Letter from the Department Head

Dear Alumni and Friends,

If you have not visited our departmental Web site in a while, I invite you to go to http://german.la.psu.edu. Over the past year we have completely revamped the site with the help of graphic designer and artist Claudia Mauner. Our goal was to create a Web site that looks artistic yet is easy to navigate. New features include a bulletin of latest news, new hires, and new books published by our faculty. (We have quite a few of these!) Most importantly for you, we also created a special “Alumni” rubric. On this page you will find electronic versions of current and past newsletters, information about the Pennsylvania German Day, as well as stories about students and alumni.

You might particularly enjoy the article by Jennifer Azari, a junior who spent last fall in Kiel and will be teaching English in China this summer. Her essay, which was a runner-up in Glimpse magazine’s fall 2004 writing contest, “Foregone Conclusions,” describes how living in Germany shattered both her stereotypes about Germans (“The Germans wear lederhosen, drive their Volkswagens and BMWs 200 mph on the Autobahn and eat their sausage and Wurst with copious amounts of beer.”) and the perceived ideas many Germans have about Americans. A comment that she frequently heard in Kiel was: “Du bist nicht eine typische Amerikanerin.” She explains: I now understood what they meant. The idea of the “typical American” was amassed from TV shows, news programs and popular culture. Taking cues from Britney Spears and Alicia Silverstone's character from Clueless, the international students had reached the consensus that an American girl was a giddy, blond-haired, blue-eyed cheerleader who preferred fashion to Fussball, had no knowledge of politics or other cultures and whose idea of a foreign language was Canadian English. That was the American my friends in Kiel had envisioned. It turns out my curly brown hair, my near-fluent German and my enthusiasm for sports didn't mesh with that image. During my time in Germany, I had learned precisely what I was teaching others: while molds are created from real and recurring patterns, they are never one size fits all.

Challenging stereotypes on both sides of the Atlantic is an important mission of our department, especially at a time when America and Europe seem to be drifting ever more apart from each other. We pride ourselves on the fact that the study abroad rate of our majors is among the highest in the College of the Liberal Arts. The decision to move for a semester or a whole year to an unknown, far-away place is not always easy. An important factor in that decision is the amount of financial aid that the student is able to receive to defray the extra costs associated with study abroad. I believe that the funds that we have been providing for this purpose, thanks to the generous contributions from our alumni, have made a genuine difference. It certainly has been money well invested.

Our Student Marshal this year, Sara Hayden, provides another example of a study abroad success story. Sara began her studies at Penn State in International Agriculture (which is still one of her three minors), but spending the spring semester 2000 at Moscow State Agroengineering University “converted” her into a liberal arts language and literature major. She is now graduating from the Schreyer Honors College with a double major in Russian and German. After her graduation, she is planning to continue her graduate studies in Russian and German at the University of Marburg, Germany, where she spent the academic year 2003–04 as an exchange student.

Given the Slavo-Teutonic nature of our department, I am of course pleased to see a student graduating in both Russian and German! Sara Hayden is not unique in that respect. Another graduating senior in German this year is also minoring in Russian. At the graduate level, we currently have two Russians in our program studying German linguistics and literature, and we just recruited a third Russian, holding a degree in German applied linguistics from Moscow State Linguistics University and an M.A. from Bowling Green University, who will join our German Ph.D. program this fall.

I am pleased to mention that we will also have two new faculty members on board next year. Carrie Jackson will join the department in fall 2005 as an assistant professor in German and linguistics. She has recently finished her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, specializing in Germanic linguistics and second language acquisition. Her research and teaching interests include psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and foreign language pedagogy. Over the years she has taught a wide range of German language courses, as well as Dutch and English as second language courses, both at University of Wisconsin—Madison and at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned her M.A. in 2001. She is also an accomplished violinist, which will greatly enhance our Weihnachtsliederabend in December!

The other addition to our faculty is Dennis Schmidt, a professor of philosophy at Penn State since 2002, who will begin a partial appointment in the German department as of fall 2005. Professor Schmidt's areas of specialization include ancient philosophy, post-Kantian continental philosophy, aesthetics, and literary criticism. He is the author of several books, including Lyrical and Ethical Subjects (SUNY Press, 2005); On Germans and Other Greeks (Indiana University Press, 2001); and The Ubiquity of the Finite (MIT Press, 1988). Among his current research projects are a book about the idea of nature and an investigation of the notion of freedom. He is presently finishing a memoir about his teacher, Hans-Georg Gadamer, entitled Becoming A Philosopher: On Memory and Responsibility. In the coming semesters, Professor Schmidt will teach a seminar on tragedy and an introduction to German philosophy for graduate students in German literature.

Let me conclude this newsletter by mentioning that our fourth annual Pennsylvania German Day will take place on Saturday, October 22. Our topic this year is Pennsylvania German textiles. The speakers will be Elaine Mercer from Belleville and Janneken Smucker from the University of Delaware, both experts in textile history and Amish quilts. The program will include two lectures in the morning, a luncheon and an afternoon visit of an Amish family in Big Valley, where we will have a practical quilting demonstration. More detailed information, including a program flyer and a sign-up form, will be sent to you later this summer. We will also provide updated information on our departmental Web site. As always, alumni are especially invited to join us for this special event.

I hope that I will be able to meet you at the Pennsylvania German Day or some other occasion. Please do not hesitate to stop by my office if you are planning a visit to Happy Valley, or e-mail me your thoughts, comments and news at ajw3@psu.edu.

With many thanks again for your loyal support of our department and best wishes, I am

Yours sincerely,

 

Adrian Wanner Department Head and Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature

P.S. Since the College of the Liberal Arts is moving to an electronic format for all communications with alumni, this will be the last copy of the Newsletter that you receive via traditional "snail mail."  Future issues will be sent to you via e-mail.  Issues will also continue to be posted on our departmental Web site.

If you are a member of the Penn State Alumni Association, we should have your e-mail address on file.  If not, please send your e-mail address to cqb2@psu.edu so that we can keep in touch with you!