Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in German Studies
Interested in Applying?Attend our Zoom information session Monday, November 4th 12:00 p.m. EST Time read more about CDG Zoom Information Session! »
“I was thrilled to have received the Fulbright-Mach Award from Fulbright Austria to spend the 2022-2023 academic year conducting dissertation research in Vienna, Austria. My dissertation considers how novels by contemporary Austrian authors depict different understandings and experiences of nature and how the imagined relationship between humanity and nature impacts contemporary conceptions of the world. The cultural and political imaginary of the small “Alpine Republic” has long been closely tied to nature, not always in… read more about Stephen Zaksewicz wins Fulbright-Mach Award »
I am incredibly grateful for being awarded the DAAD one year research grant, which will allow me to visit Humboldt University in Berlin during the academic year 2024-25 and work with Prof. Dr. Rahel Jaeggi. My research focuses on W.E.B. Du Bois’s critical engagement with the German historiographical traditions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A key aspect of my dissertation involves analyzing Du Bois’s conceptual interactions with the discourses of German Critical Theory. My inquiry requires a… read more about Kajal Mukhopadhyay awarded DAAD Fellowship »
February 9, 2024 – August 3, 2024 Location: Mary Duke Biddle Room Sponsor(s): Global Jewish Modernism Lab In the first decades of the twentieth century, artists and authors reacted to various social, economic, technological, and political changes with new forms of creative expression, a global phenomenon that has been labeled modernism. This exhibit highlights the transnational, cross-cultural, and multilingual dimensions of Jewish modernism, which includes both Jewish authors… read more about Mapping Jewish Modernism Exhibit Opening »
Congratulations Joshua Shelly, who just won second place in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest! In recognition of his bibliophilic brilliance, he will receive a $1,000 cash prize (presumably to spend on more books!) and a trip to Washington, D.C., to represent Duke at a special awards ceremony on September 22 at 5:00 p.m. at the Library of Congress’s Whittall Pavilion. As his home institution, the Duke University Libraries also receives $500. read more about Joshua Shelly National Book Collecting Contest Winner! »
"Cinema and literature” are not often used in the same sentence as “transportation technologies,” but incoming Assistant Professor of German Studies Mert Bahadir Reisoglu sees them as intrinsically connected, and hopes his students will too. Culture isn’t an ephemeral idea. It is created and shaped by the material world around us. That’s what Reisoglu wants people to understand when they think about culture. He aims to show others that the physical world impacts the things we create and the way we live. Infrastructure,… read more about Trains, Planes and Horror Movies With German Studies Professor Mert Reisoglu »
This spring, recently tenured Dr. Sarah Pourciau has taught “Virtual Realities: Collective Dreams from Plato to Cyberspace.” Given the popularity the class has enjoyed among undergraduate students, we asked Dr. Pourciau a few questions about the topic of VR and what she thinks German Studies can contribute to the ongoing conversation. What are your current research interests and projects? Currently I am working on the intersection between the history of mathematics and the history of… read more about Virtual Reality in the Humanities Classroom »
Four faculty from Duke’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences and three alumni have been named to this year’s cohort of Guggenheim Fellows. The honorees for 2023 include German Studies Professor Stefani Engelstein, Professor Lillian B. Pierce of Mathematics, Religious Studies Professor Leela Prasad, and Professor of Physics Christopher Walter. Duke alumni Lucy Corin, Jon-Sesrie Goff and Jennifer Graber were also recognized. Now in its 98th year, the Guggenheim Fellowships recognize exceptional mid-career… read more about Four Trinity Faculty and Three Alums Named 2023 Guggenheim Fellows »
Editor's Note: April 19, 2023 Since this article was first published on March 6, 2023, Engelstein has been selected as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar for 2023-2024 for Germany. Fulbright Scholar Awards are prestigious and competitive fellowships that provide unique opportunities for scholars to teach and conduct research abroad. She has also been named to this year's cohort of Guggenheim Fellows, which recognizes exceptional mid-career scholars and artists working in any field of… read more about NEH Fellowship Supports Engelstein’s Research on the Formation of Language and Ideas About Sex »
Andrea has been selected to receive the 2023 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award, recognizes graduate students who best exemplify the characteristics of effective college teaching described in the purpose statement and award criteria. The review committee recognizes students who have engaged in professional development activities and have made significant contributions to teaching, TA training, and student learning outcomes within their department or across… read more about Andrea Larson - 2023 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching »
Carolina-Duke student Tim Ellison has won the German Quarterly Graduate Student Paper Award for his Writing Proficiency Review essay, “Historical Rhapsody: Citation and Pseudo-Citation in Herder’s Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit”. His WPR essay will also be published as an article in the German Quarterly. Previously, Tim has also been awarded the Ria Stambaugh-Frank Borchardt Award for the Best Writing Proficiency Review Essay for the 2021-22 academic year. We have asked Tim… read more about Tim Ellison wins the German Quarterly Graduate Student Paper Award »
The 46th annual German Studies Association (GSA) took place in Houston Texas from Sept. 15- 18. Carolina-Duke student Tako Takamura, currently in his sixth year of the program and working on his dissertation with Dr. Gabriel Trop (UNC Chapel Hill) and Dr. Stefani Engelstein (Duke), won an honorable mention in the GSA prize competition for Best Essay in German Studies by a Graduate Student. We have asked Tako to share a few words about his essay: I’m very glad to have received an honorary mention at the German Studies… read more about Tako Takamura Wins Honorable Mention at GSA »
LA-based software engineer Matt Hambro graduated from the Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in German Studies in 2019. During a recent online event entitled “Life After Grad School,” Matt spoke to current CDG graduate students about his experiences adapting to the world of software engineering and offered advice to students considering careers outside the university. Following the event, Matt kindly agreed to the following short interview in which he summarized key topics from his talk. You’ve done a lot… read more about CDG Alum Matt Hambro Discusses Career Experiences After Duke »
I discovered Mariella Mehr’s text steinzeit (lowercase intended by author) mid-summer and was immediately struck by the text’s alienating and provocative nature. steinzeit addresses relevant and contemporary issues of the Yenish minority in Switzerland and speaks to both my professional interests and personal background as a person of Polish-German-Roma heritage. The novel consists of cyclical traumatic episodes, defies all conventional linguistic and literary traditions, and includes both… read more about Natasza Gawlick wins the Stambaugh-Borchardt Prize »
Congratulations to Lea Greenberg on her Visiting Assistant Professor position at Knox College! She writes: "This fall, I will be starting as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Knox College in Galesburg, IL. The position is in German and European Studies with an emphasis on Jewish Studies. I am looking forward to returning to the liberal arts college setting and to the Midwest, where I spent most of my formative years. As part of the faculty in Modern Languages, I will be teaching both German language courses… read more about Glückwunsch Lea Greenberg! »
After joining forces in 2009, the Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in German Studies has risen to become one of the most respected German studies programs in North America. read more about The language studies program that united Carolina and Duke »
Priscilla Layne is an associate professor in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. Through literature and film, she studies German identities, how culture affects national boundaries, and the representation of marginalized peoples. read more about Endeavoors UNC Stories Powered by UNC Research »
On Juneteenth, David Kim (UCLA) and I had a conversation about BLM and racism in the US and Germany for the Thomas Mann House in LA. Read the transcript on Medium. read more about European Color Blindness and the Displacement of Racism »
Background: In the first week of June, our own Dr. Priscilla Layne was invited on a prominent German political talk show to discuss the protests against police violence in the United States. Shortly after this invitation and before her TV appearance, she learned that the program had already received a great deal of backlash for initially planning an all-white panel to discuss issues of anti-Black violence. The following article from the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel describes how this situation… read more about Der Tagesspiegel description of ongoing racism in Germany »
I am very excited to have received the Fulbright to Switzerland for this upcoming academic year. I am in the early stages of researching and writing a dissertation on the role of narrative in the constitution of selfhood as it pertains to writers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a particular interest in Adalbert Stifter, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Robert Walser, among others. My current plan is to use the idea of rumination (Wiederkäuen) as a thematic and theoretical focus for considering the act of… read more about Nathan Drapela wins Fulbright Scholarship for Switzerland »
This upcoming year, I will continue work on my dissertation with the generous support of the Berlin Program for Advanced German & European Studies at the Free University in Berlin. In my dissertation, tentatively titled "Writing a Future State: Spatial Imaginaries of German Jewish Literature, 1847–1932," I explore the manner in which German-speaking Jews used literary forms to imagine, describe and contest ideas surrounding a future Jewish State. To conduct this work, I examine traditional Zionist novels, such as… read more about Joshua Shelly wins The Berlin Fellows Program Fellowship »
Congratulations to Edana Kleinhans, sixth-year Carolina Duke student, for winning the prestigious Dissertation Completion Fellowship for 2020-2021 from the UNC Graduate School. She writes: “I am honored to have won this award. In my dissertation, The Kingdom of Venus: Love and Politics in the Courtly Biographies of Noblewomen of the Habsburg Empire, 1500-1800, I examine four long-lost female courtly biographies of the Habsburg dynasty and reflect on their function within imperial literature as part of a… read more about Edana Kleinhans receives a Dissertation Completion Fellowship »
Congratulations to Jeffrey Hertel, fifth-year CDG student, for winning the prestigious Katherine Goodman Stern fellowship for 2019-2020 from the Duke Graduate School. He writes: “It’s a tremendous honor to have won this award. I am currently in the final stages of my dissertation, entitled “Liberating Laughter: German Satire and the Dramatic Public Sphere, 1790-1848.” In the project, I focus on early nineteenth-century dramatic satire as the site of an alternative public sphere. Due to censorship of traditional print media… read more about Jeff Hertel wins the Katherine Goodman Stern Fellowship »
Congratulations to Joshua Shelly, third-year student in CDG, for winning a prestigious fellowship for 2019-2020 from the Leo Baeck Institute. He writes: "This academic year, I will begin researching and writing my dissertation about Theodor Herzl's Altneuland, as well as the literary works which inspired Herzl and and those which were inspired by him. My project specifically looks at the manner in which German Jewish literature played a pivotal role in (re)imagining and (re)creating Jewish spaces in the late… read more about Joshua Shelly wins Leo Baeck Institute Fellowship »
Congratulations to Claire E. Scott, who has won the Coalition of Women in German’s Dissertation Prize. Each year the organization selects one dissertation that best “reflect[s] the values of the Women in German Mission Statement; make[s] a substantial contribution to the current dialogue in the given area; and demonstrate[s] solid and innovative scholarship.” In her dissertation, Murderous Mothers: Feminist Violence in German Literature and Film (1970-2000), Scott examines representations of violent mothers in… read more about Claire Scott wins 2018 Women in German Dissertation Prize »