General

by Walker Horsfall I began teaching at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Fall 2022 as a Lecturer, then secured an appointed an Assistant Professor the following year. I am currently working on a monograph that examines the many and creative ways in which science and natural philosophy, especially astronomy, geology, and medicine, informed the form, content, and function of Middle High German religious and narrative poetry. At Illinois, I have had fortunate occasion to offer several courses on medieval topics, including on Norse mythology, the Icelandic saga tradition, and the history of sexuality in premodern literature. But I have also had the lovely opportunity to teach our modern German language courses, for which I am empowered by and grateful to experience gained teaching for the German department at UofT. In fact, I have found much in common between the German departments at Illinois and Toronto. For example, this past February, our department, together with the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Illinois, hosted a book launch and discussion for my colleague Anke Pinkert’s new publication, Remembering 1989: Future Archives of Public Protest. Earlier that particular morning, I happened to have had a meeting that ... Read More »

New Book on Plurilingualism by Professor Enrica Piccardo  Our department is wonderfully enriched by the contributions of affiliate faculty whose expertise in cognate units such as history, Jewish Studies, and Sociology supports the interdisciplinary researches of our doctoral students. One such scholar is Enrica Piccardo, Professor of Applied Linguistics and Language Education in the Languages and Literacies Education Program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). She serves as Director of the Centre for Educational Research in Languages and Literacies and also as distinguished Maître de Conférences (Associate Professor) at the Université Grenoble-Alpes (France). Her internationally recognized research is centred around Second/Foreign Language learning and teaching, plurilingualism and mediation, the impact of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) on language teaching and assessment, complexity theories, and creativity in language acquisition. Together with collaborator Le Chen, she recently published the volume Autoethnographies of Plurilingualism: Voices of the Selves (Routledge, 2024) which offers a theoretically grounded and methodologically innovative examination of the complex trajectories and identities of plurilingual speakers. Through a rich collection of personal narratives, the volume invites readers to witness how language users navigate, negotiate, and reimagine their linguistic repertoires, thus transcending conventional notions of language competence. ... Read More »

The origin of this book lies in pre-Covid times, in 2019, when graduate students in the Centre for Comparative Literature organized a conference called Timepieces. The idea was to investigate how humans are defined in and by time, both abstractly, as mortal creatures with internal clocks, and materially, through the pieces that we have used throughout history to mark time. The students asked me to offer the keynote lecture, and I presented on “Modern Times.” The conference was a thrilling intellectual experience, featuring speakers from across North America and Europe. The conference’s energy seemed too vital for us to let it go up in smoke, so the two of the main organizers, Teresa Valentini and Angela Weiser, approached me about producing a volume together. They brought endless vitality to the project, and I contributed my experience with publishing. At this point in my career, it felt meaningful to share not only intellectual insights but also practical ones: How do you publish a book, from beginning to end? We approached Len Husband, an acquisitions editor at the University of Toronto Press, who expressed interest. Then we began the long process of selecting the best papers from the conference, approaching the authors, ... Read More »

by Stefana Gargova, Language Coordinator Open AI released ChatGPT on November 30th, 2022, and six days later it was announced that it had reached 1 million users. Ever since, access to AI has become ubiquitous and post-secondary institutions have adopted a rather sober and practical attitude, encouraging teachers to explore its pedagogical applications. For the field of language acquisition, this isn’t a huge stretch – studies show that AI can be effective in extending practice, as well as supporting instructors in developing customizable teaching materials. As part of the German Department’s ongoing efforts to support the professional development of our language instructors, we were delighted to welcome Marje Zschiesche-Stock, an international professional development trainer with 10+ years of experience, who led a two-hour workshop with the poignant title “O.K. or K.O.? The use of AI in the Second Language Classroom”, which presented meaningful and creative ways to productively integrate AI into language teaching with added value. Participants enjoyed not only the invigorating social aspect of the in-person event, but also the hands-on activities, which introduced AI-based strategies for authentic language interactions, descriptive picture-based activities, as well as practice support that extends well beyond the classroom. Zschiesche-Stock’s workshop offered our instructors ... Read More »

Dancing My Way Through Yiddish Language and History by Emily Glass My journey learning Yiddish has always led me to rich and unexpected experiences, and this past year as an MA student in the Yiddish stream of Germanic Languages and Literatures was no exception. The program enabled me, in a relatively short period of time, to experience and learn about a wide range of disciplines. My passion for languages and literatures was nourished by an elective course in Comparative Literature on Medieval Spanish Literature with Dr. Jill Ross, as well as the core courses of the M.A. program. From the German and Yiddish Studies Seminar and the Yiddish Language Seminar I learned to closely read a variety of texts and use theoretical tools to analyse them.  In the second semester, a course in Second Language Learning at OISE challenged my understanding of language pedagogy. Having completed a B.Ed. in education at Simon Fraser University in 2019 and then taught secondary school French for three and a half years, I had a solid grounding in language education. However, I had never fully immersed myself in the scientific study of how language is learned and most effectively taught. Many things I had previously learned ... Read More »

Creativity in and Beyond the Yiddish Classroom It’s been another eventful year for undergraduate and graduate students in the Yiddish program. In GER260: Elementary Yiddish, taught by Miriam Schwartz (first term) and Jacob Hermant (second term), students began their Yiddish journeys with an introduction to grammar, vocabulary, and conversation skills. They also learned about some of the cultural, religious, and artistic traditions of Eastern European Jews. Both instructors commend their students on their outstanding work and enthusiasm for Yiddish over the course of the year.   In spring 2025, GER361: Yiddish Literature in Translation, taught by Miriam Borden, focused on nostalgia in Yiddish literature, but extended far beyond the literary—and far beyond the classroom. Students attended a film screening of the 1937 Yiddish masterpiece The Dybbuk. They sat in on Yiddish lectures outside of class. They took a memorable “field trip” to the stacks at Robarts—where they all crammed into a study room to discuss the material history of the literature they were reading. For her final project, one student created a beautiful 3D pop-up book based on a 1926 poem about the city of Vilna. Yiddish Pop-up Books Last year’s cohort of three Yiddish MA students was our largest yet, and the diverse skills and interests they ... Read More »

Becoming a Hopeful Pessimist by Elisabeth Lange Nearly nine years ago, I moved to Toronto from Germany to enroll direct admit doctoral studies in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. Coming from what felt like a vast and anonymous undergraduate German Studies program at Leipzig University, I was pleasantly surprised by the collegial and intimate atmosphere that awaited me at U of T. Here, professors not only knew me by name—it was also normal to address them by their first names. This was new and refreshing to me, a stark contrast to my experience in Leipzig, where I often felt reduced to a mere “Immatrikulationsnummer” (enrollment number). The closeness I shared with fellow graduate students, along with the accessibility of staff and faculty, was immensely helpful in navigating early feelings of disorientation and loneliness. Only later did I realize that such negative feelings could also serve as a source of inspiration and strength. In my dissertation, I connected my admiration for the literature of Sibylle Berg and Marlen Haushofer with a longstanding fascination for themes such as deviance and despair. Titled “Hoping without Hope: Positive Pessimism in the Literary Works of Marlen Haushofer and Sibylle Berg” and defended in November 2024, my thesis ... Read More »

Intercultural Skills in Strong Demand Among Future Employers by Angelica Fenner, Associate Chair of Graduate Studies As the world catapults into an era of strained international relations, the need for intercultural sensitivity and respect has become all the greater. The Humanities have a vital role to play in upholding the enduring value of clear, concise language and lucid reasoning— key skill sets fostered through exploring facets of the human (and more-than-human) condition from disparate subject positions and historical vantage points. Language and Literature departments, in particular, remain an important locus for teaching communication across cultural difference, and for inspiring on openness to the world alongside heightened reflexivity about discourse, culture, and society. Side-by-Side Writing with Graduate Students This past year our graduate students travelled widely in pursuit of these skills. With funds from DAAD, the Joint initiative in German and European Studies, and our department several doctoral students travelled abroad for research and/or advanced language and culture immersion. Tamara Schaad enrolled the popular Canadian Summer School in Germany (CSSG), which included a two-month stay with a host family, while Hannah Robinson attended the 29th Internationale Sommerakademie at Martin-Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Doctoral candidate Astrid Klee secured JIGES funds for archival research ... Read More »

Finding Community Through German Studies by Brian Finn It’s hard to believe that I’ve only been studying for two years in the German Department at the University of Toronto. I feel incredibly sad to be leaving this wonderful department in pursuit of further education. The connections I’ve made here have been so impactful, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunities afforded me here. I recall my first day at U of T as a transfer student, nervous about how I would be welcomed. It was my German classes that made me immediately feel welcomed into the campus German community, and enabled me continue growing within it, taking part in working-research groups under the supervision of Dr. Markus Stock, teaching at the Multilingual German Lab with German learners at every level, and helping with the organisation of a symposium on the subject of Medieval Undergrounds. I not only deepened my language skills, I also learned so much about the literature of the German-speaking world from medieval times to contemporary debates in literature and linguistic spheres. Viewing manuscripts from the early modern period in the Fischer Rare Books Library and analysing media biases from German-speaking news outlets have to be among ... Read More »

Reflections on the 2024–25 Academic Year by Hang-Sun Kim, Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies Looking back, there is much to highlight from our shared work and success over the past year. A number of students distinguished themselves in German and Yiddish Studies through their academic excellence and intellectual curiosity and were recognized with awards. I would like to congratulate recipients: Shantel Watson (Helmut Krueger Undergraduate Scholarship), Maxine Lee (Sara Frieda-Miransky Memorial Bursary & Fania and Aron Fainer Prize in Yiddish), Charna Perman (The Anne Glass Memorial Scholarship), Puriel Buzny (The Percy Matenko Scholarship), Maris Rice-Cameron (The Hermann Boeschenstein Memorial Scholarship), and Fiona Ji (The Prize of the Ambassador of Switzerland to Canada). Aditi Kolloru (Leadership & Community Engagement in German Studies Award), Brian Finn, Julien Levit and Rudy Yuan (Excellence in German Studies Award), Bijan Davis, Cary Kan, Changkun Jiang, Charlie Jiang, Hannah Burnett, Fatoumata Binetou Camara, Reza Homayounmehr, Robert Purcaru, Theodore Kneen, Thomas Galligan (German Language Prize for students of GER100Y). The department also continued its commitment to pedagogical innovation and professional development. I co-organized the 10th DAAD German Language Teaching Conference with Dr. Sun-Young Kim and Benjamin Sauvé from the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at McGill ... Read More »