of Victoria
Slavic StudiesNavigation
PhD 1998 (McGill)
Germanic Studies, Language Teaching, Film, Visual Arts
I hold my degrees from Queens and McGill, with studies in Trier and a PAD assistantship in the Saarland in between. I began teaching at UVic in 1997 as a sessional, became a regular faculty member in 2004, and was promoted to Associate Teaching Professor in 2019. Film, language teaching, and visual arts (mainly painting) are my primary personal and teaching interests.
This coming September I will be teaching and coordinating GMST 101 with our new guest DAAD lecturer Christina Seeck and my colleague Dr. Elena Pnevmonidou. Last semester Dr. Helga Thorson and I successfully piloted the open educational resource Grenzenlos Deutsch as the new “textbook” for GMST 101. I look forward to continuing with this curriculum, not only for GMST 101 but also for GMST 102 in the Spring of 2025.
In terms of culture courses, I will be offering GMST 100 (Introduction to Germanic Studies), in which we explore and become informed about German-speaking culture and identity. I am particularly excited to offer once again an introduction to Franz Kafka (GMST 367), a course which is cross-listed with the English Studies program as ENSH 340K.
In January, I will be continuing my commitment to German language teaching with GMST 101 and 102. Finally, after a three-year hiatus, the extraordinary art movement German Expressionism will be the focus of GMST 355. The course invites students to explore painting, film, and literature in from 1905 to 1933 and beyond.
Fall 2023
GMST 100: Introduction to Germanic Studies
GMST 101 A01: Beginning German I
GMST 462: Nietzsche in Fiction
Spring 2024
GMST 101 A01: Beginning German I
GMST 102 A01: Beginning German II
GMST 450: Major Filmmakers: Fritz Lang
"Before and After Kafka: Parable and Prophecy". Art as an Early-Warning System . Ludgard de Decker, ed. Community Seminar 8. UVic: Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, 2001. 77-100.
"Reading and Writing the Architecture of the Body in Kleist's Penthesilea". Body Dialectics in the Age of Goethe . Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Germanistik. Eds. Marianne Henn and Holger Pausch. Amsterdam: Rodopoi, 2003: 365 - 391.
"The Return of the Body in Twentieth-Century Kleist Discourse" (in German). Frankfurter Kleist-Kolloquium. Kleist-Bilder des 20. Jahrhunderts . Eds. Peter Ensberg and Hans-Jochen Marquardt. Stuttgart: Verlag Heinz-Dieter Heinz / Akademischer Verlag Stuttgart, 2003: 125 - 138.
“Riefenstahl’s Motion / Pictures”. Canadian Association of University Teachers of German General Meeting, Saskatoon, 30 May, 2007.
"Kleist's Krug, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and the Prosthetics of Body Politics". Canadian Association of University Teachers of German General Meeting, Vancouver, 1 June, 2008.