News about the German Graduate Program:

The German MA Program is looking forward to an exciting year. We’ve expanded our faculty, and we will be conducting an international search for a new colleague at the assistant professor level. Our current students are doing interesting work in German and in a number of other fields, and we will be looking for strong applicants to our graduate degree programs.

The additions to our faculty allow us to offer a wider range of courses and advising possibilities to the graduate students in three active degree programs: the MA in German Studies, the concurrent BA and MA, and the concurrent MA and MBA. With support from the Max Kade Foundation and the Graduate School, we’re lucky enough to be able to support most of our graduate students with fellowships and teaching assistantships during their studies, and our interdisciplinary program in German Studies allows students to combine their interest in German with work in other academic fields, such as Education, Political Science, Linguistics, Comparative Literature, and Philosophy.

New faculty:

Professor Henry Pickford joined the German Program in August, 2006. He received his PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale and his MA in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. He has published articles on Benjamin, Adorno, Celan, Mandelshtam, and the philosophy of language. He also published an acclaimed critical edition and translation of T. W. Adorno’s “Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords” (Columbia UP 1998, second ed. 2006) and several translations from German and Russian. His teaching and research on literature and philosophy will make a significant contribution to our program.

In addition to Prof. Pickford, we also have three new additions to our expanded graduate faculty: Prof. Clark Farmer from Film Studies; Prof. David Ferris from Comparative Literature; and Prof. Michael Zimmerman from the Center for Humanities and the Arts. By offering expertise and advising in other fields, the expanded graduate faculty members serve as a valuable resource for our graduate students doing interdisciplinary work.

News from our graduate students:

We’re pleased to welcome to the department two new students, Lena Heilmann and Katja Rott. Lena Heilmann studied English Literature and Global Literature as an undergraduate at CU-Boulder, and she plans on pursuing a PhD in German or Comparative Literature. She’s especially interested in twentieth-century women writers. Katja Rott studied German and Russian at Principia College, the University of Munich, and the Smolney Institute in St. Petersburg, and she comes to us after a year of teaching at a Gymnasium in Innsbruck. She will combine her studies of German with either History of Art or Museum Studies.

In spring 2006, the first student completed our concurrent MA/MBA program, and in spring 2007, Danica Reno will finish the program. Here are some words from Danica about the program: “My experience thus far in the MA/MBA program at CU has been overwhelmingly positive. Since I came to CU with an aerospace engineering degree, I had little background in either literary studies or business. However, the courses in both fields make the material more accessible and easier to understand than one might expect. I have had some fantastic professors in both the German and Business departments, and I really appreciate the international perspective that the dual degree provides. For those who would like further international experience after the program, CU is one of the few schools that participate in the Enterprise Corps program, which is much like the Peace Corps, but for MBA graduates, and which allows them to put their knowledge to use in emerging and transitioning economies. There are many career opportunities outside of the non-profit sector as well, and I have found the MBA Career Center amazingly helpful in finding summer internships and introductions for full-time employment.”

Patrick Greaney, Graduate Associate Chair
greaney@colorado.edu