Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures University of Toronto

Sessional Lecturer Contact info rachel.seelig@utoronto.ca Office Hours tba Classes 2021-22 GER367HF Topics in Modern Yiddish/German Literature and Culture Background Rachel Seelig’s research focuses on migration, multilingualism, and cross-cultural exchange in German-Jewish, Yiddish and Hebrew literatures. She is the author of  Strangers in Berlin: Modern Jewish Literature between East and West, 1919–1933 (University of Michigan Press, 2016) and the co-editor, with Amir Eshel, of The German-Hebrew Dialogue: Studies of Encounter and Exchange (De Gruyter Press, 2017).  Rachel received her B.A. in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from the University of Chicago. She has held research and teaching appointments at Harvard University, Columbia University, the University of Michigan, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of Toronto. Read More »

Sessional Lecturer Contact alma.botcharova@utoronto.ca Office Hours Mon & Wed 1-2 and by appointment Read More »

Course Instructor Background My name is Lisa Lackner and I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Languages and Literacies program (LLE) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). My research focuses on language policy, second language learning and plurilingualism. In my work, I am also engaging with theoretical perspectives that bring together language and race. I was awarded the Connaught International Scholarship in 2020 and the Mary H. Beatty Fellowship for the academic year of 2022/23. Before my studies at the University of Toronto, I spent many years working as a middle school teacher. To better understand my practice and experience as a teacher at school, I began studying German as a second/foreign language at the University of Vienna. For my MA thesis, I investigated teachers’ perspectives on second language policy, and I received my MA degree from the University of Vienna in 2018. In the classroom, I am striving to provide an engaging and supportive environment for students. Embracing the complex and dynamic characteristics of language not only shapes my own understanding of language teaching but also my lesson planning. When I am not in the classroom teaching or researching, I enjoy reading, yoga and excellent (Viennese!) ... Read More »

Course Instructor Contact anne.popovich@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours Mon & Wed 5:30-6 and 8 -8:30 p.m. or by appointment Classes 2021-22 GER300Y1 (L5101), Mon & Wed 6-8 Read More »

Course Instructor Contact felix.roessler@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours tba Classes 2021-22 tba Read More »

Course Instructor Contact miriam.schulz@utoronto.ca Office Hours tba Classes 2021-22 GER1050H F Read More »

PhD Student Contact miriam.borden@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours tba Background I hold a B.A. in Jewish Studies (Hons., 2014) and an M.A. in Yiddish Studies (2018) from the University of Toronto. Through the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies and the collaborative program in Book History and Print Culture, I pursue research interests in postwar Yiddish culture, Yiddish publishing, and the material history of Yiddish libraries and sound archives. On the side, I love to research the food history of Jewish immigrants in the twentieth century. My dissertation research is on the Canadian-American Yiddish folksong collector Ruth Rubin, who amassed an archive of over 2,000 Yiddish songs from Jewish immigrants between the 1940s and the 1960s. I am a frequent researcher at the Ontario Jewish Archives Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre, where I have worked as an Assistant Archivist and translator. Through the Archives, I lead public and private walking tours of the historically Jewish Kensington Market neighbourhood; when possible, I like to include Yiddish sources such as newspaper articles, advertisements, and poetry by Yiddish writers from the 1920s and 1930s. I have researched and translated portions of Toronto’s Yiddish daily newspaper, Der Yidisher Zhurnal, and written for the Canadian Jewish News on ... Read More »

Ph.D. Candidate Contact laurence.cote.pitre@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours M/W 5:00-6:00 pm (on zoom) Classes 2022-23 GER200Y1 LEC5101 (online) – M/W 6:00-8:00 pm Background Originally from Quebec City, I studied languages (English, German and Spanish) in my hometown at Cégep Limoilou from 2010 to 2012 (DEC Arts et Lettres, profil Langues Modernes). I received my H.BA. from the University of Toronto in German Studies and European Studies in June 2016, after spending a year at the Karl-Franzens Universität in Graz, Austria as an exchange student in 2013-14. I graduated from my M.A. in German from the University of Toronto in November 2017. My major research paper focused on the underground poetry of the Prenzlauer Berg Connection in the 1980s. My current research interest involves ecocriticism and environmental discourses in German literature. My dissertation focuses on post-Chernobyl and Anthropocene discourses in women literature from East and West Germany. Aside from academics, I enjoy knitting, gardening, and I recently discovered the fascinating world of photography! 🙂 Conference Papers “Writing the Anthropocene: German Literature after Chernobyl” (poster presentation) Canadian Association of University Teachers of German Conference. University of Alberta. May-June 2021. “Landschaft als Quelle: Wie kann man Feldforschung in literarische Analyse integrieren?” Internationales Forschungsnetzwerk Literatur im ... Read More »

Ph.D. Candidate Contact veronica.curran@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours Mon & Wed 1-2 (virtual appointment) Classes 2020-21 Ger 100 MW 11am- 1pm Background I hold a B.A. Honours (2012) in German and Early Modern Studies from the University of King's College, Halifax and an M.A. (2015) in German from Dalhousie University. I spent the 2012-2013 academic year in Hessen, Germany with the Pädagogischer Austauschdienst as an English teaching assistant in a German-speaking Gymnasium. I also spent two summers (2013 and 2014) studying as an exchange student at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. My research interest involves the development of German theater. I am particularly interested in the Sturm und Drang period writers in the 1770s and the developments leading up to Georg Büchner's career in the 1830s. Within the area of theater studies and German literature, I am interested in the development of discussions of morality and questions of genre, such as the classic distinctions of "comedy" and "tragedy". Publications and Conferences “Obedience and Freedom in the Plays of J.M.R. Lenz.” Oxford German Studies. Special Edition. September 2021. “‘Ohne Freiheit geht das Leben bergab rückwärts’: On Freedom, Society, and Morality in J.M.R. Lenz’s Der Hofmeister.” Canadian Association of University Teachers of German Conference at the Congress ... Read More »

PhD student Contact info tba Office Hours tba Classes 2020-2021 tba Background Sophie Edelhart (they/she) holds a B.A. in History with a Concentration in Gender, Sex, and Family from Barnard College (2019) and an M.A. in Yiddish from University of Toronto (2021). They are currently pursuing their PhD in Yiddish in the Germanic Languages and Literature Department with a collaborative specialization in Book History and Print Culture. Their research focuses on Yiddish folk music, material culture, recording technology, Yiddish radio, and audiovisual archives. They are a member of the 2020-2022 Helix Fellowship cohort and a recipient of the Barbara Wertheimer Prize for Undergraduate Labor History from the New York Labor History Association for their senior history thesis entitled, “Bad Girls Like Good Contracts”: The Fight for Unionization at the Lusty Lady Theater in San Francisco, 1992-1998. Outside of school, they have worked as a tour guide, archivist, researcher, and translator at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Yiddish Book Center, and Museum at Eldridge Street. They are also a singer, currently studying Yiddish folk song under the tutelage of Ethel Raim as well as a bookbinding hobbyist. Read More »