I am an Assistant Professor of German at Carleton College. I received my PhD at the Pennsylvania State University in 2015 with my dissertation "The Concert Hall as Heterotopia: Sounds and Sights of Resistance in the Leipzig Gewandhaus 1970-1989." At Penn State, I also received the Harold F. Martin Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award. I earned my teaching certification for Secondary Education (1. Staatsexamen) from the Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg (Germany) in German and English with the thesis Klassenfahrten und Interkulturelles Lernen (Class Trips and Intercultural Learning) that was awarded the "Joseph-Schmitt-Sonderpreis 2007." I also have a Master in German from the Texas Tech University with a Minor in Linguistics. I have published and presented on linguistic and literary aspects of songs of the Hitler Youth, the band Rammstein, the composer Kurt Weill, contemporary HipHop artists, music and trauma in the GDR, and Gustav Mahler. My interests include questions of identity, musical space, the artistic expression of the Self and the Other, the connection between literature, music, and society as well as the cultural past of fin-de-siècle Vienna and East Germany.
Outside of academia, I enjoy the making of, and listening to, music in all its forms and variations. I worked with the Chelsea Music Festival in New York City under the artistic leadership of Ken-David and Melinda Lee Masur, and volunteered as chair of the Music Committee at a local Fellowship where, among other things, I helped organize three concert series. I am trained in ballroom and jazz dance and have received piano, saxophone, and violin instruction. I love playing European team handball and volleyball. I was part of the Composition Program at Yamaha and completed the teacher’s education program at Kindermusik International. I won the Anastacia Idol Singing Competition in Stuttgart (Germany) in 2004, which gave me the chance to sing in front of 15,000 people next to singer Anastacia, and in 2007, I sang the lead vocal role in a production of High School Musical in my hometown. I have performed with various jazz bands and choirs and sang the American National Anthem at local sports events. its not down in any map. true places never are herman melville |
things i like in no particular order:
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