neither openly attacks Germany nor the Germans. He writes mainly about other immigrants and how they cope with everyday life, and how they help each other in their attempt to improve their status. According to Dieter Hildebrandt, Kaminer’s secret is his candid satire:

Er schreit nie auf, protestiert nicht, sondern wundert sich bloß. Aber er sagt nicht einmal, dass er sich wundert, sondern lässt es uns zwischen den Zeilen spüren. Ganz selten nur zerstört er das naive Gespinst seiner Abenteuer durch direkten Witz oder eine Pointe und schon gar nicht durch jenen Hohn-Ton, der deutsche Satire meist so unerträglich macht. Kaminer ist Subversiv-Ironiker. (Hildebrandt 2002, xxx)

On the surface, Kaminer’s stories are easy for German readers to digest. Many accept, even celebrate him as a Russian author whose portrayal of immigrants does not focus on the difficulties of life. As Dagmar Wienroeder-Skinner points out, Wladimir Kaminer is the “good Russian” and therefore “offers an alternative to the other Russians who still inflict fear because they carry an air of the unknown” (Wienroeder-Skinner 2004). In her view, Kaminer functions as the optimistic facilitator between cultures: he observes his multi-ethnic environment and writes about its conditions. She contends that Kaminer’s success is based on the fact that his comments and short essays aim at harmony and humor, but at the same time, she criticizes the perceived lack of depth in his work:

Die deutsch geschriebenen Bücher des russischen Immigranten Wladimir Kaminer öffnen eine entspannte Welt, die das Skurrile und Aussergewöhnliche ihrer Menschen, deren Lebensumstände und Verhaltensweisen aufzeigt. Diese Welt wird mit Humor und Ironie arrangiert und präsentiert und grenzt zuweilen an das Absurde. Es ergibt sich aber auch eine angespannte Unruhe, denn der Leser/die Leserin wartet auf das Tiefere oder zumindest auf eine versuchte Tiefenreflexion. (Hildebrandt 2002, xxx)

It is particularly Kaminer’s use of humor that adds depth and a critical edge to his stories. Even if he does not openly reflect on the “deeper meaning” of his characters’ lives for his readers, the invitation to do so is at hand. I therefore expand Wienroeder-Skinner’s judgment of the author and his work by suggesting that Kaminer’s use of humor not only serves to pacify the Germans—to offer them an entertaining view of foreigners in Germany and themselves—but it also helps to mask the author’s critical look at his surroundings. Kaminer’s stories depict the political and social environment for Germans as well as immigrants in Berlin at the beginning of the 1990s: Germans and foreigners alike try to make sense of the changes that have been taking place around them. The narrator’s comedic and, in Bakhtin’s words, carnevalistic glance at life, as well as his emphasis on hilarious experiences, transcend difficult realities.
At first glance, Kaminer’s immigrants are pragmatic, open-minded and ready to take a risk to become entrepreneurs in the global economy. Most of Kaminer’s characters belong to a particular group of people: “Die meisten waren bildende Künstler, Musiker oder Dichter: Menschen ohne Entwicklung, die sogenannte Zwischenschicht—ewig zwischen Hammer und Sichel, bereits etwas zerlumpt, aber immer noch gut drauf” (Kaminer 2002, 174). Kaminer’s narrator and most of his fellow foreigners choose Germany as a new home not as refugees. Most of them come out of curiosity, to see what life in the West has to offer. However, this does not necessarily mean that life is simply fun, as readers might deduce from Kaminer’s stories. His immigrants try different jobs, relationships and religions and thus continuously change their identities. A Russian restaurant owner summarizes the situation: “Eigentlich kommt es nur auf die Sauce an” (Kaminer 2002, 105), i.e., on superficialities. Whatever lies underneath the surface, i.e., what an immigrant’s life is really like, remains unclear. While the foreigners in Kaminer’s stories venture on many undertakings, their foreignness is reduced to stereotypes in the eyes of the locals: guests at the “Jägermeisterkneipe” across the street find a name for the Russian’s restaurant long before it officially opens, calling it “Russenmafiapuff,” indicating their stereotypical view of Russians as all criminals or prostitutes.
Russendisko is filled with intercultural encounters. However, these encounters are mainly between immigrants, not so much between foreigners and Germans. When they do meet, the encounter has in most cases a negative impact on the German character. There is, for example, Markus Lenz in “Die Birkenfrau” who invites Russian folklore dancers to his home, where he boasts about his collection of antique weapons. The Russian women feel attacked, overwhelm Markus and throw one of his swords out of the window. After his neighbors call the police, he is arrested and mistaken for a Yugoslavian. Alternatively, Germans are portrayed as individuals who do things foreigners would not even do for money. In “Als ich einmal Schauspieler war,” the Russians are supposed to play barbaric soldiers. However, they are mostly ashamed of the directors’ instructions, particularly when naked buttocks are required in a sex scene. Only the German extra takes his pants off for an additional DM 250. In “Die Systeme des Weltspiels,” Kaminer’s narrator praises different cultures’ approaches to gambling. Germans, however, do not seem to have a system; they just dabble with the others’ systems. In addition, they do not seem to get excited when they win nor are they too disappointed when they lose: “Im Grunde genommen sind sie [die Deutschen] nicht aufs Spiel aus. Die Deutschen gehen ins Kasino, weil sie weltoffen und neugierig sind. Dort lernen sie die Systeme anderer Nationen kennen, die sie im Grunde aber auch nicht sonderlich interessieren” (Kaminer 2002, 82).
In other words, in Kaminer’s stories, Germans do not really bother to understand foreigners. Although they claim to be cosmopolitan, they often misunderstand other people’s cultural backgrounds. It is the immigrants who open up to what is new and strange to them and incorporate it into their lives. Kaminer’s narrator makes it sound like fun, but underneath the layer of humor, he also shows that taking risks and opening up is not always easy. After all, how much fun is it to hurt oneself on purpose so that one is not deported? How enjoyable is it to be living with neighbors who all look like homicidal maniacs and to be considered one yourself by the police? What is so funny about setting up an illegal beer booth at a train station? What is so romantic about trying to get one’s partner into the country legally?
By adding humor and making the reader laugh, Kaminer portrays his situations as rather easy to overcome. In his own words, his stories are “Alltagsbewältigungsprosa”; writing is thus like another daily chore, i.e. cooking: “[Schreiben] Ist wie Kochen, man kann damit viel erreichen, zum Beispiel die Familie versorgen. Experimentieren, Spaß haben, unaufdringliche Botschaften in die Welt setzen.”
Kaminer sends unobtrusive messages with the help of humor. However, after forty-seven stories, the last three strike a more critical tone. The narrator seems suddenly tired of entertaining his readers. After all, most of the immigrants’ lives are not as happy or easy as that of Genosse Petrov, a character in the narrator’s textbook Deutsches Deutsch zum Selberlernen. According to the book, Genosse Petrov lives in a different, ideal world: “Den im Lehrbuch vorkommenden Leuten geht es saugut, sie führen ein harmonisches, glückliches Leben” (Kaminer 2002, 184). The textbook world is thus used as a contrast to the world described in the previous stories. When the narrator states that the foreigners in the textbook lead a happy life, does he not simultaneously imply that the opposite is true for his own characters?
In the last story, “Warum ich immer noch keinen Antrag auf Einbürgerung gestellt habe,” the narrator spends hours thinking about acceptable statements for the naturalization documents he has to fill out. When he asks his wife why they had come to Germany in the first place, she replies that they came to see whether it would be fun to live there. Instead of “fun,” the narrator writes down “curiosity.” However, in the end, his documents slip out of his hands and fall into a hole. He is not too upset about it. Russendisko ends with the rather disillusioned statement and question: “Ich werde wohl nie die Einbürgerung bekommen. Aber wozu auch?” (Kaminer 2002, 192).
Kaminer’s transparent narrator, a “cipher” as the author describes him in an interview (Fishman 2003), is one of the “modern strangers,” who seek “to accomplish distance through membership and membership through distance.” Distance and membership are both accomplished through the use of humor. In most of the stories, the readers are invited, even expected, to laugh at the foreigners’ struggles and failures. They laugh because after all, it is a foreigner who is making fun of other foreigners. He thus becomes less foreign and more like the readers. In this ambivalent position, however, he is also able to express subtle criticism of Germans and Germany. Kaminer’s stories have a bonding effect; they offer foreigners and Germans alike a way of looking and laughing at themselves and thus help them cope with the difficulties of life in post-unification Germany.


Conclusion

According to Regina Barreca, “making your own jokes is equivalent to taking control over your life—and usually that means taking control away from someone else” (Gilbert 2004, 9). But what if, for political reasons, people find themselves in an environment lacking control and stability, such as Germany after the fall of the Wall and reunification? Hung Gurst’s and Wladimir Kaminer’s humor takes on life in Germany in this transitional period to provide temporary relief in a time of crisis. The experience of loss, change and reorientation is difficult for Germans and foreigners. Both find it difficult to gain control over their surroundings. However, the foreigners seem to master the situation better than the natives. This applies to the characters created by the authors, but also to the authors themselves, who have mastered the German language to such an extent that they compose their work in it.
In Hung Gurst’s story “Moru der kleine Elefant,” the narrator makes himself the center of a joke and thus takes control away from the Germans who are about to attack him. For Kaminer’s foreigners, it is not about taking control away from the Germans who, if they are mentioned at all, are described as rather powerless characters themselves. Gurst’s and Kaminer’s characters’ laughter, and the laughter it generates for their readers, proves to be as ambivalent as life itself in Germany at the time. Laughter allows both foreigners and Germans to perceive life differently; it suggests different ways of thinking and behavior.
It is easier to comment on instability and social injustice when the critic includes him/herself in his critical observations and when the critique is delivered with a smile or, even better, when it causes the critiqued to laugh. By making their readers laugh and by laughing at themselves, Gurst’s and Kaminer’s modern strangers work against what Malcolm Muggeridge has called the enemy of humor, i.e., fear:

Fear requires conformism. It draws people together into a herd, whereas laughter separates them as individuals. When people are fearful, they want everyone to be the same, accept the same values, say the same things, nourish the same hopes, to wear the same clothes, look at the same television, and ride in the same motorcars. In a conformist society there is no place for the jester. He strikes a discordant note, and therefore must be put down. (Nilsen 1993, 289).

The foreigners depicted by Hung Gurst and Wladimir Kaminer appear as jesters who perform their marginality by foregrounding their otherness, while at the same time emphasizing what they share with the majority, namely a lack of stability and a loss of orientation in the search for new homes, new jobs, and new identities. To be able to live peacefully and successfully among the Germans, Gurst’s and Kaminer’s foreigners point out the humorous aspects of their own experiences. They might not fully obtain the right to question or criticize existing social and cultural norms, but the bonding and freeing effects of smiling and laughter help minimize fear and thus encourage Germans to become members of a less conformist, more open-minded society, which will eventually offer the jester a place to stay.


References

Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1969. Literatur und Karneval: Zur Romantheorie und Lachkultur. München: Hanser.
———. 1984. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
Chapman, Antony J. 1983. Humor and Laughter in Social Interaction and some Implications for Humor Research. In Handbook of Humor Research, ed. Paul McGhee and Jeffrey Goldstein, 1:135-158. New York: Springer.
Fishman, Boris. 2003. Words without Borders. The Online Magazine for International Literature, (Sept.), http://www. wordswithoutborders.org/ article.php?lab=Fishman (acc. May 20, 2005).
Freud, Sigmund. 1960. The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey, vol. 8, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. London: Hogarth Press.
Gilbert, Joanne R. 2004. Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender and Cultural Critique. Detroit: Wayne State U.P.
Gurst, Hung. 1998. Moru, der kleine Elefant. In Saalfeld, 229-246.
Heinrich, Klaus. 1986. Theorie Des Lachens. In Lachen-Gelächter-Lächeln: Reflexionen in Drei Spiegeln, ed. Christoph Wuldf Dietmar Kamper, 17-38. Frankfurt a.M.: Syndikat.
Hildebrandt, Dieter. 2002. Ein Grüner radelt nach Sibirien. Die Zeit 47, http://www.zeit.de/2002/47/L-Kaminer (acc. Sept. 14, 2006).
Köstlin, Konrad. 2000. Kulturen im Prozess der Migration und die Kultur der Migrationen. In Interkulturelle Literatur in Deutschland: Ein Handbuch, ed. Carmine Chielino, 365-386. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler.
Nilsen, Don L. F. 1993. Humor Scholarship. A Research Bibliography. Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press.
Kalinowski, Burga. 2000. In der “Russendisko” ist was los: Wladimir Kaminer auf dem Weg zum Erfolg. Berliner LeseZeichen 10. Edition Luisenstadt, http://www.luise-berlin.de/Lesezei/Blz00_10/text3.htm (acc. Sept. 14, 2006).
Kaminer, Wladimir. 2002. Russendisko. München: Goldmann.
Saalfeld, Lerke von, ed. 1988. Ich habe eine fremde Sprache gewählt: Ausländische Schriftsteller schreiben deutsch. Gerlingen: Bleicher.
Stonequist, E.V. 1937. The Marginal Man: A Study in personality and culture conflict. New York: Scribner. Cited in J. R. Gilbert, Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender and Cultural Critique. Detroit: Wayne State U.P. 2004.
Wienroeder-Skinner, Dagmar. 2004. Alle Fantasie ernährt sich von der Realität: Wladimir Kaminer und die interkulturelle deutsche Ethno-Szene. In Glossen: Eine Internationale Zweisprachige Publikation zu Literatur, Film, und Kunst in den Deutschsprachigen Ländern nach 1945, http://www.dickinson.edu/ glossen/heft20/kaminer.html (acc. May 15, 2005).

Teaching Portfolio

Table of Contents

I. Statement of Teaching Philosophy
II. Teaching Responsibilities
III. Courses Taught
IV. Representative Syllabi

Appendix

1. Example of Session Plan (Grammar)
2. Examples of Session Plan (Literature)
3. Peer Observation
4. Student Feedback and Evaluations

I. Statement of teaching philosophy

What I hear, I forget;
What I see, I remember;
What I do, I understand. (Chinese Proverb)

1) How do people learn?

The proverb above is probably about 2000 years old, but it summarizes rather well what recent studies on learning have revealed: We remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, 50% of what we hear and see, 90% of what we do and say. In my role as a teacher, I consequently encourage students to be learners who are actively involved in the learning process. A typical session begins with a warm-up exercise; for example, students are asked a silly question to which they have to find a creative answer. This is followed by a short lecture, which is enhanced by powerpoint slides that contain mostly images and little text. This lecture introduces the main idea of the session and presents the goals for the day. For the rest of the session, students often engage in group or partner work. In designing these group projects and partner activities, I rely on Problem Based Learning techniques. Working in groups or with partners increases students’ construction of knowledge as they explain and negotiate their contributions and interact with peers who have different knowledge and ideas. I believe that students thus learn the most important skills they need later on in the workplace (e.g. organization, negotiation, delegation, teamwork, cooperation, leadership and problem solving). In addition, students have to prepare short presentations on a topic of their choice, which fits the content of the course. They are evaluated on the content, presentation, interactivity and extra material they bring to class. Students also evaluate each other’s performance within groups.
Learning (and teaching) involves taking risks. Like leaving one’s familiar environment to go and live in a foreign country, learning (particularly a foreign language) often involves leaving one’s comfort zone. I often remind my students that it is normal to feel shy and nervous about learning and speaking a foreign language. I create situations in which they have to overcome their uneasiness and in which they have to speak in order to get what they want.

All my courses are generally designed to motivate students to connect to people, ideas and realms of life and entice them to learn about themselves and others. I ask students to look at literary and news texts as well as films as cultural products that reveal complex historical, intellectual, and social developments. Together, we explore society in German-speaking countries and their past and present contributions to art, philosophy, music, film, and science.

2. How do I facilitate this learning?

I consider my main role as a teacher as the person who structures my students’ learning process. At the beginning and throughout the course I remind students of the larger questions and connect course themes to interests likely to be on their minds. In my classroom I ask students to adopt goals they want to reach. If students sense that I do not care about their goals, questions and answers, they will not care either. They will not try to reconcile, explain, modify, or integrate new models of reality. I conduct class and craft assignments in a way that allows students to try their own thinking, come up short, receive feedback, and then try again. I make it a priority to listen to students’ conceptions before challenging them. Rather than telling them they are wrong and then providing the “correct” answers, I ask questions and encourage students to question what I tell them. In order to help them connect what they are learning to other areas, I invite scholars from other disciplines and individuals outside of academia to the classroom or take my students to them.

3.What goals do I have for my students?

Rather than placing students into categories as good, immediate and bad students, I try to see every student as an individual. I appreciate and focus on students’ strengths and talents. I set high goals for all my students and tell them that I trust their capabilities to do their best. I usually do not discuss the requirements to “pass the class” at the beginning of the first session, but rather present the promises or opportunities that the course will offer. I tell them that I expect them to have a desire to participate and that what they get out of my class depends on them as much as on me. My main goal is to develop creative, independent learners and giving them confidence in themselves.

4. Self-Evaluation and Future Teaching Goals

I always reflect on what I do and do not do in each class. Part of this process involves thinking back over the class immediately after the session has finished. By reflecting on the session while it is still fresh in my mind, I try to identify what worked and what did not work. This process of continual self-evaluation allows me to make mid-course corrections. I often invite my peers to attend my classes. I usually provide students with a midterm evaluation and ask them to evaluate the class and me as well. That way, I can incorporate their suggestions in the second half of the term. I also find that I learn a lot from watching my colleagues teach. Over the past eight years I have attended a great number of teaching workshops. Most recently, I attended a Preparing Future Faculty Course Series, which focused on the most recent trends in college teaching, syllabus construction, and ways to use technology in the classroom.

II. Teaching Responsibilities

My beginnings as a teacher date back to high school. I understood early on that teaching others was the best way to learn. During my high school years, I tutored close to thirty children aged 10-18. I mainly focused on giving them self-confidence and proving to them that if they tried to be enthusiastic about learning, they would not only get better grades, but also come to like the particular subject that gave them trouble.

After graduating from Karl-Franzens-Universität in Austria, I spent one year teaching English (to a group of very challenging seventh graders) and German (to tenth graders) in an Austrian Gymnasium. Over the years, my clientele changed from teenagers to university students who had chosen to study the subjects I was teaching. I taught business English to native German-speakers in my hometown Graz, and German as a Second Language courses to international students, among them a group of 40 engineers from Nigeria. As part of the DaF-team at the Hochschullehrgang für Deutsch als Fremdsprache, I designed syllabi, grammar and conversation sessions and examinations.
For the academic years 1999-2000 I was awarded a Fulbright fellowship and spent a year at Bowling Green State University where I taught all German language courses (Elementary, Immediate and Advanced), including a Conversation Class for Honor students. This year abroad made an important impact on my teaching skills. Removed from my familiar surroundings and forced to speak a foreign language myself, I could better relate to my students´ learning obstacles.
While still in Bowling Green, I applied for the position of Österreichlektorin with the Österreichkooperation (the Austrian equivalent of the German DAAD). From 2000-20002 I taught a variety of language classes and lectures at the University of Wales, such as grammar and conversation classes for second and third year English and Welsh students. I also designed a lecture on Austrian history, culture and politics for 50+ students. The teaching load in Wales was much more intense than any other program I had participated in before. I enjoyed the experience of team-teaching and designing examinations, quizzes, syllabi and evaluation as well as assessment material.
After returning to the USA in 2002, I joined the Department of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati where I taught a variety of first, second and third language classes, mainly for undergraduate students (German Majors and Minors). During the summer quarter, I taught a translation course for graduate students from a variety of backgrounds. In my last year as a graduate student, I was entrusted with an advanced, three-quarter long German Literature and Culture Class Series, which covered the period from 1888-1990.
Since August, I have been teaching another Literature and Culture Survey Class at Northern Kentucky University. In this class students read excerpts from representative texts of the Middle Ages throughout Junges Deutschland.

III. Courses Taught

Elementary German (Grammar and Conversation)

Intermediate German (Grammar and Conversation)

Advanced German (Grammar and Conversation)

German Readings, Translation course for graduate students

German Language and Culture (Elementary-Advanced)

Austrian Facts and Figures (Lecture)

I would be interested in designing and teaching the following courses:

German Fairytale

Children and the Holocaust

German Film

Madness in Literature

Exile Literature

Transnational German literature

(Austrian) Women Writers

Austrian Literature of the 20th and 21st Centuries

German Trough Music


IV. Representative Syllabi


GR-233 The German-Speaking World Today (taught during 1999-2000 at the University of Wales, Swansea, UK)


Credit Points: 20
Coordinator: Julia K. Baker
Staff-led Contact Hours: 44
Class Type: Seminar

Course Aims:
The aim of this course is to examine key issues in the German-speaking world in the period since the unification of East and West Germany.

Course Content:

The first part of the course (TB1) focuses on the Federal Republic since 1990, and in particular on the continuing impact of the unification process on current affairs. Topics include party politics, changes in government and social issues. At the end of the first teaching block we examine some examples of cultural responses to changes in Germany since unification. The second part of the course (TB2) moves outside the Federal Republic. It focuses on three main areas: European issues, contemporary life in Austria, and contemporary life in Switzerland. Teaching consists of a mixture of lectures, seminars and student presentations.

Reading List:

F.C. Delius, Die Birnen von Ribbeck
You will also be provided with a series of short articles by, among others, Günter Grass, Martin Walser, and Peter Schneider, concerning recent cultural debates in Germany.
You will be provided with a full bibliography covering all aspects of the course.

Learning Outcomes:

Linguistic Skills:
You will increase your ability to comprehend German texts from a wide variety of sources.

Modern German Culture:
You will develop your understanding of political and social developments in German-speaking countries today, in the context of recent European history.

Research and Writing Skills:
You will be able to research and write an essay. You will be able to interpret texts through close reading, application of suitable critical techniques and concepts, and contextualisation; evaluate critically secondary literature; reference your sources properly; and develop and articulate a balanced, logical and well-structured argument.

Key Skills:
Improving own learning and performance: self-study
Effective communication: seminar paper
The use of IT: word processing
Working effectively with others: group discussions

Assessment:

Assessment is on the basis of coursework (50%) and an end-of-year, two-hour examination (50%). The coursework is requirement is as follows: one 2000- word essay (by Tuesday 25 March 2003, 25% of total); oral presentation (to take place at the end of TB2, 25% of total). In the examination you are required to write two essays. Each piece of assessed work must refer to a different topic.


Course Calendar

Teaching Block 1: The Federal Republic since Unification
Topic 1
Unification and its legacy Weeks 1-2
Topic 2
Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder Weeks 3-4
Topic 3
Government and party politics in the FRG Weeks 5-6
Topic 4
East v West Weeks 7-8
Topic 5
Die Birnen von Ribbeck and other cultural issues Weeks 9-10
Revision Week 11

Teaching Block 2: Switzerland, Austria and International relations
Topic 1
Contemporary Swiss Society Weeks 14-17
Topic 2
Contemporary Austrian Society Weeks 18-21
Topic 3
The Federal Republic and the international community Weeks 22-23
Revision Week 24


Spring Quarter 2007 15-GRMN-323 German Language and Culture III


Instructor: Julia K. Baker
Office: Old Chemistry 723
steiermarkat@fuse.net
Office Hour: M, T, F, 10-11 am and by appointment

Course Description: This course is designed as a transition from language to content and will include an advanced review of German grammar, vocabulary building and expansion with speaking and writing exercises, plus readings and discussions of contemporary cultural topics that deal with the German speaking world. This course will be conducted in German and may be used toward fulfilling the A&S Humanities Requirement.


Required Texts: Rankin/Wells: Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, 4th ed. (RW)
Lixl-Purcell: Stimmen eines Jahrhunderts (LP)

Course Objectives: Practice and use of everyday German, with added emphasis on the active use and expansion of vocabulary and communicative skills, review and expansion of grammar, oral expression and reading and writing skills. By the end of this course, you will be able to understand and speak enough German to communicate with a native speaker on a variety of topics. We will review and extend your understanding of the basic grammatical structures of German, expand your vocabulary, demonstrate your ability to write simple texts on everyday themes, read literary texts and discuss them, thereby helping you to develop your conversational, writing and reading skills.

Grading Policy:

20% Active Attendance and Participation (Group Presentations)
20% 1 Midterm
20% Homework (including Compositions/Blogs)
10% Quizzes
30 % Final Exam

Attendance

Attendance counts. Because the Communicative Method of language learning devotes classroom time to activities such as group discussions, role-playing, and interviews, class attendance and participation are vital to success. You are expected to arrive to class punctually. Classroom activities will take place in German. You need to attend every class and participate in classroom activities. Your class participation grade includes not only your presence in class, but also the seriousness with which you carry out activities and the attempt you make to use German.
Please don't miss class because you feel unprepared. If you get behind in your work, missing class will only contribute to the problem. Come see me right away or alert me to your situation.
Due to the nature of this course, your regular attendance, participation and timely completion of homework assignments are crucial and mandatory! After three unexcused absences your final grade is reduced by one letter. Active participation is required to pass the course.
Participation also entails to check your email account and blackboard regularly. Prior to discussing a text in class, I will email you three questions, which you are expected to answer via email. This will ensure that we are on common gronud as to what was difficult, interesting, fascinating etc. about the text.

Homework Assignments

Written assignments are to be placed in your folder on the day they are due. Grammar review exercises in the reader will be either corrected in class or returned to you the next class day. Essays must be typed, 12-pt. and double-spaced. Please use Umlaute instead of ae, oe, ue. If you are not sure where to find the symbols for Umlaute, come and ask me. I will mark the mistake and have you try to come up with the correct version yourself. Once the grammar has been covered in the course, it becomes fair game in determining your grade. The compositions are returned and you are asked to do a rewrite and turn the draft and the revision in to be graded.

Note: I have a one day late policy. Homework more than one class day overdue will not be accepted. You may email me your homework.

Homework will be graded as follows:
(+) complete/outstanding
(ok ) complete/satisfactory
( - ) incomplete/unsatisfactory

Essays/Blogs

We will be working on perfecting your written German through grammar review and short essay/blog exercises. This will help to you focus on form. Essay/Blog grades have two components: content (30%) and grammatical accuracy (70%). You are encouraged to revise and resubmit your essays/blogs (revised dates on syllabus). Points will be deducted for each class day an essay/blog is late. Essays/blogs not submitted at all will receive a zero (0). The one day late policy does not apply to essays/blogs.

Testing

In order to help you to maintain a study schedule and in order to identify trouble-spots early, we will have five vocabulary quizzes and one midterm exam.
Missed quizzes will not be made up. However, you will receive a copy of the missed quiz. I will also drop the lowest quiz grade from the average. You are encouraged to arrange meetings during office hours and discuss your mistakes with me individually.
n.b. Unless you inform me ahead of time or have a valid, written excuse from your doctor, NO make-up exams will be given.

Group Project

You and your group members will pick one topic related to the themes (in consultation with your instructor), you will research this topic online and present it in an easy to understand and fun way to the rest of the class. Your instructor will assess your oral performance during your cross-cultural presentation in class. For your part of the presentation, you are expected to hand in a brief summary at least two days before you give your presentation. Failure to hand in material prior to the presentation will result in a grade deduction.

Final Exam

The final exam consists of a written exam, which will cover the grammar and reading assignments.

Final Notes

Please don't put off coming to talk with me about difficulties. I am here to help you. So are the other Teaching Assistants whose hours can be found on the door of the TA room Old Chem 706.
Academic Dishonesty: All work for this class should reflect YOUR work. Unless otherwise noted, the only “outside help” that is allowed is from your instructor, dictionaries, spell checker, and grammar books. Help from tutors, other instructors, or other speakers of German for graded assignments will be treated as cheating. Using online translation packages (such as Babelfish or Lycos) are also NOT admissible. Please read the Code of Policies and Regulations Applying to All Students to see penalties for any infraction of academic integrity.
Students with Disabilities: If you have a documented disability and anticipate needing accommodations in this course, please make arrangements to meet with your instructor soon. Please provide a "Request For Accommodation" letter from the Division of Rehabilitation-Education Services to validate the need for the accommodation. Please adjust all cellular phones and pagers to non-audible notification during class.

Extra Credit

Come and join the Stammtisch-crowd, lectures, film nights or events hosted by the German Club for extra credit. Dates, places and times will be announced in class or on the website. Swing by for a very informal chance to chat with native and non-native speakers of German. Only if you can demonstrate that you are unable to join Stammtisch or other events will your teacher provide you with other forms of extra credit. Extra credit points will be applied to homework or quiz grades.
Please make sure you have had breakfast before class and that you are well-rested. Chewing and yawning are not appreciated.


GER320: Survey of German Literature, Fall 2007

T/R, 10.50-12.05, LA 531
Exam period: Thursday, December 13, 10:10 a.m. - 12:10 p.m
Instructor: Dr. Julia K. Baker
Office: LA 529
Phone number: 572-5416
E-mail: bakerj15@nku.edu
Online dictionary: http://dict.leo.org/
Online texts: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Texts: Thomas Grasberger. Nachgefragt: Deutsche Literatur. Basiswissen zum Mitreden.
Additional texts will be made available or can be viewed/printed online on Blackboard.

Das Hildebrandslied
Ausschnitt aus Das Nibelungenlied
Hans Sachs Das Kälberbrüten
Gedichte von Andreas Gryphius, Friedrich von Logau
Ausschnitt aus J. C. Grimmelshausens Simplicius Simplicissimus
Ausschnitt aus I. Kants "Was ist Aufklärung?"
Ausschnitt aus Gottscheds Moralischer Wochenschrift Der Biedermeier
Ausschnitt aus G. E. Lessings Nathan der Weise
Ausschnitt aus F. Schillers Die Räuber
Ausschnitt aus J.W. von Goethes Werther
Ausschnitt aus J.W. von Goethes Faust I
Gedichte der Klassik
Gedichte der Romantik
Ausschnitt aus Novalis' Heinrich von Ofterdingen
Grimms Märchen: Hänsel und Gretel
Adelbert von Chamisso: Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte
Gedichte von A. Stifter
Ausschnitt aus G. Büchners Woyzeck
Gedichte von H. Heine

Student Learning Outcomes: In this course you will be introduced to the basic concepts of German literature by reading both historical and literary texts. You will be expected to read such works for overall grasp of the lyrical message (if poetry) or for plot and character development (if prose or drama), as well as to write, and speak about them in German. You will continue to develop your ability to read, write, speak, and understand German beyond the level of GER 202. Students who complete the course successfully should be able to communicate verbally and in writing at the intermediate mid level or higher on the ACTFL proficiency scale.

Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes: Achievement of these outcomes will be assessed through quizzes, oral presentations, one short essay, one take home exam (project), and class discussion as appropriate.

Grading:

Quizzes 15 %
Oral Presentation 10 %
Essay 25 %
Take home exam/project 25 %
Class discussion/participation 25 %

Quizzes:

These consist of short identification items about main events or characters in a given reading assignment/period.

Presentation:

Each student will present one feature/person/fact about a period of his/her choice. Directions for this oral presentation will involve use of the Internet/and a Powerpoint presentation or preparation of a poster/handout. Students will be expected to send in their preparation to the instructor in an email two sessions prior to presenting, to have bibliographic information at the top of the sheet if an Internet source is used, and to prepare well enough to perform the exercise without referring to notes/read from slides during the presentation. Students who do not have written preparation and did not submit it via email cannot expect to receive a passing grade on the oral presentation.

Essay:

In one short written essay in German, students will be asked to compare two features of a given period with characteristics they identify in the reading for that week. The essay will be written outside of class, and students will be required to revise it after the instructor has marked all mistakes; type them using appropriate diacritical marks according to a specified format, spellcheck them using Word, and turn them in for a final grade. You may not consult a tutor, a native speaker, or use an on-line translation program. This basic exercise in linking abstract concepts about literature to specific concrete features of texts prepare students for the final take home exam/final project, which asks them to assess issues treated in texts read from different periods.

Attendance/Participation:

Students are expected to come prepared to class and to participate in group work and other oral assignments. Three absences for any reason can occur without affecting the course grade. Students who miss more than four classes must expect a significant penalty affecting the semester course grade as calculated above by one letter. Students whose absences exceed six will not normally receive a passing grade in this course. Requests for exceptions for absences for activities in which a student participates as an official representative of NKU will be considered on an individual basis based on a student's prior history of attendance. Students who miss class for any reason are responsible for all work assigned for the following class, including any changes in assignments made by the instructor. It is the student’s responsibility to contact the instructor to ask about any assignments made.

Make-up policy:

Under some circumstances tests may be made up if a student makes arrangements in advance of an absence. Documentation of absences may be required. All make-ups are at the discretion of the instructor. In some cases there may be a grade penalty. Making up an assignment in advance does not necessarily excuse the absence.

Honor code:

Work in this course is subject to the Student Honor Code, a commitment to the highest degree of ethical integrity in academic conduct, and a commitment that, individually and collectively, the students at Northern Kentucky University will not lie, cheat or plagiarize in order to gain an academic advantage over fellow students or in order to avoid academic requirements. All written work turned in must be your own work down without the use of a computerized translation program or without assistance from parents, classmates, siblings, or tutors unless you are explicitly authorized to request assistance. All graded assignments must include a written pledge, normally a variation on the following statement. Bei dieser Prüfung (bei diesem Test/bei diesem Referat, usw.) habe ich weder Hilfe geleistet noch erhalten.

In-class conduct: Please come to class prepared and well rested. You are expected to behave courteously toward other members of the class and toward the instructor. Please refrain from yawning, eating, and chewing gum in class.

Accommodation of disabilities: Students who require accommodations (academic adjustments, auxiliary aids or services) must register with the Disability Services Office,
UC 320, 859/575-6373. Verification of disability is required.

Honors enhancement: Students with a minimum ACT composite score of 24 or a GPA of 3.25 may complete this German course as an Honors-enhanced course to count toward the minor in Honors by making the instructor aware of their desire to do so during the first week of the semester and completing an appropriate final project.

Nota bene: All of the above is subject to change by the instructor, should the needs of the class dictate. This statement applies explicitly to the grading categories and percentages listed above. Grading categories and percentages may be adjusted at the end of the semester to reflect assignments actually completed.

Tutoring: The Learning Assistance Center, FH 209, 572-5475, http://laplearn.nku.edu/ , will provide one hour per week of tutoring at no cost. Frequently, native speakers of German are available for conversational work. Tutors may not provide assistance on graded written assignments.

Retroactive credit: Students who take the WebCAPE placement test and subsequently complete two sequential language courses with a grade of C or better may receive retroactive credit for any courses below their initial placement if they apply at the beginning of their language study for the Foreign Language Incentive Program. Transfer students may receive retroactive credit by taking one additional course beyond their transfer credit. Forms are available in the office of the Department of Literature and Language, Landrum 500. Students must request retroactive credit after completing the appropriate language courses. Students can also receive retroactive credit by taking the CLEP test, obtaining an acceptable score, and completing an additional language course. Under normal circumstances the WebCAPE and CLEP tests must be taken and the FLIP application submitted during the first week of the semester. Information on the WebCAPE test can be found at http://www.blogger.com/_. Information about the CLEP test may be found at http://laplearn.nku.edu/.

Courses I would be interested in teaching:

Austrian Literature of the 20th and 21st Centuries

Instructor: Julia K Baker
Office/ Hours:
E-mail: steiermarkat@fuse.net
Phone:
Course website:
Requirements:

Course Description and Goals:

In many respects the development of Austria differs from that of other European countries. At the beginning of the 20th entury, the Austrian-Hungarian empire was a major entity on the European map, a vast country uniting many different cultures and ethnicities. Around 1900, Vienna was a major cosmopolitan center of the world; among its artists and intellectuals were many of Jewish descent. In the late 20th century, however, Austria was but a small and relatively homogenous nation. In this seminar we will investigate literary responses to Austria’s transition from a major global power to a small nation state. Without a doubt this transition was far from a smooth one.

We will focus on the question what 20th -century Austrian literature tells us about the ability of this nation to forget and repress its own past. (Ernst Jandl in fact once felt it necessary to remind his compatriots that “auch hitler war ein österreicher / nicht nur christus.”) Our readings will however also focus on the question to what extent literature can function as a form of counter memory, bringing back to light in particular the multi-ethnic aspect of and the importance of Jewish life throughout 20th and early 21st century Austria. The red thread through the seminar will be the role of memory in Austria’s continual reconceptualization of its national identity; special attention will be paid to the question to what extent class, race, and gender play a role in the process of remembering the national past. In the seminar, we will discuss texts by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Robert Musil, Arthur Schnitzler, Joseph Roth, Ödön von Horváth, Heimito von Doderer, Marlen Haushofer, Ingeborg Bachmann, Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, current nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, Christoph Ransmayr, Josef Haslinger, Wolf Haas, Robert and Eva Menasse.

Texts:

Arthur Schnitzler: Leutnant Gustl, 1900.
Robert Musil: Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless; 1906.
Joseph Roth: Radetzkymarsch; 1932.
Ödön von Horváth: Jugend ohne Gott; 1937.
Heimito von Doderer: Die Merowinger oder Die totale Famile; 1962.
Thomas Bernhard: Heldenplatz; Suhrkamp, 1988.
Marlen Haushofer: Die Wand; DTV Verlag, 1999.
Peter Handke: Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied; Suhrkamp Verlag, 2001.
Elfriede Jelinek: Die Klavierspielerin. Rowohlt Verlag, 1983.
Christoph Ransmayr: Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis; Fischer Verlag, 1996.
Josef Haslinger: Das Vaterspiel; Fischer Verlag, 2002.
Robert Menasse: Erklär mir, Österreich. Suhrkamp Verlag, 2000.
Eva Menasse. Vienna. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2005.

Requirements:

*Weekly position papers (one page each) with ideas and questions related to the reading for a specific day.
*Final paper (between 14 and 20 pages). Please discuss the topic of your paper with me during office hours or after making an appointment. The first two pages of your paper, with some basic ideas, are due after week 6. An additional 4 pages (a review of secondary literature) are due after week 10. Discuss a draft of your final paper with me before starting work on the final version. If you decide to write your paper with a fellow student, arrangments should be made beforehand. Please come and see me.
*Attendance and active participation in class. Active participation in discussions is expected. You may miss one session without grade deduction (excused absence—please notify me ahead of class if you must miss). You must prepare assigned readings and writings ahead of class in order to be able to participate meaningfully. “Preparing” readings for class = reading and taking notes on the texts as well as working through any assigned study questions.

Grading policy:

final paper 60%
position papers 20%
attendance and participation 20%

Semester overview

Week 1
Introduction
Week 2
Arthur Schnitzler: ‘Leutnant Gustl’ (1900); an electronic version of this text is available at http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/schnitzl/gustl/gustl.htm and http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/schnitzl/gustl/gustl2.htm
Week 3
Robert Musil: Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless (1906)
Week 4
Joseph Roth: Radetzkymarsch (1932)
Week 5
cont. Radetzkymarsch
Week 6
Ödön von Horváth: Jugend ohne Gott (1937)

-------------part 1 of the final paper due-----------------

Week 7
Heimito von Doderer: Die Merowinger oder Die totale Famile (1962)
Week 8
Thomas Bernhard: Heldenplatz (1988)
Week 9
Marlen Haushofer: Die Wand (1963)
Week 10
Peter Handke: Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied (1972)

-------------part 2 of the final paper due-----------------

Week 11
Film: Die Klavierspielerin (based on the novel by Elfriede Jelinek)
Week 12
Christoph Ransmayr: Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis (1984)
Week 13
Josef Haslinger: Das Vaterspiel (2000)

---------------*first draft for final paper due----------

Week 14
Excerpts from: Robert Menasse: Erklär mir, Österreich. 2000.
Eva Menasse. Vienna. 2005 Part 1
Week 15
Eva Menasse. Vienna. 2005 Part 2

Transnational Literature and Film: Dialogue between Cultures

Course Description: Transnational Literature and Film: Dialogue between Cultures is a seminar that looks at the literature of and films on immigrants in Germany. The course will focus on borders, migration, and identity issues, with a goal of introducing you to a differentiated picture of Germany today. The seminar will lead you to a better understanding of diversity in the New Europe. We will focus primarily on Muslims, Jews and Eastern European immigrants, including ethnic Germans.

Course topics will include: diasporic communities; multi-ethnicity; youth culture and the role of film in raising awareness; globalization; gender issues; individual and collective definitions of physical space, “home” and “nation”; and memory. We will study Germany's history in dealing with “foreigners” and the language and framework these provide for everyday life, both for nationals and non-nationals. We will look through “lenses” provided by research, literature, film, and the arts to seek both answers and new questions that help us understand how national and supranational borders mirror, challenge and shape the self's internal borders.
Homework will entail: any assignments given in class or on the syllabus (frequently updated), research, outside readings, exploration of course-related materials on the web.

Course Requirements and Assessment

* 25% attendance and participation
You should be present and on time for all class sessions and related events. You are expected preparation of reading assignments (this includes close reading of texts required of all, and texts), evidence of engagement with reading materials, timely and thorough completion of any short oral or written assignments, active participation in class discussion (degree and quality of participation, effort, and increased familiarity with topics, etc.)

* 50% response papers/essays
There will be 4 short papers/essay (3 pages typed). You will receive a choice of topics in advance for three of the papers. Further details about papers, expectations, etc. will be forthcoming.

* 25% final research or creative project
As a final project/paper, you will develop one longer (4-5 page) paper, which demonstrates thoughtful and perceptive treatment of a topic of the student's choice, related to the course. The project should include additional research (i.e., beyond that required on a week-to-week basis for class discussion). This project may be in the form of a standard short research paper, or it may be contain text and image/s.

Texts (Course Reader)
Bhabha, Homi (Hg.). Nation and Narration. London. New York: Routledge 1990.
Crofts, Stephen. "Concepts of National Cinema". In: Hill, John / Church Gibson, Pamela (Hg.): Oxford Guide to Film Studies. New York: Oxford UP 1998, S. 385-394.
Brah, “Diaspora, Borders, and Transnational Identities.” Carto-graphies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities.
Broder, Henryk: "Heimat, nein Danke." (Home, no thanks!) in: A Jew in the New Germany.
Chiellino, Gino Carmine. Es gab einmal die Alpen. WortWechsel Bd.4 (Hg.), Dresden 2005.
Clifford, James."Diasporas." Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1994, 302-338.
Elsaesser, Thomas. New German Cinema: A History. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press 1989.
Dischereit, Esther. Als mir mein Golem öffnete. Gedichte. Passau 1997
Enzensberger, Magnus. “The Great Migration.” Granta 42.
Güngör Dilek. Das Geheimnis meiner türkischen Großmutter. 2007.
Hallensleben, Silvia / Noack, Frank: "Auferstanden aus dem Ghetto. Die spannendsten deutschen Filme werden derzeit von Türken gedreht: Dealer und Lola und Bilidikid erzählen vom Leben zwischen zwei Welten". In: Der Tagesspiegel (11.2.1999), S. 23.
Kaminer, Wladimir. Russendisko. Goldmann, 2002.
Karpf, Ernst / Kiesel, Doron / Visarius, Karsten (Hg.): "Getürkte Bilder": Zur Inszenierung von Fremde.
Malik, Sarita: "Beyond 'The Cinema of Duty'? The Pleasures of Hybridity: Black British Film of the 1980s and 1990s". In: Higson, Andrew (Hg.): Dissolving Views: Key Writings on British Cinema. London: Cassell 1996, S. 202-215.
Mandel, Turkish Headscarves and the "Foreigner Problem": Constructing Difference through Emblems of Identity. In NGQ, No. 46, Winter 89, 27-46.
Martenstein, Harald: "Ich Chef, du Turnschuh. Filme mit doppelter Staatsbürgerschaft: türkisches Kino auf dem Weg in die deutsche Gegenwart". In: Der Tagesspiegel (11.2.1999), S. 31.
Moníková, Libuše. Unter Menschenfressern. Frankfurt am Main 1990.Naficy, Hamid: "Phobic Spaces and Liminal Panics: Independent Transnational Film Genre". In: Rob Wilson/Wimal Dissanayake (Hg.): Global/Local: Cultural Productions and the Transnational Imaginary. Durham/London: Duke University Press 1996, S. 119-144.Schoenberner, Gerhard / Seifried, Ursula: "Ausländer unter uns. Ein Filmkatalog". In: Deutsch lernen. Zeitschrift für den Sprachunterricht mit ausländischen Arbeitnehmern. (Heft 2/3, 1983), S. 1-273.
Özdamar, Emine. Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn. Roman, 1998. (Excerpts)Shohat, Ella / Stam, Robert: Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. London/New York: Routledge, 1994.
Senocak, Zafer, Atlas of a Tropical Germany: Essays on Politics and Culture, 1990-1998 (Excerpts).
---. Territorien, mein Europa, Die Heimat trägt der Mensch in sich, Der Bart, Jenseits der Landsprache.
Tawada, Yoko. Das Tor des Übersetzers oder Celan liest Japanisch.
Tebbutt, Susan (Ed., 1998) Sinti and Roma in German-speaking Society and Literature. Oxford: Berghahn.
---. Das nackte Auge (Erzählung) (2004)
Zaimoğlu, Feridun. Leinwand. Roman. Hamburg: Rotbuch, 2003.

Week 1
Introduction

Week 2
Film: Bread and Chocolate (1973)
Enzensberger: The Great Migration

Week 3
The concept of the "Stranger"
Brah, “Diaspora, Borders, and Transnational Identities,” Carto-graphies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities.
Clifford, James."Diasporas," Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1994, 302-338.

Week 4
Gastarbeiterliteratur?
Excerpts from Chiellino, Biondi, Schami

Week 5
Literatursprache als Heimat
Libuše Moníková Unter Menschenfressern, Frankfurt am Main 1990
Emine Özdamar Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn. Roman, 1998. (Excerpts)

Week 6
Becoming German
Film: Tevfik Baser’s 40 qm Deutschland
German: "Heimat-Texte"
Broder: "Heimat, nein Danke." (Home, no thanks!) in: A Jew in the New Germany.

Week 7
Roma, Gypsies
Film: Abschied von Sidonie
Sinti and Roma in German-speaking Society and Literature. (excerpts)
Hackl, Abschied von Sidonie

Week 8
Memory & Imagined Identities, Jews in Germany
Wladimir Kaminer, Kurzgeschichten aus Russendisko.
Hung Gurst ″Moru, der kleine Elefant“; Der Zwischenfall

Week 9
Migration
Senocak, Atlas of a Tropical Germany: Essays on Politics and Culture, 1990-1998 (Excerpts);
Territorien, mein Europa, Die Heimat.trägt der Mensch in sich, der Bart, Jenseits der Landsprache.

Week 10
Literature of Displacement?
Dilek Güngör. Das Geheimnis meiner türkischen Großmutter

Week 11
Islam & Muslims in Europe
Mandel, Turkish Headscarves and the "Foreigner Problem": Constructing Difference through Emblems of Identity. NGQ, No. 46, Winter 89, 27-46.
Zaimoğlu, Feridun. Leinwand: Roman.

Week 12
Afrikaner in Deutschland
Film: Das Fest des Huhnes (1992)
May Aim blues in schwarz weiss (Gedichte)
Farbe bekennen. Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte

Week 13
Filme: Lola und Bilidikid (1999) Dealer (1999) Ich Chef, Du Turnschuh (1998)

Week 14
Yoko Tawada: Das Tor des Übersetzers oder Celan liest Japanisch.
Das nackte Auge (Erzählung) (2004)

Week 15
Zusammenfassung und Ausblick

Holocaust Childhood in Literature and Film


Instructor: Dr. Julia K Baker
Office/ Hours:
E-mail: steiermarkat@fuse.net
Phone:
Course website:
Requirements:

Description:

This course explores the topic of childhood during Holocaust as depicted in oral testimonies, autobiographies, fictional texts and (documentary) films. It provides insights into the role and fate of children during the Second World War, and examines provocative and influential interdisciplinary responses. We will discuss findings by scholars in trauma studies, migration studies, exile studies, history, anthropology, and cultural studies. Students will have the privilege to interact with Holocaust child survivors and be exposed to a variety of scholars and programs offered at this university and in the community.
By reading texts written from the perspective of child protagonists as well as by authors who look back and remember their childhood during the Holocaust, we will take a look at how children were valued (if they were Aryan) and how they were expelled and persecuted (if they were Jewish) under Nazi reign.
The literary texts and films depict different aspects of the experience of European children during this period: daily life in the Nazi state, the trials of war and bombardment in Germany, the experience of exile and hiding, and life in concentration camps.

Course Reader of selected articles:

Binjamin Wilkomirski, Bruchstücke
Elie Wiesel, Nacht
Ruth Klüger, weiterleben
Karen Levine, Hana´s Koffer
Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt Die Absonderung
Lore Segal, Wo andere Leute wohnen (Teil 1)
Stefanie Zweig, Selections from Nirgendwo in Afrika
Stefanie Zweig, Selections from Irgendwo in Deutschland
Karen Gershon, Das Unterkind
Erich Hackl, Abschied von Sidonie
Ulrich Treichel, Der Verlorene
W.G. Sebald Austerlitz

Grading:

Course Diary: 30%
Final Essay: 30%
Course Presentation: 20%
Participation: 20%

Films: Over the course of the semester, we will view films that portray some aspect of children’s lives in the Third Reich and/or World War II. Screening Times will be announced in class. If you are unable to attend the screenings, you will need to arrange to view them on your own; the films will be held on reserve in the library and can be viewed there.

Attendance: Your class participation grade includes not only your presence in class, but also the seriousness with which you carry out activities and the attempt you make to understand and discuss the readings and films. Due to the nature of this course, your regular attendance, participation and timely completion of assignments are crucial and mandatory! After three unexcused absences your final grade is reduced by one letter. Active participation is required to pass the course. Participation also entails to check your email account and blackboard regularly.

Writing Assignments: You will compose a course diary in which you note your experiences and insights, your feelings and reactions to the texts, the films, and the class in general. Each student will be asked to share some of his/her thoughts with the whole class at the beginning of each session. At the end of the course, I will collect all diaries and you will receive a grade based on content, organization, style and basic grammar. You are also going to write one essay 5 pages in length in which you will address a particular aspect of one of the texts we have read or film we have viewed or compare two of the texts/films. The papers will be graded based on content, organization, style and basic grammar.

Course Presentation: You will prepare one oral presentation, 10 minutes in length, in which you will introduce a work, an author, a piece of secondary literature etc. of interest to this course. Please inform me about your choice by the end of the second week. You will speak freely and not read from notes or powerpoint slides. You are expected to use at least one other medium apart from your voice, e.g. audio, video, powerpoint, you tube clip. Each student has to come up with one activity that will involve the whole class. The course presentation can also be conducted in pairs. This involves peer grading, i.e. you will be asked to evaluate your partner.

SCHEDULE:

WEEK 1: On Childhood. How do people remember their childhood? How do I remember my own childhood? How does an individual remember his/her childhood during the Holocaust? The Holocaust and ME: What does it mean to each one of us? How can I identify my skills, knowledge and interests, as well as personal bias, ignorance, unquestioned beliefs?

WEEK 2: The Camps I
Binjamin Wilkomirski: Fragments

WEEK 3: The Camps II
Ruth Klüger: weiterleben

WEEK 4: The Camps III
Elie Wiesel: Night
Film: Fatelessness

WEEK 5 The Camps IV: The unique story of the children of Terezin
Karen Levine: Hana´s Koffer

WEEK 6: Children in Exile I: Accounts of the "Kindertransport"
Lore Segal: Wo andere Leute wohnen (Part I)
Film: Vielleicht habe ich Glück gehabt

WEEK 7: Children in Exile II
Karen Gershon: Das Unterkind

WEEK 8: Children in Exile III
Stefanie Zweig: Nirgendwo in Afrika (Excerpts)
Film: Nirgendwo in Afrika (Excerpts)

WEEK 9: Children in Exile IV
Stefanie Zweig: Irgendwo in Deutschland (Excerpts)

WEEK 10: Children in Hiding I
Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt: Die Absonderung

WEEK 11: Children in Hiding II
The Story of Henry Blumenstein
Film: Finding Family

WEEK 12: Andere Opfer der Nazis
Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie
Film: Abschied von Sidonie

Week 13 Nach dem Krieg I
Ulrich Treichel: Der Verlorene

Week 14 Nach dem Krieg II
W.G. Sebald: Austerlitz

Week 15 Review, Reflection and Outlook

Appendix

1. Example of Session Plan (German 321)

This German 321 session was taught, observed and videotaped on November 8th, 2006. In attendance: 16 undergraduate 3rd year students, Michaela Walser, Laura Traser-Vas (teaching assistants) and Prof. Jennifer Kelly-Thierman (supervisor).

Vorbereitung: Mittwoch 8. November

Lernziele: Bedeutungsunterschiede und verschiedene Tempora der Modalverben. Konversation (Sich verabreden)
Lehrmethoden: Lückentext, Gruppenarbeit

Hausaufgabe bis heute: Lesen Sie Rankin-Wells 111-122 Present and Past Tenses of Modal Verbs + A, C, G. Was ist neu, schwierig?

1) Ice breaker – ich fordere die Studenten zum Tanzen auf, aber sie haben alle Ausreden.

Julia: Darf ich Sie zum Tanzen auffordern?

Ich kann nicht tanzen.
Ich will nicht mit Ihnen tanzen.
Mein Arzt sagt, ich darf mich nicht anstrengen.
Ich mag diese Musik nicht.
Meine Freundin sagt, ich soll nicht mit anderen Frauen tanzen.
Muss ich?

2) Wir sprechen über die verschiedenen Bedeutungen der Modalverben und bilden die Präteritumform. Wie geht das im Perfekt?

Er konnte nicht tanzen. (was not able to dance)
Er wollte nicht tanzen. (he did not want to dance)
Er durfte nicht tanzen. (did not have the permission)
Er mochte die Musik nicht. (he did not like the music)
Er sollte nicht mit anderen Frauen tanzen. (he ought not dance with other women)
Er musste nicht mit mir tanzen. (he did not have to dance with me)

2) More advanced forms: Grammatik Kreativ S. 45-47 Ich konnte nicht kommmen

3) wenn noch Zeit ist: Wechselspiel 18: sich verabreden

4) Für Montag: 4. Aufsatz: Meine Traumreise (Anleitung in Rankin-Wells, 148 C)

5) Frage des Tages: Was hat .. gesagt, als ich ihn gefragt habe, ob er mit mir tanzen will?


2. Goethes “Der Zauberlehrling”

Lernziel: Im Zentrum der Einheit steht die Bearbeitung von Goethes Ballade Der Zauberlehrling. Die StudentInnen sollen am Ende der Einheit gelernt haben, dass die Ballade Elemente der drei literarischen Hauptformen enthält. Im Vordergrund steht dabei der praktische Zugang und das Lebendigmachen der Ballade, d.h. Betonung des dramatischen Elements. (Learning by Doing)

Lernschritte:
Einführung in den geschichtlichen Hintergrund und die Bedeutung der Ballade.
Lyrische Elemente/Tanzlied: traditioneller Zugang: Einführung in Metrik, Strophenaufbau, Reimschema + Anwendung
Epische Elemente: Die Ballade als Erzähltext – Inhalt
Dramatische Elemente: Die Ballade als Theatertext

Lehrmethoden:
Powerpoint, kurzer Frontalunterricht (Einführung), Partner- und Gruppenarbeit, Diskussion im Plenum, Rollenspiel, Hörübung, Einsetzübung.

Ice Breaker: Simsalabim Magische Namen: Zur Vorstellung sollen sich die StudentInnen Adjektiva oder Partizpien ausdenken, die denselben Anfangsbuchstaben wie ihre Vornamen haben.

Einstieg:
3 Grundarten der Poesie: Benennen der drei Grundarten literarischer Produktion
Was werden wir im Verlauf der Einheit mit Goethes Ballade machen?
Erarbeiten:
Vermitteln bzw. Aneignung von theoretischem Wissen (traditionell) Daten zu Goethes Ballade: Enstehungsgeschichte, Balladenjahr, Reimschema Stoff
Das Balladenjahr: geschichtlicher Hintergrund
Reimschema: sehr kurze Einführung in Metrik, Reimschema, Kadenz und Analyse einer Strophe bzw. des Refrains. Die StudentInnen sollen davon mitnehmen, dass das Gedicht konstruiert ist. Gemeinsames Lesen und Betonen.
Stoff

Zur Verständnissicherung finden die StudentInnen in Paararbeit 6 Überschriften zu den einzelnen Abschnitten der Ballade am Handout

Kam Ihnen der Stoff bekannt vor? Überleitung zu Fantasia (kurzer Filmausschnitt)
Erarbeiten der Unterschiede zwischen Originaltext und Disney-Version
Fantasia: Daten; ˝The Sorcerer´s Apprentice”

Im Plenum: Diskussion von 2 Unterschieden und 1 Gemeinsamkeit Ballade-Film
Reproduktion des Besen (Reproduktion durch Filmtechnik, Feiern des Meisters W. Disney als Meister der Technik; biblische Elemente (Meister teilt das Wasser), Mickey’s Größenwahnsinn-Traum, Bestrafung durch den Meister am Ende)
Persönlicher Zugang: musste die Ballade als Schülerin auswendig lernen. Fand in der Plattensammlung meiner Eltern eine Version, von Oskar Werner gelesen.

EIN WECHSELBAD DER GEFÜHLEWie nennt der Lehrling im Verlauf der Ballade den Besen?Partnerarbeit: Die Studentinnen tragen die Bezeichnungen des Besens und die Emotionen des Zauberlehrlings in die Tabelle am Handout ein.

Übergang zum dramatischen Darstellen

Gruppenarbeit und Rollenspiel: Die StudentInnen erarbeiten gemeinsam einen auf der Ballade basierenden Theatertext.
Aufführung des Zauberlehrlings

Ausblick: Wie werden die Emotionen des Zauberlehrlings bzw. die Reaktion des Meisters und der Besen in den verschiedenen Versionen dargestellt? Verhältnis Meister-Lehrling - strukturell verarbeitet? Mit wem identifiziert man sich als Leser/Zuseher/Zuhörer.
Aufforderung zur Autoritätskritik und Aufmüpfigkeit

Harry Potter/The Apprentice

Der Zauberlehrling als Theaterstück


1. Szene Der Zauberlehrling fegt die Kammer des Hexenmeisters aus. Er hat keine gute
Laune, weil er zaubern will – nicht immer nur saubermachen!

Zauberlehrling: Schon wieder muss ich die Kammer ausfegen! Ich kann euch
gar nicht sagen, wie oft ich das schon getan habe! Wozu
lerne ich eigentlich zaubern, wenn ich die ganze Arbeit
alleine machen muss?

Meister: Mein lieber Lehrling! Bist du endlich fertig?
(murmelt: „ Meine Güte, der macht sich das aber
auch schwer mit all seinem Gejammer! Ich hätte das alles
schon längst erledigt.“ )

Zauberlehrling: Ach Meister, mir ist so langweilig!
Wozu lerne ich denn zaubern, wenn ich dann immer nur die
Drecksarbeit machen muss?

Meister : Zaubern ist eine gewaltige Kraft!
Du solltest sie nicht für Dinge verschwenden, die du
leicht selber erledigen kannst!!!
Die wahre Bedeutung wirst du noch lernen!! Und nun –
Husch, husch - räume die Zimmer auf und wische Staub !!!
Ich eile nun in den Wald, um Misteln zu schneiden.
Wenn ich wiederkomme, möchte ich ein schönes, heißes Bad
nehmen. (Meister setzt seinen Hut ab, wendet sich ab und geht)

2. Szene Der Zauberlehrling fegt lustlos und seufzt dabei mehrmals tief!

Zauberlehrling: So ein alter Knacker.
(hat eine Idee; setzt sich den Hut selber auf): Juchuu!
Nun ist er endlich weg!
Ha, ich habe aber doch gut aufgepasst- Er wird es gar nicht merken, wenn ich den Besen die Arbeit tun lasse! Der Besen soll das Wasser holen!


Chor: rappt Walle! walleManche Strecke,daß zum Zwecke,Wasser fließeund mit reichem, vollem Schwallezu dem Bade sich ergieße.

Besen 1 ( tanzt auf der Bühne): Ich habe einen Kopf!!!! Ich kann sehen!
Ich habe Arme!!!!!!! Ich habe Beine !!! Beine !!!! Wie wunderbar!

Zauberlehrling: Hurra, es funktioniert, da läuft er, der blöde Besen.
Ich bin ein Genie! (reibt seine Augen) Der ist aber schnell.
Jetzt kommt er schon wieder und die Wanne ist schon ganz
voll.

Chor: rappt Stehe! stehe!denn wir habendeiner Gabenvollgemessen!
Zauberlehrling: Jetzt bleib doch stehen. Oh nein, ich habe den Zauberspruch
vergessen! Bitte Besen, bleib doch stehen! Der hält nicht an.
Was tu ich nur? Da kommt er schon wieder ... wird der nicht müde?
Da ist eine Axt, die schnapp ich mir! Zoing! Da hast du´s, jetzt bist
kaputt.

Chor: rappt Wehe! wehe!Beide Teilestehn in Eileschon als Knechtevöllig fertig in die Höhe!

Besen 1+2 (tanzen auf der Bühne): Huch, jetzt sind wir zu zweit, da
läuft´s sich´s gleich noch schneller!
Wie wunderbar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. Peer Observation

DATE: November 8, 2006

FROM: Laura Vas, Adjunct Instructor of German, Dept. of German Studies; vasl@email.uc.edu; 513-751-5391
OBSERVED: Julia K. Baker



On November 8, 2006 I had the chance to observe Julia K. Baker’s 300-level German Conversation and Composition class. The class started on time as students received their personal folders before teaching actually started. The first task, a rather unusual one, writing a postcard to one of the peer students being in hospital at the moment, reflected Julia’s deep engagement with her students and commitment to teaching. During the playful warm-up activity which made students find good excuses to avoid dancing, not only music was played and students’ giggling were heard but also the six modals verbs and their meanings were clarified. As today’s class focused on practicing modal verbs in different tenses, the well-prepared warm-up activity laid the foundations for the next activities in a lively and meaningful way. Each activity reflected that Julia has a strong theoretical foundation with many options at hand and uses wonderful authentic and creative materials to inspire her students in their learning process.

The next activities – a blend of top-down and bottom-up frontal and group work activities (jig-saw puzzle text, frontal discussion and role-play reading) displayed Julia’s solid knowledge of language teaching pedagogy. Each student contributed to the class, none of them shied away from participation, which demonstrated that students in her classes are as much agents of the class as the instructor. One of them was even brave enough to read his part of the dialogue in a high-pitched voice. At the same time, Julia made sure that she corrected pronunciation and crucial grammar mistakes. The second half of the class focused on grammar exercises, however the exercises, which covered five verbal tenses of modal verbs, were nicely contextualized so that meaning did not get lost and students enjoyed the funny situations while giving fitness advices or helping a friend who has to take a difficult German test.

It is remarkable that Julia uses almost exclusively German during teaching and for her students it is the most natural thing to follow instructions exclusively in a foreign language and communicate with her in the target language. It is unavoidable to make mistakes while learning a second language and Julia makes every effort to maintain a relaxed classroom atmosphere that is supportive to language learning and in which students become curios about the subject matter and take risks to communicate their ideas. Julia’s pedagogical knowledge, teaching style and interest in her students’ progress makes her a highly potential candidate to teach effective, high-quality language, culture and literature courses on a variety of levels. Teaching for her is not only a duty but also an art and profession. Without hesitation, I recommend her highly for any teaching position.

4. Student Feedback and Evaluations


Julia,

I submitted the online evaluation but it would not take personal identification, so you will never know it's mine (rest assured I appreciate your careful preparation, prompt feedback, and ability to relate to us poor students (ie, caring for us despite our poor skills in your native language). I will continue to slug along next term (if you permit me to join your closed class next term- auditors come last and need permission).

Bis Mittwoch

John

***

March 25, 2007

To whom it may concern:

Re: Julia Baker

I highly recommend Julia Baker for a faculty position in German. I speak from experience, having taken third year German this year. Julia was my instructor for two quarters. Most members of the class were undergraduates, who had family from Germany or intended to work there as part of a UC co-op program. I was the one “adult learner”, who was gainfully employed and enrolled because of interest.

Julia was always on time for class and extremely well prepared. Julia is fluent in both English and German. The class was conducted in German. Assignments were clear and included exercises in reading and writing, as well as oral presentations. Julia has the knack of explaining difficult grammatical concepts, which is sometimes not true of individuals who are bilingual. One of her strengths is thoroughness in constructively grading students’ essays. We did a lot of writing, sent essays to her electronically, and had them returned with correction of errors, each correction accompanied by an explanation of what was wrong. Her promptness and thoroughness were greatly appreciated. Classes were fun, as well as challenging.

The German Department at UC takes pride in the quality of teaching in its undergraduate program. Teachers such as Julia have been taught how to teach. This is readily apparent when I compare my experiences in German with experiences in other courses at UC. Instructors in German know how to engage the students. Classroom materials are well planned and time in class is spent productively with a lot of dialog between the instructor and the students. Julia knew each student’s name and encouraged each to participate in class. I have continued to take courses in German because of the quality of the program. I enjoy the courses and the instructors. Julia will be a fine addition to your faculty. If you have questions, please feel free to call me at 513-636-0265 or e-mail me at john.hutton@cchmc.org.

Sincerely yours,



John Hutton, MD

Dean Emeritus and Professor of Pediatrics
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Vice President, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Ben Cooney
Jahnstraße 8

69207 Sandhausen

Germany cooneyben@hotmail.com



October 13, 2006


To whom it may concern,


During my second year at the University of Wales, Swansea, I had the privilege of being taught
by Julia Baker in two of my German classes, General Language and spoken German.

Julia's classes were always a highlight of the day, as I knew that they would be both
challenging and enjoyable. Julia's teaching style always encourages participation, as she is
very lively and engaging. It was clear from the beginning that she enjoyed teaching and
interacting with all of her students, whether in class or out.

Julia's relationship with me and the other students was one of mutual respect and friendship,
and she was always approachable if you had a problem or issue. I always had, and still have, a great deal of respect for her. At the same time, Julia was by no means incapable of disciplining students or letting them know that certain behavior was unacceptable, and this only strengthens my regard for her.

If anyone had difficulties with any aspect of the course, Julia would endeavor to help them work at it until it was clear in everyone's mind. I had not always been entirely comfortable with my spoken German, but Julia's classes really helped me to practice my skills and I became a lot more comfortable speaking German as a result. I now live and work in Germany, which requires me to speak German on a daily basis, something I would not be so comfortable doing without Julia's help.

Julia would be an asset to any academic institution and I have no doubt that her students would grow to like and respect her as much as I do. I was only taught by Julia for one year but she has made a lasting impression on me and other students, many of whom often lamented the fact that we would no longer be taught by her. However, our loss can only be someone else's gain.


Yours truly,


Ben Cooney

***

Chiang Mai, Thailand,
13th October 2006



To whom it may concern,

Re: Letter of Recommendation for Julia Baker


During my studies at the University of Wales, Swansea, I took many classes with Julia as the lecturer. I have no hesitation in recommending her teaching style and practice to you today.

Classes with Julia were invariably interesting and well-structured. Course outlines and requirements were clear from the beginning of each course, and the targets were always reached.

There was a friendly and encouraging atmosphere in Julia’s classes, as she sought to relate to each student on a personal level, not purely academic. This is one of Julia’s strongest characteristics – by talking to her classes like they are her friends, she puts everyone at ease and helps them to produce their very best.

Another of Julia’s strengths is her clarity in teaching. When faced with difficult subject material, she can make explanations in simple terms that her students can grasp. I personally never left her class feeling confused or unsure of what we had studied, and always felt confident that I could apply that knowledge later.

Overall, not only did I enjoy Julia’s classes and the topics she taught, but I also grew to respect and appreciate Julia as a friend, who I could go to if ever I needed help on any matter. As I am now working as a foreign language teacher, I only hope to have as positive an effect on my students as I’m sure Julia had on many of hers.


Yours,

Helen Green



Helen Green,
Montfort International College,
269 Charoen Prathet Road,
50100, Chiang Mai,
Thailand
helen_green81@hotmail.com