Latest News

The Department is thrilled to announce that Professor Michael Levine has received the School of Graduate Studies 2020 Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Award. This award recognize Professor Levine's ability to inspire and train students through close textual analysis, his success in stimulating lively and productive class discussions, and his extraordinary investment in graduate education not just in the classroom, but as faculty mentor and dissertation advisor, and in a variety of...

German major Mary Mehalick was recently published on NJ.com, writing her experiences being surrounded by stories of grief as an essential worker during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mary's piece is very well written and an emotional reminder of how this virus impacts all of us in many ways. 

We are pleased to share that Professor Nicholas Rennie has received the university-wide Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching for 2019-2020. The Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching, named to honor the memory of the noted historian and Rutgers University professor, Warren I. Susman, is awarded annually to tenured faculty members "in recognition of outstanding service in stimulating and guiding the intellectual development of students at Rutgers University."...

Graduate Student Steven Weinberg received the German Jewish Studies Research Award for 2020 from the Department of Jewish at Rutgers. Congratulations, Steve!

Dr. Tanja Rommelfanger has successfully defended her dissertation, “Wie bauen? Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Architektur der unmittelbaren Nachkriegszeit in Film, Radio und Zeitschrift,“ under the guidance of Prof. Fatima Naqvi. The dissertation committee with Professors Henry Sussman, Nicholas Rennie, and Nicola Behrmann was impressed by her unique approach and stellar research. Congratulations, Tanja!

Prof. Nicola Behrmann’s edited volume of the complete poems of Expressionist writer Emmy Hennings appeared with Wallstein Verlag. The 698-pages annotated volume has been co-edited with Simone Sumpf with the assistance of Louanne Burkhardt. Thea Popko, Jessica Fitzner, and Mary Mehalick, undergraduate majors at the German Department, also supported the editors as Aresty Research Assistants.

Congratulations to department Program Coordinator, Elizabeth deWolfe, who was awarded the SAS Staff Excellence Award for 2019.

Congratulations to Christiane Fischer who has been awarded a fellowship at the Center for Cultural Analysis (CCA) at Rutgers for the academic year 2020-2021. Christiane will be participating in an interdisciplinary seminar on “What is Photography” led by Professors Andrés Zervigón and William Galperin.

Congratulations to Steven Weinberg who is the recipient of a DAAD German Studies Research Grant in summer 2020. In addition, Steve has been selected to attend the Harvard World Literature Conference in Belgrade in 2020 as part of the Rutgers cohort.

Congratulations to Thomas Wallerberger who organized a national research project, “Aus Österreich vertriebene FürsorgerInnen” (Banished and Murdered Caretakers from Austria), together with Dr. Irene Messinger. The project is funded by the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, the Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich, and the FH Campus Wien (University of Applied Arts) in Vienna.

Click here to view our Spring 2020 undergraduate courses! To view our graduate course offerings for Spring 2020, please click here.

Congratulations to Professor Nicola Behrmann, who has been awarded the 2019 GSA/DAAD Award for Best Book in Germanistik/Cultural Studies for her monograph Geburt der Avantgarde – Emmy Hennings (Wallstein Verlag, 2018) LAUDATIO:This year’s German Studiesation prize for the best book in Germanistik and Cultural Studies is awarded to Nicola Behrmann’s Geburt der Avantgarde – Emmy Hennings, published by Wallstein Verlag in 2018. The book establishes Emmy Hennings as a central figure of the...

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The Department of German, Russian and East European Languages and Literatures is proud to present the 2019 Media Philology Summer Academy, in conjunction with Ruhr Universität Bochum. This event will be held from Tuesday, August 27, 2019 through Thursday, August 29, 2019 and is co-sponsored by the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, the DAAD, the Kade Foundation, and the University Alliance Ruhr. The Summer Academy is an intensive one-week exchange among professors...

Our Rutgers students participating in Summer 2019's study abroad program at the Free University of Berlin hosted a Rutgers Day toward the end of their six weeks in Berlin.    To learn more about the FUBIS summer study abroad program, click here!

Editor and Author Dr. Martin Mittelmeier will join the department in Fall 2019 as our Craig-Kade Scholar in Residence. He has worked for prestigious German publishing houses (Luchterhand Literaturverlag, Eichborn), where he was especially responsible for German literature. He now is a freelance editor. Click here to read more about Dr. Mittelmeier and the Craig-Kade program.

Congratulations to Professor Martha Helfer, who was awarded the SAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Education at the Professor Level in May 2019.

Congratulations to two of our graduate students who have won research awards for this summer! Anna Mayer received an Off-Dissertation Development award from the Rutgers School of Graduate Studies, which will allow her to undertake research related to her dissertation project on Digital Surveillance and Media Representation in Film and Literature of the 1970s and 1980s. Christiane Fischer was selected for a Mellon Dissertation Summer Study Award. This grant will enable her to do research at the...

Congratulations to three German students who have received awards or grants from the Program in Cinema Studies! Jessica Fitzner received the Cinema Studies Undergraduate award for a paper on feminism in the film Phoenix, written for Professor Naqvi's German film course. Eva Erber was a winner in the Cinema Studies Program Small Grants Program for Graduate Students. Christiane Fischer received the Cinema Studies Graduate award for a paper on the aesthetic of touch in Wong Kar-wai's cinema,...

Graduate Student Nicole Uberreich interviewed Tim Mohr, the translator of Stefanie de Velasco at the Festival Neue Literatur in March 2019.