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 »

Visiting Assistant Professor Contact info Email:  azadeh.sharifi@utoronto.ca Office Hours Office hours: Mondays 2-4pm (by appointment) Classes 2022-23 GER350HF German Visual Cultures GER1490HS Kanonkritik– Or how to decenter the German canon and engage with the margins Background Azadeh Sharifi received her PhD in 2011 from the University of Hildesheim in Kulturwissenschaften und Ästhetische Kommunikation (Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Communications). Her work engages with (post)colonial and (post)migrant Theatre history, performances by artists of color and the intersections of race, class and gender in contemporary European performances. She is currently working on the history of migrant and minority artists in Germany since 1955 (“Post-migrant German theatre history”). Previously, she was a Guestprofessor at the University of Fine Arts (UdK) Berlin, a PostDoc at the Department of Theatre Studies at LMU Munich and Fellow at the International Research Center Interweaving Performance Cultures at FU Berlin. She is  Board Member of Performance Studies international (PSi), Co-chair of the European Cultures Network for the Council for European Studies (CES) and Co-Editor of Interventions – Contemporary Theatre Review (CTR). Together with Lisa Skwirblies she is editing a volume on “Theaterwissenschaft postkolonial/dekolonial” which will be published in spring 2022. Read More »

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

Course Instructor Contact corinn.gerber@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours Tue and Thu 11-12 and by appointment Read More »

Postdoctoral Fellow Contact info tba Office Hours tba Read More »

Course Instructor Background Before beginning my studies at the University of Toronto in 2020, I spent many years working as a teacher with multilingual students in my hometown Vienna, Austria. My time as an educator in the classroom as well as my Fulbright Teaching Assistantship at the University of Montana brought me back to the University of Vienna, where I received my MA degree in German as a second or foreign language in 2018. In my MA thesis, I investigated teachers’ perspectives on second language policy at different elementary and secondary schools. Currently, I am a Ph.D. student in the Languages and Literacies program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). My research interests include multilingualism, intersections of language and racism, and second language teaching. In 2020, I was awarded the Connaught International Scholarship. When I am not reading, I enjoy traveling, yoga, and good coffee! Contact lisa.lackner@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours Mon 11-12 and Thu 12-1 Classes 2021-22 tba 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 »