Personnel
Faculty
Office Hours:
M & W, 11:30-1:00
Teaching and research interests: German dialectology, Germanic philology, the structure of Modern German, Dutch language, and German-American studies
Office Hours:
On research leave
Teaching interests: Twentieth-century German and Austrian literature and visual culture; German language; German-Jewish culture; theories of comedy and comic literature
Research interests: Twentieth-century German and Austrian literature and visual culture; German-Jewish modernity; theories of satire, comedy, tragedy and irony; the Frankfurt School/critical theory; Hegel and German Idealism
Office Hours:
T, R, 1-2 pm & by appt.
Teaching interests: nineteenth-century German, German-American literature and culture
Research interests: reception and transformation in nineteenth-century America of German cultural materials, immigrant identity formation, German nationalism and national identity, and nineteenth-century political drama and poetry
Office Hours:
M & W, 3:00-4:00 pm
Teaching interests: Applied linguistics, usage-based grammar, German
Research interests: Second language acquisition, longitudinal learner language development, learner corpus analysis, data-driven learning
Lecturers/ Academic Program Associates
Office Hours:
M & W, 3:00-4:00
Research and Teaching Interests: German and European visual culture and literature since 1700, intermedial encounters of literature and art, representation and narrative in museums, monuments, and tourist spaces, discourses of pathology, gender, and the body from Romanticism to the Weimar Republic
Office Hours:
M, W, & F, 11:00-12:00
Teaching interests: German for business and professional use
Retired Faculty
Teaching interests: modern German literature, especially of the twentieth century; prose fiction, women authors, and interdisciplinary approaches to literature
Research interests: German and Danish literature, German-Scandinavian literary relations, and exile studies
Lecturers & GTAs
Office Hours:
T, 12:00-12:30
Research and Teaching Interests: German Language & Culture and Comics/Graphic Novels.
Office Hours:
T, R 1-2 pm
Research interests: Teaching German Language and Culture, Teaching German Language in all Levels, Second Language Acquisition, German & Iranian Exile Literature, Exile writers, Linguistic research in the languages German, Farsi and Azeri.
Office Hours:
M, 1-2 pm, W, 10-11 am
Lena received her B.A. in Media Studies and English Language and Linguistics from the University of Trier, Germany. She is a graduate student in the Linguistics Department at KU. She is interested in second language acquisition, neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics.
Office Hours:
M & T, 1:00-3:00
Research and Teaching Interests: German Language and Culture, German Film and Television, Folk and Fairy Tale Adaptations in Film, Television, and Comics/Graphic Novels.
Affiliated Faculty
Professor Janzen is trained in comparative literature and focuses on German and Latin American literature.
Chris Johnson has been actively involved in the research program of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at KU. His primary focus has been the management of the Linguistic Atlas of Kansas German Dialects in conjunction with the digital humanities initiative at KU.
Professor Perelmutter teaches Yiddish language and is a specialist in Yiddish and Slavic linguistics and folklore.
Professor Rohrschneider specializes in comparative politics, with a focus on German politics.
Professor Rovit is a specialist in German theater with particular attention to the post-War legacy and the Holocaust.
Dr. Straughn is Andrew W. Mellon Director of Academic Programs at the Spencer Museum of Art. Her doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago examined Jewish art and expressionism in early twentieth-century Germany.
Staff
Savannah is the acting "Chief Librarian" of the Engel German Library in Wescoe Hall. Savannah is a native of Würzburg, Germany, and speaks German fluently. She is currently a Freshman at the University of Kansas, studying Human Biology on a Pre-Med track. She's excited to be a part of the KU School of Languages, Literatures & Cultures, and we are thrilled to have her on our team.
