Author Archives: Department of German

Anna Shternshis

Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish and Diaspora Studies Contact info anna.shternshis@utoronto.ca Office Anne Tanenbaum CJS Jackman Humanities Building Room 218, 170 St. George Street Toronto, ON, M5R 2M8 Phone (416) 978 8131 Secretary: 416-926-2324 Office Hours On leave fall 2021 Classes 2021-2022 On leave fall 2021 Background Anna Shternshis holds the position of Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish studies and the director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. She received her doctoral degree (D.Phil) in Modern Languages and Literatures from Oxford University in 2001. Shternshis is the author of Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923 - 1939 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006) and When Sonia Met Boris: An Oral History of Jewish Life under Stalin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). She is the co-editor-in-chief of East European Jewish Affairs. Shternshis created and directed the Grammy-nominated Yiddish Glory project, together with an artist Psoy Korolenko, the initiative that brought back to life the forgotten Yiddish music written during the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. She lectures widely around the world and is a frequent guest on radio and TV shows worldwide (CBC, NPR, BBC, ... Read More »

Stefan Soldovieri

Chair [on leave Fall 2022] & Associate Professor of German Contact info stefan.soldovieri@utoronto.ca St. George Campus Office University of Toronto Odette Hall 320 50 St. Joseph Street Toronto, ON M5S 3L5 Phone: 416-926-2323 Secretary: 416-926-2324 Office Hours tba Classes 2022-2023 On leave Fall 2022 Background Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison BA Duke University Freie Universität Berlin Universität Freiburg Teaching Interests German Cinema and Cinema Studies, 20th-21st Century German Literature and Cultural Studies, Cold War Culture, Popular Culture, The Future, Tactical German Studies Research Interests Remaking the Movies in German Cinemas: Art, Industry, Globalization The project opens up a new perspective on German cinema, examining the largely unappreciated role of the remake in the history of German cinemas from the beginnings of the medium in the mid-1890s to our multi-media and global present. Considering German reprises of domestic and international precursors, foreign reworkings of German classics, and concept films that self-consciously reflect on the idea of remaking itself, I explore the different modes of remaking as historically shifting and multivalent forms of cultural recycling. The remake phenomenon highlights the tensions between art and industry that are frequently ignored in German film studies. The project’s attention to the frequently transnational valence of the ... Read More »

Markus Stock

Principal, University College Vice-Dean, College Relations, Faculty of Arts and Science Professor of German and Medieval Studies Contact info markus.stock@utoronto.ca Office University College 15 King’s College Circle, Room 165 Toronto, ON M5S 3H7 CANADA Tel. 416-978-7516 Office Hours Mondays 4:15-5:45pm, UC 165, and by appointment: Please contact uc.principal@utoronto.ca Classes 2023-24 GER 426/GER1200 Introduction to Medieval German Language and Literature, Fall Term, Mondays 2-4pm, UC 177 Background Dr. phil. University of Göttingen, 2000 Markus Stock teaches German languages, literatures, and cultures of the Middle Ages. He is cross-appointed to the Centre for Medieval Studies, where he teaches courses on medieval German romance and heroic epic, philological methodologies, and Old Saxon. Markus Stock supervises MA and PhD students specializing in medieval and early modern (pre-1600) German literature and culture. He currently accepts supervisions of individuals who wish to specialize in these areas in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures or the Centre for Medieval Studies. Potential applicants are invited to send informal email inquiries to him. Markus Stock’s SSHRC-funded research and his teaching are situated in medieval German literatures, manuscript studies, and digital philology. He also directs the international research project Medieval Undergrounds, funded by SSHRC. He has authored, edited, or ... Read More »

John Zilcosky

Professor of German and Comparative Literature Contact info john.zilcosky@utoronto.ca Office University of Toronto Odette Hall 303 50 St. Joseph Street Toronto, ON M5S 3L5 Secretary: 416-926-2324 Office Hours Wednesdays, 4-5 pm, Odette Hall 303 Classes 2023-2024 GER 1722 “Kafka” COL 5149 “The Art of Combat: Violence, Culture, and Competition”   Background John Zilcosky is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto, where he writes about modern European literature, psychoanalysis, the art of travel, and the history of sports. His books include Kafka’s Travels (MLA Scaglione Prize winner for best book in German Studies), Writing Travel, Uncanny Encounters, The Allure of Sports, The Language of Trauma, and Alternative Temporalities. The Times Literary Supplement and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have reviewed his work. The Humboldt Foundation, the US National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council have granted fellowships to him, and he is honorary president of the International Comparative Literature Association’s Research Committee on Literary Theory. The German government awarded him the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Prize for outstanding achievements in research in 2018. In 2022-23, he won a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, supporting research on his book ... Read More »

Cindy Cao

M.A. Student Contact thisiscindy.cao@mail.utoronto.ca  Read More »

Jacob Hermant

PhD Student Contact jacob.hermant@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours tba Courses GER 360HF Intermediate Yiddish, Fall 2023 Background My research focuses on representations of nature and climate in diasporic Jewish literatures, specifically from Yiddish, German, and English, as well as 20th-century Jewish thought. I also work more broadly on Yiddish and Jewish literary studies and cultural history. I received my BA in 2020 from the University of King’s College in Halifax, with combined honours in Contemporary Studies and Theatre, and a minor in Early Modern Studies. I completed my MA in 2021 at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Comparative Literature and the collaborative program in Jewish Studies, and I began my doctoral studies in 2022 in the Yiddish stream of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, as well as the collaborative program in Jewish Studies. Read More »

Savannah Bein

M.A. Student Contact savannah.bein@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours Monday 11am-12pm Thursdays 1pm-2pm Classes 2022-23 GER100S LEC0301 Background Graduated from University of Toronto in 2020 with a major in Environmental Studies and minors in both French and German languages. I’ve previously lived in Freiburg, Germany where I completed an internship in sustainable agriculture. Currently I am an M.A. student with the German department, with my studies focusing on the influence of trees in German culture and activism. Read More »

John Evjen

PhD Candidate Contact info jm.evjen@mail.utoronto.ca Office University of Toronto Odette Hall Rm 311 50 St. Joseph Street Toronto, ON M5S 3L5 Office Hours TBA Classes 2022-2023 GER100Y, Fall & Winter Background John is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on relationships between humans and other animals in contemporary German fiction and the implications for literature resultant of these relationships. Since completing his MA at the University of Toronto, John has been involved in many capacities at uToronto such as the Graduate Education Council, Graduate Academic Appeals Board, and German and Yiddish Graduate Student Association. Apart from the academy, John spends his spare time with his dog and wife, mixing music, and reading poetry. Read More »