Latest News

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.

The Department of German, Russian and East European Languages and Literatures is thrilled to welcome two new German professors to the faculty.       Regina Karl joined the department in Fall 2019 Dominik Zechner will join the department in Fall 2020. Click here to learn more about them!

Two of our current German students, Han Yan and Shuyu Chen, successfully presented their Aresty Research Project "World Languages at Rutgers: a Multimedia Project" at the Undergraduate Research Symposium of the 50th Anniversary Convention of the North-East Modern Language Association Conference (NeMLA), Washington DC, under the direction of Dr. Alexander Pichugin. NeMLA is a prestigious regional conference, and we are all very proud of their hard work!

Please click here to learn more about our PhD program!

Martha Helfer's Fairy Tales course was featured in Rutgers Today and the SAS News Digest. It's one of our department's most popular courses year after year - for good reason! Click here to read more.

Austrian director Markus Kupferblum will join the department in Fall 2018 as our Craig-Kade Scholar in Residence. He will teach our first undergraduate drama class. Click here to learn more about this exciting course!

Translator and writer Peter Wortsman will teach a graduate seminar (open to qualified undergraduates) on translation; he will also offer two workshops for the Rutgers community on translation. Click here to read more about this course!

A graduate student conference on the topic of "Shock" will take place on September 21, 2018 with keynote speaker Prof. Uwe Wirth (Gießen).

A 2018-19 lecture series will be devoted to new work on film and media studies, with guest speakers Genevieve Yue (The New School), Nora Alter (Temple University), and Cecilia Novero (University of Otago).

Prof. Fatima Naqvi's interview with director  Michael Haneke was published in Cineaste (Winter 2017); an interview book with Haneke, edited with Roy Grundmann (Boston University), will appear in Fall 2018.

Congratulations to Professor Michael Levine on the publication of his latest book, Atomzertrümmerung: Zu Einem Gedicht von Paul Celan, forthcoming in spring 2018. Click here to read more!

Prof. Bernhard Dotzler will join us in Spring 2018 as the Charlotte M. Craig Distinguished Visiting Professor. He will teach a graduate seminar on Exploring 1968 (16:470:670) and an undergraduate course in Film After Benjamin (01:470:390). Click here to learn more about Prof. Dotzler and the Craig Professorship.

Prof. Dr. Michael Speier joined us this fall as our Max Kade Scholar in Residence / Charlotte M. Craig Research Scholar. His graduate seminar devoted itself to new "Dunkles zu sagen" - Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan (470:672:01). Click here to read more about Dr. Speier and the Craig-Kade program.

Congratulations to Shelby McMullan, who has been awarded the Henry Rutgers Scholar Award for her thesis "Fantasies of Fear: Male Hysteria and Media Technology from E.T.A. Hoffman to David Lynch", advised by Professor Nicola Behrmann. The Henry Rutgers Scholar Award recognizes graduating seniors who have competed outstanding independent research projects leading to a thesis in their major field of study or an interdisciplinary thesis.

In 2017, University Commencement will be held on Mother's Day, and quite a few of the 2017 School and Arts of Sciences graduates are also mothers. German language and literature major Kendis Pacholec will complete her BA in 2017, after balancing single parenthood, working, and her studies.

Over the course of Spring and Summer 2013, we remodeled our department seminar room at 172 College Avenue, thanks to a generous grant from the Max Kade Foundation. Below are photos of the amazing transformation. Before During After