May 2006 - Miami University

May 2006
Volume 5, Issue 2
GREAL News
Inside this issue:
Hovel Bequest Update .... 2
Artist in Residence .......... 2
GREAL students abroad . 2
Alumni News.................... 3
Intensive German Program to visit Dessau
Thanks to contacts made by Prof. Mila Ganeva (below, with Prof.
Benjamin Sutcliffe), the Intensive German Summer Program will
initiate what we hope will be a long and fruitful relationship with the
Moses-Mendelssohn-Gesellschaft Dessau, which has become a
new international institutional partner of Miami University.
Faculty News ................... 4
From the Chair:
We are at the end of another
academic year, one that has
gone by more quickly than
one can imagine. GREAL
was so very busy this past
year as you can read
throughout these pages.
Next year will see an
expansion of Chinese from
two beginning classes to
five. This will bring with it
another full-time person in
Chinese as well as an
assistant from Taiwan who
will teach and live on the
Chinese floor. The School
of Business is contemplating
a language requirement for
its students and GREAL is
gearing up for it.
 See p. 4.
Between stays in Jena and Berlin, the seventeen students will
accompany Dr. John M. Jeep (Director) and Lenka Machova
(Instructor) to Dessau to learn about the Enlightenment philosopher
Moses Mendelssohn and his role within the history of Jews in
Germany, the Bauhaus art movement, European environmental
politics, and the beautiful cities of Dessau and Wörlitz.
This addition to the Intensive German Summer Program will
broaden the students’ understanding of the former East Germany,
of the historical contributions of Jewish Germans, and of the
cultural significance of this charming area of Sachsen-Anhalt.
Page 2 of 4
GREAL News
Update on Ralph and Joan Hovel Memorial Bequest
“$1,400,000... to
support excellent
students of
German”
In our previous issues, we
reported on a gift of
$1,355,000 by Ralph
Martin Hovel (’35) and his
wife Joan Van Vliet to
Miami University’s
German program. The
money generated by the
bequest is to support
excellent students of
German, and is being
used in part to attract high
school students interested
in pursuing German
Studies at Miami. As last
year, awards went to
students on the 2006
Intensive German
Summer Program. This
spring we learned that an
additional $46,000 was
made available to the
German section of
GREAL for scholarships.
Writer in Residence Sibylle Lewitscharoff
Noted German author
Sibylle Lewitscharoff
became GREAL’s third
German Artist in
Residence for the first six
weeks of the Spring
semester. Born in
Stuttgart and a long-time
resident of Berlin,
Lewitscharoff, who has
been awarded the
prestigious Ingeborg
Bachmann Prize (1998),
taught a sprint course,
“Telling Stories about
God: Literature and
Religion,” gave a lecture
on some of her favorite
authors, including Franz
Kafka, Thomas Bernhard,
and James Joyce, and
visited 202 sections to
discuss the opening
pages of her newest
novel, Cosummatus,
which has since
appeared.
An extensive interview
with Frau Lewitscharoff (in
German) conducted by
Lenka Machova, German
Language Instructor and
Associate Director of our
German Floor in Wells
Hall, is available at
http://montgomery.cas.mu
ohio.edu/glf/Sybille.html.
More GREAL Students in Munich and Japan
Three Miami German Majors will be studying in Munich with the Wayne State Junior
Year in Munich Program 2006-07: Julia Hahn, James Hollis, and Karen Sikora. Four
outstanding first-year students have been awarded Summer Fellowships through
JYM: Korianna Austera, Ann Cashell, Megan Eisenman, and Alex Hess. The College
of Arts and Science is helping with their travel expenses.
From our Japanese Program, Hirobumi Hidaka will be at CIEE, Sophia University,
while Qiwen Yin attends Kansai-gaidai University
Austrian Summer Scholars Return to Campus
.
Twenty-seven students from the Viennese School of Business (WWU) will be
attending classes during Miami’s Summer III session. The students, who will live in
Scott Hall, will audit two University courses. Planned business visits within the region
include the Cincinnati Inquirer, FOX 19 Television, and Procter & Gamble. As in past
years, a weekend trip to Chicago forms part of the program, highlighted by a visit to
the Chicago Board of Trade along with various other cultural activities. Miami students
are eligible for study in Vienna as part of a 32-year old agreement initiated by
Ambassador John Dolibois.
The program, from June 23 to August 5, is coordinated in Oxford by Dan Meyers,
Interactive Language Resource Center, and Miami alumnus and Oxford City
employee Andrew Wilson.
Page 3 of 4
GREAL News
Alumni News (received January-May 2006)
Klaus Hornell (1987)
earned his MA in German
at California State
University, Fullerton in
2005; teaches German
and Mandarin Chinese in
West Covina, CA, where
he lives with his wife
Wang Zhi, a nursing
student.
on Adorno and Television.
Kurt Hummel (2004) took
a job at Aeon Corporation
(English language school)
in Tokyo, Japan.
Anna Smith Hartle
(1982) teaches 6th grade
at Cincinnati Country Day
School, specifically a
class called Global
Connections, an
information/computer
technology class. Earned
an M.A. in Education from
the University of
Cincinnati (1985) and a
M.S. in Library Science
from the U. of Kentucky
(2001). Married Michael
Hartle, engineer at GE,
thrilled her daughter (16)
is seriously considering
Miami in her college
search process. Hopes to
subtly influence her other
daughter (13), to choose
the Miami route, too!
Meredith Leland (2000)
is in her sixth year at
Proctor & Gamble,
specializing in Chemical
Engineering, and
deciphering German
patents; she now lives in
Pleasant Ridge with her
partner Aaron, and enjoys
visiting his German father
in Crete, Greece.
Matthew Lundholm
(2004) took a job at Winbe
English School in Japan.
Perry Manross works for
SAP in Heidelberg (Germany) as a journalist in
Global Communications
Department.
Betty Nees (2001) uses
her Chinese daily in her
global product design
work in Chicago, following
two years living in Taiwan.
Melissa Schwarz (2005)
is Project Coordinator at
International Engineering
Consortium (Chicago).
Michael Seifried (2005) is
pursuing a PhD in
Philosophy at Columbia U,
will spend 2006-07 in
Vienna as Miami’s
Goldman Scholar. Michael
spoke at Miami this Spring
Mark D. Simakovsky of
Georgetown University
was awarded a Fulbright
Post-Graduate Grant in
International Relations to
the Republic of Georgia
for the academic year
2005-06.
Lori K. Timm (1990) -after living and working in
Bern, Switzerland,
Luxembourg, and
Philadelphia -- finally
settled in Caracas,
Venezuela, as Director of
the Language Training
business for inlingua
Venezuela, with husband,
Pedro Villasmil, of 8 years
and two boys, Pete (5)
and Andy (3).
Emily Walton takes her
MA exam in German at
OSU this May, then will
study German in Freiburg
before assuming a
position in Vienna as a
Fulbright teaching
assistant for 2006-07.
Future graduate studies
are planned.
Emily J. Weglian (1994)
has earned her PhD in
Anthropology from the U
of Minnesota, and begins
a tenure-track position at
Cuyahoga Community
College (Cleveland) this
fall.
Chrissy Wingerter
Galaise (2003) interned at
Weinheimer Nachrichten
(near Mannheim,
Germany), married Josh
2005, teaches German at
Northmont H.S., working
towards an MA in teaching
at Wright State U.
Stephen M. Woodburn,
(Ph. D., Russian history,
2001) hired 2003 as
assistant professor of
history at Southwestern
College (Winfield, KS).
United Methodist
Exemplary Educator
(2005), one of two annual
professor awards at the
college. Led students to
Moscow and St.
Petersburg (Spring 2005),
leads a group to Egypt
(Winter 2006). Selected
for 2006 NEH Summer
Institute on medieval
Slavic manuscripts at the
New York Public Library.
Wife Dixie gave birth to
their third daughter, Ruby
Claire, on Halloween
2005; she joins Lilya
Katherine (7 1/2) and
Elena Grace (4).
***More on alumni under
Faculty News (Peter
Carels and the German
Cabaret), p. 4.
Faculty News – January – May 2006
Dept. of German,
Russian, and East
Asian Languages (with
Arabic and Hebrew)
Irvin Hall 172
Oxford, OH 45056
Phone:
(513) 529-2526
Fax:
(513) 529-2966
E-Mail:
[email protected]
GREAL Chair:
Dr. Robert Di Donato
Technical Support:
Daniel Meyers, Director,
Interactive Language
Resource Center
Cathie Sherman,
GREAL Secretary
Editor:
John M. Jeep
Peter Carels directed
“Vergiss es!” (“Forget about
ti”) the thirty-second annual
German Cabaret April 14-15
in the venerable Ratskeller of
Clawson Hall. Alumni skits by
Joachim Carels and Kyle
Joachim were featured.
Veteran actors Natalie
Brooke, Lindsay Gruber
DuPriest,, and Josef (“Sepp”)
Neumayer attended the
Good Friday show. Sepp’s
cameo performances served
as entremets. Saturday saw
Kelly Armstrong, Laura
Owens and Lori Zerbe back
on familiar turf. Dr. Carels
completes his tenure in the
Department this May. In
addition to the Cabaret, Dr.
Carels served as Chief
Departmental Advisor, and
he directed the Intensive
German Summer Program
and the Austrian Summer
Scholars Program often over
the years. We all wish him
and his wife Kathleen many
happy, active years.
Mila Ganeva will spend most
in the summer writing in
Oxford. At the end of July,
she will do research at the
film archives in Berlin and
Amsterdam, and will
participate a week-long
German Film Institute hosted
at the U of Michigan.
John M. Jeep directs the
Intensive German Summer
Program (Heidelberg, Jena,
Dessau, and Berlin), MayJune.
Noriko Reider published a
translation, “Shuten d ji:
Drunken Demon,” Asian
Folklore Studies 64/2 (2005):
207-231, the Reiders plan to
vacation with her sister’s
family in Los Angeles this
summer.
Benjamin Sutcliffe is a
Summer 2006 Fulbright-Hays
Silk Road Scholar, and will
travel from China to Turkey
during the summer.
Nicole Thesz published an
article, “Against a new era in
Vergangenheitsbewältigung:
Continuities in Günter
Grass’ Crabwalk, Colloquia
Germanica 38 (2004): 291306, and presented her
paper on “Jakob Hein’s Mein
erstes T-Shirt: Youth, GDR
and the Eightees,” at the
NEMLA conference,
Philadelphia, March 2006.
From p. 1: Good news!
GREAL underwent review
last year from external
and internal review
committees and the
results of their findings
clearly indicate the
success of the department
of six seemingly disparate
languages. And finally,
we will see a number of
new faces in GREAL next
year: a new tenure-track
hire, Vitaly Chernetsky
(Russian), comes to us
after having taught at
Columbia. We will also
have new full time faculty
in Chinese and German.
Next year we are going to
host a conference on
"Revisiting GermanAmerican Studies" with
special emphasis on
German film directors in
Hollywood. Every year
gets better!
Robert DiDonato
Visit us @
http://montgomery.cas.muohio.edu/greal/
Miami University
Dept. of GREAL
Irvin Hall 172
Oxford, OH 45056