Assistant ProfesSor of German, Musician, Human Being

PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS

EDUCATION

  • Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA, Dissertation: "The Concert Hall as Heterotopia: Sounds and Sights of Resistance in the Leipzig Gewandhaus 1970-1989," 2015, with highest distinction
  • M.A. in German, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA, Thesis: "Popliteratur—Das Archiv eines Augenblicks," Dec. 2009
  • First State Exam in English, German, and Secondary Education from The Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany, Thesis: "Klassenfahrten und interkulturelles Lernen," Feb. 2008, awarded with 2007 Joseph Schmitt Special Award from the International Building Organization (IBO)​
  • student at The Bavarian Julius-Maximilians-University in Würzburg, Germany, 2002-2003

SELECTED AWARDS AND HONORS

  • 2022 Student Research Partner Award for Project “Representations of Motherhood and Childhood in the GDR,” funded by Ethical Inquiry at Carleton College, $1,500
  • 2022 Summer Research and Reading Circles "Contemporary Scholarship and Teaching in German Studies" with Kiley Kost and Seth Peabody, from Carleton College, $360
  • 2022 Member of the ACM Teaching Fellows Cohort for the 2022-23 ACM Faculty Teaching Fellows Program, from the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, $1,240
  • 2022 Curricular Development Grant for summer work to prepare the new upper-level course "New: The Latest Works in German-Speaking Media," from Carleton College, $4,000
  • 2020 recipient of the national Small Undergraduate German Program Special Interest Group Award for Outstanding German Program Development and Advocacy, from ACTFL (The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages), $200
  • 2020 Curricular Development Grant for summer work to prepare online fall term courses during the Covid-19 pandemic, from Carleton College $1,020
  • 2020 Summer Research and Reading Circles "Book and study group on Ijeoma Oluo's So You Want To Talk About Race?," with Catherine Licata, from Carleton College, $360
  • 2019 Alternate for a 2019/20 American Postdoctoral Fellowship by the American Association of University Women for the project "Sound Imagery in the German Democratic Republic"
  • 2019 Faculty Travel Seminar, Carleton College, Travel Stipend
  • 2018 Large Faculty Development Endowment Grant Carleton College, one term sabbatical
  • 2018 NEH Summer Seminar stipend, "Culture in the Cold War: East German Art, Music and Film," $3,300
  • 2017 Incubator Grant for a project to translate essays for edited volume Mahler in Context, from Carleton College, $2,205
  • 2017 Mellon Public Works initiative for Documentation and Preservation of the Personal Archive of the Noted German Conductor Kurt Masur, $7,060
  • 2017 "Germany Making Choices," Grant for Campus Week, from the German Embassy, $3,862.50
  • 2017 "Deutsch macht Spaß" Grant, from AATG, $500
  • 2017 Broadening Bridge Exploration Grant, from Carleton College, "Collaborative program development and curriculum innovation in German at St. Olaf and Carleton," $9,982.20 
  • 2017 Fellow for the Humanities Center 2017/18 faculty research seminar "Rethinking the Commons and Politics in the Democratic Public Sphere," from Carleton College, $2,500
  • 2017 Broom Public Scholarship Project grant for "Kurt Masur in Conversation," from Carleton College, $500
  • 2016 with undergraduate student Briannon Carlsen '17 among the top 5 translators of the "Children’s Books on Tour Translation Competition," hosted by the German Book Office 
  • 2016 Global Engagement Initiative Grant for Curriculum Innovation to assess students' proficiency in French and German for the global market, joint project with Christine Lac, from Carleton College, $3,720
  • 2016 Winter Humanities Center Student Research Award to work with one student on the transcription, translation, and subtitling of interviews with conductor Kurt Masur, from Carleton College, 80 hours
  • 2016 "Germany Meets the U.S." Grant for Campus Week, from the German Embassy, $3,620
  • 2016 Global Engagement Initiative Grant for the development of a Cultural Theory class and workshop, from Carleton College​, $3000
  • 2016 Broadening Bridge Exploration Grant, from Carleton College, $5,523
  • 2016 Summer Humanities Center Student Research Award to work with one student on the transcription, translation, and subtitling of interviews with conductor Kurt Masur, from Carleton College, 40 hours​
  • 2014 RGSO Dissertation Support Award, from Penn State, $1,260
  • 2013 Max Kade Travel Award, from Max Kade Foundation, Penn State, 2014, $1,700
  • 2013 Harold F. Martin Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award, from Penn State
  • 2013NeMLA Graduate Student Caucus Paper Prize, from NeMLA 

INVITED TALKS

  • 2021 “Approaches to Building a Sustainable Language Program, German @ Carleton,” ACTFL German SUGP SIG community, Webinar, award presentation connected with the Small Undergraduate German Program Special Interest Group Award for Outstanding German Program Development and Advocacy, from ACTFL (The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) (June 22, 2021)
  • 2017 “Exploring Intersensoriality at the Chelsea Music Festival,” Music & Sound Studies, University of Minnesota (Dec. 1, 2017)
  • 2017 “Drawing Connections between Fin-de-Siècle Vienna and the German Democratic Republic: Gustav Klimt and Sighard Gille,” The University of Minnesota Department of German, Scandinavian & Dutch, the Center for Austrian Studies; Weisman Art Museum Minneapolis (March 29, 2017)

CONFERENCE ACTIVITY

Panels Organized
  • 2022 “Halloween in Ost-Berlin,” GSA, co-chaired with Katrin Bahr, Claudia Sandberg, Melanie Lorek (Sept. 15–18, 2022)
  • 2017 “College German and the Liberal Arts: Avenues for integration and Advocacy,” ACTFL, co-chaired with Amanda Randall (Nov. 16–19, 2017)
  • 2017 “German as Tool, German as Key: Raising the Relevance of College German,” ACTFL, co-chaired with Amanda Randall (Nov. 16–19, 2017)
​Papers Presented
  • 2022 “Approaches to Diversifying the German Curriculum—German Music &Culture,” ACTFL (Nov. 18–20, 2022)
  • 2020 “Teaching East Germany Within and Beyond the German Department,” Roundtable, GSA (Oct. 1–4, 2020)
  • 2020 “The Socialist Personality and Evolving Sexual Progressiveness—Herrmann Zschoche’s 1978 Sieben Sommersprossen,” Seminar “Socialist Subjectivities: Rethinking East Germany under Honecker,” GSA (Oct. 1–4, 2020)
  • 2019 “A Concert Hall as Agonistic Public Space—The Gewandhaus in Leipzig,” GSA (Oct. 3–6, 2019)
  • 2017 “Speaking about Meaning,” Seminar “Not Enough Notes: Exploring the Intersections of Music, History and Cultural Studies,” GSA (Oct. 5–8, 2017)
  • 2016 “Sieben Sommersprossen—A GDR Cult Movie as Site of Memory and Criticism,” GSA (Sept. 29–Oct. 2, 2016)
  • 2016 “D-A-CH in Kollaboration: High School SchülerInnen und Collegestudierende entdecken die Schweiz, Österreich und Berlin zusammen,” GETVICO (Sept. 17, 2016)
  • 2015 “Teaching Writing through Critical Thinking,” ACTFL (Nov. 20–22, 2015)
  • 2015 “The Concert Hall as Heterotopia,” GSA (Oct. 1–4, 2015)
  • 2014 “Romanticism at the Gewandhaus? Masur, Mahler, and the Socialist Canon in the GDR,” Princeton Conjunction, Annual Interdisciplinary Conference (May 9–10, 2014)
  • 2013 “Returning to the Urzustand—Mahler’s Second Symphony,” NeMLA (March 21–24, 2013)
  • 2012 “Beyond the Couch—Coming to Terms with Political Trauma through Songs and Poems,” GSA (Oct. 26–29, 2012)
  • 2012 “Heimatsehnsucht—Rammstein and the search for cultural identity,” with Nick Henry, NeMLA (March 15–18, 2012). Awarded the 2013 NeMLA Graduate Student Caucus Paper Prize
  • 2011 “Violent Love in Kleist’s Penthesilea. The Search for Harmony Through War,” Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (April 14–16, 2011)
 
Discussant
  • 2022 “Halloween in Ost-Berlin,” GSA (Sept. 15–18, 2022)

CAMPUS TALKS AND DISCUSSIONS

  • 2023 “Setting Boundaries and Maintaining Balance”, discussant at a session about balancing teaching and research, Language and Teaching Center Mentoring Lunch, Carleton College (January 12, 2023)
  • 2017 “Musical Images and the Canon in Sighard Gille’s Gewandhaus Mural Gesang vom Leben,” Language and Dining Center Home Grown Series, Carleton College (April 5, 2019)
  • 2016 “Marketing. PR. Social Media,” Techno-Talk, Carleton College (Feb. 25, 2016)
  • 2015 “Sounds of Resistance: Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus vs. ‘actually existing socialism’ between 1970 and 1989,” The Center for Global Studies Brown Bag Lecture Series, Penn State (Feb. 18, 2015)
  • 2012 “An Evening with Kurt Weill,” with Dr. Marie Sumner Lot, musical salon, Penn State School of Music (Feb. 22, 2012)

SERVICE TO THE PROFESSION

  • Reviewer for Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, since 2021
  • Contributor to Third Generation Ost—USA, since 2019
  • Reviewer for Journal of Austrian Studies, since 2019
  • Reviewer for Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, since 2018

SERVICE TO THE DEPARTMENT/UNIVERSITY

  • Faculty Affairs Committee, Member, Carleton College, Fall 2021
  • European Studies Advisory Board, Member, Carleton College, since Fall 2019
  • German Teaching Assistants Supervisor, Carleton College, 2018–2019
  • Off-Campus Studies Committee, Chair, Carleton College, Winter and Spring 2018
  • Center of Global and Regional Studies Advisory Board, Member, Carleton College, since Fall 2018
  • Faculty Judiciary Committee, Faculty Alternate, Carleton College, 2017–2022
  • Off-Campus Studies Committee, Member, Carleton College, 2017–2019
  • Freshmen Advisor, Carleton College, since 2017
  • German Language Associate Supervisor, Carleton College, 2016–2022
  • German Program Section Head, Carleton College, 2016–2020
  • German Campus Weeks, Coordinator, Carleton College, 2016–2018
  • Reader of Sophomore Writing Portfolios, Carleton College, since 2016
  • Advisor to the German Club, Carleton College, since 2016
  • Major Advisor German Program, Carleton College, since 2016
  • Poetry Without Borders, Initiator and Coordinator, Carleton College, since 2016
  • Search Committee German Program, Carleton College, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019
  • Social Media Coordinator German Program, Carleton College, since 2015
  • German Film Night, Co-coordinator, Penn State, 2014–2015
  • Orientation Leader for the International Graduate Student Orientation, Penn State, Fall 2014
  • Audience Development Committee for Music at Penn’s Woods at Penn State’s School of Music, 2013-2015
  • Poetry Without Borders, Co-coordinator, Penn State, 2013–2015
  • German Day, Co-coordinator, Penn State, 2012–2013
  • Assistant Music Director, musical Aida, Penn State Thespians, Fall 2012
  • Co-developer of online German course, Beginning German, Penn State, Spring 2012
  • Judge at the Graduate Exhibition, Performing Arts Section and Poster and Visual Arts Section at Penn State, 2011–2012
  • Redesign of online section Deutsch Heute, Fall 2011
  • German Coffee Hour, Co-coordinator, Texas Tech, 2008–2009

SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY

  • Co-Organizer of Twin Cities Film Festival, Germanic American Institute (GAI), Saint Paul, MN, since 2022
  • Grant Writer, Believet—Canine Service Partners, Northfield, MN, 2018–2019
  • Soprano, Le Donne, Women’s Choir, Northfield, MN, 2018–2019
  • Board Member, German American Partnership Program (GAPP), Northfield, MN, 2018–2019
  • Public Lecture “The Sound of Politics. Building and Destroying Socialism in East Germany through Music” with David Tompkins, Germanic American Institute St. Paul, Feb. 16, 2017
  • Public Lecture “Konzerthäuser und die Gesellschaft. Können sich Sinfonieorchester sozial engagieren?,” Lunch auf Deutsch, Germanic American Institute St. Paul, Oct. 7, 2016
  • PR and Marketing Intern, Chelsea Music Festival under the artistic leadership of Ken-David Masur and Melinda Lee Masur, New York City, 2014–2016
  • Board Member Audience Development, TanzTheater André Koslowski, State College, PA, 2014–2015
  • Chair of the Music Committee, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Centre County, State College, PA, 2012–2014
  • Youth Advisor, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Centre County, State College, PA, 2011–2014
  • Co-organizer, World Music Festival “L’Chaim,” Magdeburg, Germany, 2007

RELEVANT OTHER WORK

  • Rater for AAPPL (ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward proficiency in languages), LTI (Language Testing International) 2023-
  • Content Developer for Advanced Placement German Language and Cultural Assessment, Educational Testing Service (ETS) 2018–2022
  • Teacher for Music Readiness and German, State College Music Academy, 2011–2012
  • Instructor for German for Integrational Purposes, Internationale Bund in Wernigerode, Germany, 2010

LANGUAGES

  • German (native)
  • English (near-native)
  • French (beginner)
  • Spanish (beginner)
  • Latin (reading knowledge)

Current Memberships

  • Germanic American Institute (GAI)
  • Women in German (WiG)
  • German Studies Association (GSA)
  • The American Association of Teachers of German (AATG)
  • The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)
  • The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)