Kristine Bornus to Attend Summer Session in Trier, Germany, through a Georgetown University Program

  

Congratulations Kristine on being accepted to this presitigous summer program.
What a great way to move ahead in German Studies! We are proud of you.

Summer Term in Germany through Georgetown University 

Andrea Terhaar '02, German and Art History Double Major, Lives in Belgium, Tells of Her Adventures Abroad.

Hope you and the German department are well! It's so nice to hear from you, I think often of my wonderful German and Art History professors at CSBSJU.  I definitely have used my German major in a variety of capacities since graduating in 2002:
   2002-03 - I spent a year teaching in Vienna Austria with the Fulbright program - did much traveling in the meanwhile, and really came into fluency over the course of the year.
   Although I was a German and Art History major at CSBSJU, my experience teaching abroad revealed my love for teaching in general, so I went back the the UMN (mpls campus) for my Masters of Education in English. I taught at the secondary level in the Centennial District (Lino Lakes) for almost seven years - primarily English (which evidently German language studies have often come up when reading Shakespeare, etc). During my tenure there, and due to my German major, I was given the opportunity to teach one semester of German as a fill in for a teacher who had to suddenly leave the district. It was a wonderful semester of beginning Deutsch! Lots of fun, grammar, culture, role plays throughout the class.
   Last spring 2011, my husband and I moved to Brussels, Belgium and I am now teaching in one of the European Schools here, as an English and Ethics teacher to all the kids of EU consulates. I am using my German daily in a number of ways - directly with students and fellow colleagues, in translating Dutch (quite similar to German), traveling to Germany, and also in my every day research/reading/pleasure. I am now learning French, since it is the primary language in Brussels, however feel so at home when I am able to use my German, to me, such a wonderful and familiar language. I'm very happy to have been a German major and continue to read, speak and enjoy using it!
   Please give my regards to the German department faculty and students. Please feel free to pass on the link to our blog!  http://andreajohnbelgium.com/

Alles Gute im neuen Jahr,
Andrea (Terhaar) Krueger
arterhaar@yahoo.com

Robert Mevissen Enters Georgetown MA and PhD Studies in German and Modern European History

Hello all!
     I'm sorry that it's been a while since most of you have heard from me! Since graduation from CSB/SJU, life hasn't slowed down very much for me, which is just fine but hardly leaves room for my correspondence career. Most of you probably know that I just spend the last two years living, studying and working in Vienna- after meeting friends, exploring the city, playing in a first rate orchestra and finally feeling as though I could get used to this "European lifestyle," I realized that if my career plan had taken a definitive Austrophilic turn and I hoped to get back there sometime (professor of history at the University of Vienna?), I should probably continue my education and make myself slightly more valuable (those Austrians seem to love their "Magister" title, and most of my students agreed that "Bachelor Bertl" didn't sound so impressive on a CV).
     Thanks in part to a very supportive group of people, I sent in my applications to graduate schools last fall- I applied to a lot of Midwest universities to pursue PhD studies and a few DC-based schools for MAs. Fortunately, my decision was very easy (only my first choice school accepted me into its PhD program), so, I am now in Washington, DC (with my girlfriend Elisabeth- whom I met in Vienna) having just completed my first semester at Georgetown University. My program is a joint "MAGES-PhD" degree, which means that I will receive an MA in German and European Studies and a PhD in Modern European history.
     The MA curriculum focuses entirely on current (or modern historical) European events, such as EU institutions, European Economy, European cultural theory, etc. I've recreated EU Council Summits, written papers dissecting the German response to the Euro crisis and (true to my roots) I've just finished writing my final economics paper on the "Production, Consumption and Marketing of Austrian Wines," which unfortunately did not lead to any "field" research. The PhD curriculum, which I am completing simultaneously, is very heavy in historical theory, which is fascinating and frustratingly difficult to understand (have any of you read "Metahistory" by Hayden White- holy cow!). My fields of study as of now are the Austrian and German Empires in the 19th century, nationalism and European empire-building. And with my newfound knowledge in gender, class and subaltern narrative building, I hope not to silence too many voices in the course of my research.
     Both groups of students with whom I am studying are amazing- the MAGI (our nickname for the MA cohort) are fun, spunky, highly intelligent individuals, who all foresee "State Department" or "CIA" in their future. The PhD crowd is a bit more subdued, perhaps because they realize that they have five years of school in front of them still, but they are also very insightful and endearing personalities. Although the historians stick to themselves, the MAGES department has a lot of contact with the PhD students in the German department here (maybe because we meet up every Thursday to practice our German at "Stammtisch"), and at the beginning of the year, I met Brooke Kreitinger - a former Bennie! Don't worry, dear French professors, I am also maintaining a good level of French, having enrolled in a French language/culture course and practicing with the three other MAGI who also speak French- one of whom is from France. Although the fourteen other students in the program poke fun at us when we speak French in the BMW Center, we've decided that they're just jealous that they peuvent pas parler francais.
     As I said, I am now finishing up the semester! The great news that I wanted to share with you involves my recently-discovered summer plans! At the beginning of November, I applied through the State Department to work at an overseas embassy. I just found out that the US Embassy in Vienna accepted my application, so I will be going back to Austria this summer for ten weeks to work as an intern in the embassy's Economic-Political section (http://austria.usembassy.gov/econ.html). I am massively excited, as that was exactly what I hoped to be doing! After having quickly responded that I was interested in taking the internship, I got another email yesterday from the US Embassy in Berlin, who had also accepted my application. It was very difficult to write back and decline the position.
     In any event, life is good and thanks to all of you who got me here, I feel well-prepared for it!! I hope that the fall semester back at CSB/SJU was a grand success. I would love to hear from each of you and find out what is going on, so once you have the time, please write!! If anyone mentions that there is snow on the ground, I might become insanely jealous, as DC seems to be experiencing a resurgence of warm weather (like "shorts, t-shirt and umbrella" weather). I'm excited to return home to my family in Minnesota in a few weeks, once all my final papers are written...

I hope you are all well!! Take care!

Gratefully yours,

Robert

ps. I've also attached a recent photo of my in front of a bus that I saw in DC last week, which made me happy! Also, don't mind the scruffy look- it's "no-shave November" and it was my first time ever participating...

Prof Mark Thamert Presents at Denver Conference

Summary of the Presentation Given at the November 2011 American Association of Teachers of German National Conference in Denver:

         Grooveshark, Goethe, Good Poems, Good Music
     The greatest of German poems have always enjoyed a rich history of interpretations, or Rezeptionsgeschichte.  Some of the m,ost provocative poems have garnered hundreds of interpretations from their first date of publication to the present. Each of these interpretations reveals something of the intellectual interests of the age and literary milieu in which it was written.
     What are often overlooked are the astonishing musical interpretations of these poems. Goethe's "Erlkönig," for example, elicited over 150 different musical settings since its first publication, a good many of them now available for listening on the web.
     When teaching upper-division German seminars, I ask students to work through a particular poem thoroughly, by comparing it to poems with a similar theme, by memorizing and performing parts or the entire poem, and then by listening to contrasting musical renditions of the poem. For example, on the theme of Geister we will work through classic poems like Goethe's "Erlkönig," "Der Zauberlehrling," and "Der Totentanz." Herder's "Erlkönigs Tochter" provides a fascinating foil for Goethe's "Erlkönig." We explore the theme of Geister further by working through Heine's "Mein Wagen rollet langsam," and "Die Lorelei" along with Brentano's "Lore Lay." Also included are Eichendorff's "Waldgespräch" and Droste-Hülshoff's "Der Knabe im Moor."
     There are about twenty other themes which provide for productive comparisons and assignments. Let me give you an example of three of them:
 
Wanderleider

• Eichendorff, "Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen"
• Goethe, "Wanderers Nachtlied I," "Wanderers Nachtlied II"

Abend

• Eichendorff, "Im Abendrot," "Wiegenlied," "Mondnacht," "Zwielicht"
• Goethe, "An den Mond"

 Liebe

• Goethe, "Mailied"
• Heine, "Im wunderschönen Monat Mai"
• Mörike, "Frühling," "Im Frühling"
• Rilke, "Vorfrühling"
• Uhland, "Der Frühlingsglaube"

     What follows are YouTube and Vimeo clips of Goethe's "Erlkönig" as well as Heine's "Die Lorelei."  There are also dozens of performances one can listen to on the web site called Grooveshark, at no charge.  A teacher or student can also go to Apple's iTunes store to download the very finest performances for 99 cents per track.  In the poetry courses I teach, I assign willing students the task of composing their own version of the poems we cover and putting those on YouTube or Vimeo.  Here are some sample clips of "Erlkönig" and "Die Lorelei." 

Erlkönig (Schubert): Anne Sofie von Otter singing Schubert’s Erlkönig. (3:56)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdhRYMY6IEc ;  Erlkönig - Franz Schubert: Male Vocalist with paintings of the Erlkönig legend in video. (4:03)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuG7Y6wiPL8;

Beethoven - WoO.131 ‘completed’ version of Erkönig http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyZXjRCWpl0;   Rammstein feat. Thordred –Erlkönig: modern rock version with spoken poem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrH8yq_O79I; Dalai Lama - Rammstein Lyrics and English Translation: Rammstein’s Modern interpretation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_HFjxwTDJU;

Der Erkönig : animated reading of Erlkönig http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCK1hAnqDH4;

Der Erlkönig : Animated interpretation of Erkönig by a German Animated Film school http://vimeo.com/8075849;  erlkönig – elfking : Black-white animation with English subtitles

http://vimeo.com/3131239 ; Erlkonig: Portuguese film school product, staged, modern thought to poem. http://vimeo.com/16861395

___________________

Richard Tauber Sings die Lorelei 1939: Silcher version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJweIV8OqT8&feature=related;  Joan Sutherland - Die Loreley (Ich weiss nicht) 1960 live recital: Liszt version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11ITR2nMJHM&feature=related; Die Lorelei - Erich Kunz – 1939: a capella version from Erich Kunz with lyrics on screen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_uxCtoJDrY; "Die Lorelei" von Heinrich Heine (Poetry reading): includes English subtitles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwFZ5gpuBHE;  Lorelei – Scorpions : Modern rock rendition of the legend of Lorelei by Scorpions in English; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcis6NHUCIQ;  The Pogues – Lorelei: Light rock version of legend of Lorelei in English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfPlBBx0KIY

     Conclusion.  Teaching great German poetry becomes an even richer experience when students and teacher can compare and contrast brilliant musical performances of the greatest German poems. Students learn about Rezeptionsgeschichte by exploring questions like, "Why is this 20th century rendition so different from the version written in 1820?  What was happening in Europe during these times?  If you were to compose a song using this poem, how would your music differ from the music we have listened to?" 

   For a full list of 250 German poems I have grouped by theme for this course, please contact me at mthamert@csbsju.edu .



Brittany Boll Takes Position in New Prague as German Teacher; Nick Elsen and Brittany to Wed Next Summer

     Hey Pater Mark its Brittany and Nick. Brittany is teaching German at New Prague High School. They have an incredibly strong German program with a ton of German club students. She is enjoying it a lot! Nick is working with adults with disabilities, managing the education program. We will be getting married on August 18th and our ceremony will be at the Gorecki center.

    Advice for current German students: having a language degree truly opens a lot of doors in the working world. Combining a language degree with another can be a dynamic duo. Also studying abroad is so important to have on your resume. It shows that you are a global citizen and can bring a unique experience to their business. Hope all is well with you Pater Mark!

The Nürnberg Tradition of Gingerbread Houses Comes to CSB/SJU -- Weihnachten 2011

On December 5th, 2011 the CSB/SJU German Club brought some German Christmas Spirit to campus. With the help of Paula Doebel, a local Gingerbread connoisseur, around 25 students assembled and decorated Gingerbread houses to what some considered the perfection of a master. Students enjoyed the change from their studious atmosphere and brought out their creative sides to craft houses to their liking.

Building houses from the foundation up can prove difficult, but the students met the challenge with gusto and ultimately overwhelming success. With the roofs attached and sturdy, the artwork flowed from the icing bags. The end result showed a wide variety of houses, some with candy-shingled roofs, trees made of pretzels, snowed in porches, backyard swing sets, functioning chimneys, and cobblestone pathways.

The event focused on the creation of Lebkuchen in Nuremberg, Germany and how it has evolved to gingerbread houses. Paula explained how one would make gingerbread from scratch and how best to bake it for not only houses, but gingerbread men and other holiday treats.

Students loved their accomplishments and thoroughly enjoyed showing them off to friends and surely bragged about them to their families.

The German Club would like to Thank Paula for her expert work on this event, and all those who came and put together houses fit for the Christmas table centerpiece.

CNN and Mercer's 2011 Quality of Living Index Name 7 of the Top 10 Cities in the World are in Germany, Austria and Switzerland!

(CNN) – The city of Freud, Klimt and the famed Spanish riding school is top of the pops when it comes to the world’s best cities to live in, according to a new survey.

For the third successive year, Vienna was ranked number one as European cities claimed more than half of the top 25 positions in Mercer's 2011 Quality of Living index, which awards points for a range of criteria, including political and economic stability, culture, health and sanitation, quality of schools, public services and housing.

Zurich in neighboring Switzerland came in second, while New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, was third in the list of 221 cities worldwide.

Top 10 (quality of life):

1. Vienna (Austria)

2. Zurich (Switzerland)

3. Auckland (New Zealand)

4. Munich (Germany)


5. Dusseldorf (Germany)

6. Vancouver (Canada)

7. Frankfurt (Germany)


8. Geneva (Switzerland)


9. Bern (Switzerland)

10. Copenhagen (Denmark)

Matt Beck '09 Teaches in Germany and in China

Hallo Freunde!

Since graduating from CSB/SJU with a degree in German, my life as taken a few interesting turns. Last year, I worked for the Fulbright program in Germany as an English teaching assistant. While there, I decided to spend one more year abroad before beginning to teach in the United States. One of my friends from college was teaching in China and suggested that I apply to his program.

I did so, and I received a teaching position at Zhanjiang Normal University in Zhanjiang, China. Unfortunately, there was a problem processing my visa which led to me being unable to teach at the university level. Without another employment option but still wanting to spend some more time abroad, I decided to begin studying Chinese at the same university where I would have taught.

Studying Chinese here has been quite an experience. For starters, there are only two students in my classes: myself and another one of my college friends who is in the same situation as I am. Also, I'm almost a complete beginner in Chinese, only having met with a tutor a few times in Germany. I have fourteen classes a week here covering all aspects of the Chinese language: speaking, listening, reading, writing, and grammar. So far, the most challenging part has been reading and writing characters. Since each character represents a syllable, a person needs to know a few thousand to be able to read well. To date, I've been able to learn a few hundred. I'm starting to see some patterns, though, and the process of memorizing characters and how to write them correctly is constantly getting easier.

Aside from learning Chinese, I've also found part time jobs at a couple of English tutoring schools. These schools, independent companies that offer weekend classes for interested students, are quite common here. My students range in age from elementary school to high school. Teaching so many different levels is difficult, but rewarding and engaging. It makes me miss full-time teaching, and I hope to get a university position (as well as a matching visa) next semester.

German continues to play a large role in my life. In my free time, I've been keeping my language skills fresh by reading German literature and keeping in touch with my German speaking friends. Also, I've recently been rereading some of the works that we covered in my German romanticism course. Those who know me well know that my study of German led to a passion for the complexities of Turkish immigration to Germany as well as Turkish culture. I had the opportunity to travel to Istanbul when I was working in Germany, and I've been spending quite a bit of time lately reading Turkish novels by Elif Shafak and Orhan Pamuk.

Choosing to study German doesn't necessarily mean that you'll need to find a job in Germany or one that requires language skills. It does, however, open doors to a wide variety of careers and interests. As a freshman at CSB/SJU, I never imagined that I would graduate from college interested in Turkish culture or that I would one day be studying Chinese in China, but my choice to study Germany led to these interests and adventures. Personally, I'm planning on keeping German in my future, and I would like to come back to the United States next year and teach it.

Liebe Grüße aus China!
Matt Beck

Why take German at CSB/SJU?

Picture yourself studying German on our two beautiful campuses -- Saint Ben's and Saint John's -- and at our two campuses in Europe, Salzburg and Ingolstadt!  The architecture, woods and lakes of Saint Ben's and Saint John's reflect the parts of Bavaria where our founders came from.

Program Highlights -- You Can:
• Study abroad and do an internship in Germany or Austria
• Become friends with teaching assistants from Germany who live at CSB and SJU!
• Join the German Club – and make life-long friends who also love to travel and learn about languages and cultures

Often students taking German at Saint Ben's and Saint John's plan their four-year schedule to include a major or minor in German as well as a major or minor in another subject like music, physics, chemistry, economics, psychology, French, education, art,  or political science. Actually, any combination is possible and desirable in our increasingly global world.

German is also a popular major or minor for pre-med, pre-law and pre-engineering students.  Give yourself an edge in the global economy and in global research by becoming immersed in a culture that lies at the heart of Europe.

Class offerings include:  German History, Culture, and Civilization, German Conversation and Composition, Literature from the 19th and 20th century, The Age of Goethe, German Poetry.

Our CSB/SJU students heading into the salt mines near Salzburg

Study German, see the World.  Fall Term your Sophomore or Junior Year  join your friends to study in Salzburg, one of the most beautiful cities in the world!  Besides becoming fluent in spoken German, you will learn about the cultures surrounding German and Austria by seeing them first-hand!  Saint John’s and Saint Ben’s are ranked number one in the country for the number of students who student abroad!

The architecture of Salzburg is stunning!

Live in Salzburg, the city of Mozart's music, majestic mountains,
and many architectural masterpieces.

Picture yourself hiking in the Austrian Alps

Take classes at the world famous University of Salzburg including political science, art history, philosophy, senior seminar, and of course German!.  Join your friends on excursions to destinations in Austria and Germany to enhance your knowledge of history, art and architecture, and cultural differences within German-speaking lands.

The main street of Salzburg -- beautiful!

Picture yourself taking advantage of cultural events, folk festivals, art museums, skiing in the Alps, soccer matches and world-class concerts!

 

In Salzburg you will be living and studying in the very center of Europe, within easy reach of cities like Munich, Nuremberg, Prague, Rome, Berlin, Budapest, Paris, Venice and Athens

For more information about our program in German, please Google us at CSBSJU German or email us at mthamert@csbsju.edu

Study with enthusiastic professors who love European culture, music, philosophy, film studies, politics, gender studies, literature, art, architecture and taking students abroad.  Pictured here are professors Wendy Sterba, Lisa Ohm, Andreas Kiryakakis and  Mark Thamert.   We are here to help you get the most out of your four-year plan.

 Take more German.

See where it takes You.

German Minor:

212, 311, 312, plus four more courses

German Major:

212, 311, 312, plus eight more courses

The beauty of our campuses in Minnesota and Austria is astonishing!

Professor Lisa Ohm to Give Talk about the Life and Oevre of the Author of H e i d i

On November 14, 2011, German Studies Professor, Dr. Lisa Ohm, will be giving a talk in the Collegial Conversation Series titled, "How to Write about the Life, Genius, and Considerable Oeuvre of Johanna Heusser Spyri (1827-1901), Who, Being Shy and Retiring, Burned Her Documents, and Whose Good Name Has Been Buried Under Unauthorized Sequels, Knock-Offs, Films, Animated Films, Manga, and Online Porno Sites Referencing Her Universally Beloved Heidi."

Professor Lisa Ohm comments about her research interests, "The nearly forgotten German-Swiss writer Johanna Heusser Spyri wrote forty-nine novels and stories, about half of which were translated into English in the early twentieth century and shelved in the juvenile sections of libraries, but no other work has been as phenomenally successful as Heidi. The thesis in my book on Spyri and her works is that her Double Bildungsroman Heidi, like her other works, is communal and social, speaking to the urban-rural conflict in the nineteenth century and echoed in today’s global conflicts. I examine Spyri’s works and the unauthorized sequels, and suggest that Spyri herself may have intended to write a sequel to Heidi with her novel Sina published in 1884, three years after Heidi’s appearance. Today’s youngsters may know Heidi only through one or more of the two dozen Heidi films or television series, including the animated series by Japanese producer/director Isao Takahata, which further popularized the children’s classic, bringing a Disney-like line of commercial products in tow. Spyri research also got a boost with a 2001 conference in Switzerland on the one-hundredth anniversary of her death. With my book, I hope to promote further research on Spyri and her works, especially here in the United States."

Faculty and guests are encouraged to join Lisa and other colleagues at 5:00 p.m. for a social and then dinner at 6:45 following Lisa’s presentation.  Please contact Shirley Kelly via email or by phone at ext. 3147 by November 3 to make a reservation for dinner.