On the afternoon of August 22, GSLL hosted a welcome party for new and returning faculty and teaching assistants and also celebrated the retirement of Ingrid Sixberry. An instructor of German who came to the department in 1992, Ingrid has taught all levels of German language, including Business German. She has also served as an examiner for our Goethe-Institut language certificate exams. Known for her energy, her integrity, and her expertise, Ingrid will be missed by faculty and students alike, but we look forward to seeing her at future GSLL events.

For additional photos, click here.

Once a month the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures schedules a Colloquium, typically held on Wednesday afternoons. This past fall the Department sponsored 3 such seminars:

Wednesday, September 19, 2007: Thomas Hollweck presented “Literature, Politics and Human Rights. The Correspondence between Hermann Broch and Eric Voegelin 1939 – 1949.”

Wednesday, October 24, 2007: Artemi Romanov presented his paper “Intergenerational Communication and the Elderly in Russia.”

Wednesday, November 28, 2007: Beverly Weber presented “Considering The Foreign Bride: Violence, Gender and Activism for Change.”

The Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures celebrated their spring and summer 2007 Commencement Reception on the afternoon of May 10th , 2007. Congratulations to all of our graduates and their families.

Please click here for a list of all of our 2007 graduates.

Russian Cultural week was celebrated in April, with many in the Department participating. Please click here for information about this fun-filled week.

From copy submitted by Artemi Romanov.

In April 2007 GSLL hosted NFLC (National Foreign Language Center) Research Associate Natalia Romanova, a designer of and leading expert on LangNet. LangNet is a web-based integrated language training system designed for self-directed foreign language learners who generally range from advanced beginners to near-native speakers (proficiency levels ILR 1+ TO ILR 4), and want to practice and maintain their target language reading and listening skills. LangNet consists of quality language learning and teaching resources in the form of self-contained interactive instructional units, or Learning Objects (LOs), which are developed around an authentic foreign language text (article, report, or an audio clip) through a pre-defined collaborative production. LangNet was created with the support of the US Government (Departments of Defense, Education and State) and is now one of the U.S. government's premier resources for foreign language training. It currently includes instructional materials in some 33 languages, including Amharic, Arabic (Modern Standard, Egyptian, Iraqi, Levantine, Sudanese), Bengali, Chechen, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Dari, Farsi, French, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Kurdish (Sorani), Pashto, Persian, Quechua, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Turkmen, Urdu, Uzbek, and West Punjabi. LangNet also provides Self-Assessments, Learning Profiles and individual Learning Plans.

Natalia Romanova gave a lecture and workshop on LangNet that introduced foreign language faculty (from SPAN, FRIT, GSLL, EALC) and graduate students to LangNet and Learning Objects. Participants learned to navigate the Learning Object, to recognize its components and tools and to understand the pedagogical goal of each activity. The workshop was co-organized by GSLL and ALTEC.

Over 100 graduate students from universities in the United States and abroad met at the University of Colorado in Boulder in February this year to present papers on the theme “LITERARY ODYSSEYS: The Journeys in and of Literature.” Presenters discussed the topic of journeys as expressed in literature, literary theory, language, classics, religion, film and fine art in twenty-four sessions. All sessions were open to members of the campus community.

The conference was organized by graduate students in the Department of Comparative Literature with the support and participation of faculty and students from other departments in the arts and humanities.

The Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures was among the conference sponsors, and two faculty members from the department chaired conference sessions:

Adrian Del Caro:	“The Transgressive Journey”
Davide Stimilli:	“Nostalgia and the Voyage Home”

Graduate students associated with this department presented the following papers:

Petra Landfester:	“Reality and Fiction: Exile as a Necessity to Change in Ransmayr’s The Last World”
Meghan Vicks:	“The Trickster’s Tracks; or, The Wandering Atom: A Literary Metaphor for Atomism”
Donna Stockton:	Translating Dialect – Translating Identity in Det sjuende møte by Herbjørg Wassmo

Joel Morris, a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University who previously taught German at CU, presented a paper titled “Kafka’s Mountain Excursions.”

Two nationally-known scholars were invited to speak at the conference. Daniel Schwarz of Cornell University delivered the keynote address titled “The Odyssean Reader,” and Helmut Müller-Stevens of Northwestern University delivered the plenary lecture titled “Preateritio. Figures of Exile and Return in Hélène Cixous’s novel From Benjamin to Montaigne.”

The British Studies Room in Norlin Library served as the conference center and a gathering place. Participants met here for breakfasts, coffee breaks, and the closing reception. The opening reception, an informal affair with lots of good food and lively conversation, was held at the Burnt Toast Restaurant on The Hill.

Thanks to the organizational skills of the graduate students on the planning committee, the support of faculty, and the excellent presentations and enthusiasm of the participants, Literary Odysseys was a success both academically and socially. Events such as this serve to develop the skills and networks of the participating graduate students, while enhancing the University of Colorado’s reputation nationally as a top-quality academic institution.