Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures University of Toronto

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 »

PhD Student I received my MA in Yiddish Studies from the University of Toronto in 2020, with a focus on the work of Soviet Yiddish playwright Moyshe Pintshevski during the Second World War. I’m happy to be back for more Yiddish and am currently working toward my PhD under the supervision of Dr. Anna Shternshis. My research focuses on life writing of disabled Yiddish-speaking Jews in interwar Poland. I am passionate about studying Yiddish archival documents and enjoy working as a Yiddish-to-English translator and a transcriber of Yiddish-language oral histories. I also love to teach and have really appreciated the chance to work with the amazing group of Yiddish learners at UofT. If you’re reading this because you’re considering taking Yiddish, please join us; you won’t regret it! Outside of Yiddish-related stuff, I’m into fibre arts, cats, and eating (and sometimes making) baked goods.   Contact eli.jany@mail.utoronto.ca Academic Background MA in Yiddish, University of Toronto, 2020 MSW, University of Toronto, 2019 Honours BSc in Biology, McMaster University, 2015 PublicationsLeshchinsky, Yankev. The Last Years of Polish Jewry, Volume 1: At the Edge of the Abyss: Essays, 1927–33. Edited by Robert Brym. Translated by Robert Brym and Eli Jany, Open Book Publishers, ... Read More »

PhD student Office hours TBD Contact info sophie.jordan@mail.utoronto.ca Background My research focuses on late medieval understandings of cultural mixedness and alterity. For my thesis, I am exploring blackness and race in Middle High German and Middle Dutch Arthurian romance and trying to identify how the black characters featured in my texts fit into the cultural context they emerged from. I completed my B.A. and M.St. in German at the University of Oxford, with a year spent studying at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg. My M.St. dissertation engaged with the debate on pre-modern race by looking at blackness as a factor of integration at the court of King Arthur in the Middle Dutch Moriaen. I also hold an M.A. in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester, which has allowed me to broaden my methodological horizons and to gain insight into the social mechanisms which are at the core of my research interests. I grew up near Strasbourg on the Franco-German border, but my first language was Frenglish. I love being outside, music from all periods, and food. Publications and Presentations: “Black Excellence at Arthur’s Court: Moriaen and Medieval Northern Germanic Concepts of Blackness.” German Studies Canada at the Congress of the ... Read More »

PhD student Contact info astrid.klee@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours Monday and Wednesday 1-2 pm, OH307 Classes 2023-24 GER100 (LEC0201), MW 11-1 pm Background My interests lie mainly in the sciences and mythologies, and how these impact on literary imagination. For my doctoral research, I am exploring how late 19th to early 20th-century psychiatric case studies and self-narratives transformed during this period and the ways in which this is reflected in Modernist literature in Germany. I translate early German psychiatric texts and I have co-authored several journal articles about pioneers in the field of psychiatric genetics. I completed my undergraduate in German Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I also received my master’s degree. Read More »

MA student Contact info rena.knox@mail.utoronto.ca Read More »

Ph.D. Candidate Contact elisabeth.lange@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours By appointment (Zoom or Campus meeting possible) Courses 2022-2022 GER100 L5201 TR 6-8 (online synchronous), Fall Term GER300 L0101 MW 10-12, Full Year Background I received my Bachelor of Arts in German Literature and Language from the Leipzig University in summer of 2016. During my studies, I took a semester abroad at Carleton University in Ottawa and did an internship as a creative writer and editor at UFA in Berlin. I have an affinity for words, whales and the woods. Research My research focuses on the literary works of Marlen Haushofer and Sibylle Berg. In particular, I am investigating what it is precisely about the quality of their literature that inclines readers to frequently label it as “negative.” Thereby, I am offering new perspectives on the concept of pessimism and illustrate how we can think of the absence of salvation as something positive. Read More »

Ph.D. Candidate Contact rita.laszlo@mail.utoronto.ca Courses GER200Y1Y LEC5101 Office Hours Mon & Wed by appointment Background M.A. (2017) in Germanic Studies, University of British Columbia (Master’s thesis: “Understanding the Aesthetics and Materiality of Ver Sacrum, the Seminal Magazine of the Vienna Secession”) B.A. (2014) Hispanic Studies and Honours in Germanic Studies, University of British Columbia (Honours thesis: “Pseudoscience, Gullibility and Language”) OTHER: (2007–2010) Germanic and Hispanic Studies, International Relations, University of Manitoba (2009-2010) German Literature and Social Studies, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany Publications / Published Translations Laszlo, Rita K. “Introducing Ágnes Heller's “Reflections on Gullibility,”” Telos, Issue 179, 2017:33-35; doi:10.3817/0617179033 Heller, Ágnes. Trans. Laszlo, Rita K. “Reflections on Gullibility,” Telos, Issue 179 , 2017:36-47; doi:10.3817/0617179036 Research and Interests 19th and 20th century German Literature and Thought, Enlightenment, Critical Theory, The Frankfurt and The Budapest Schools gullibility and its relation to language, types of knowledge, reason, the will to believe and judgement PhD dissertation focus a genealogy of gullibility in German literature and thought Conferences / Presentations “Vortrag zum Thema Leichtgläubigkeit,” (guest lecture, GER 430: Stories of the Mind with Dr. Christine Lehleiter), University of Toronto, Toronto, Nov. 27, 2018. “Between Gullibility and Thoughtlessness: From Ágnes Heller to Hannah Arendt,” (guest lecture, PHIL ... Read More »

MA Student Contact info mark.morrisonreed@mail.utoronto.ca Read More »

M.A. Student Contact somaia.mostafa@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours Tue & Thu 12:30-2, OH307 Read More »

PhD Student Contact florian.mueller@mail.utoronto.ca Office Hours Fri 10:30 – 11:30 am–12 pm, and by appointment Classes 2021-22 tba Background I did my undergraduate in German Studies and History at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt (Main) where I also received my master’s degree in German Studies in 2019. My doctoral research focuses on medieval and Early Modern German literature and I am especially interested in the relationship between early print and manuscript culture. Accordingly, I am enrolled in the collaborative program in Book History and Print Culture. In order to investigate how materiality informs the construction of text and vice versa, I am examining the 15th and 16th century manuscripts and printed editions comprising the so-called ‘Books of Heroes.’ This corpus transmits heroic poetry, a genre with a rich and multi-faceted literary history. Due to their seemingly dated nature – stanzaic form and archaic contents – the ‘Books of Heroes’ provide rich material for questions concerning transmission and canon formation, the dissemination of literature in the Early Modern period, the aesthetics of reception, and the materiality of texts. Since hands-on experience in letterpress printing is of immense value for my research, I am excited to be currently working as a ... Read More »