Derek Drake, M.A. Candidate, Teaching Fellowship, Germany

Derek received his B.A. from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 2004, where he majored in Germanic Languages and Literature. During this period, he spent a year at the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms Universitaet Bonn. In 2005, he spent several months in Berlin working on his Berlinerisch. Derek's academic interests include historical interests, german dialects, and sociolinguistic trends in Germany.

Emma Betz, Ph.D. Candidate, Fellowship

Emma was born in Romania and grew up in Northern Bavaria. Before coming to the University of Illinois in 2001, Emma studied German and English at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. She completed her Master's degree in Germanic Languages and Literatures at UIUC in 2003. Her interests include Conversation Analysis, Grammar and Interaction, Pedagogy, Second Language Acquisition, and Dialectology. In the department, Emma has taught German language courses at the beginning and intermediate levels (GER 101-104).

Emma Betz has been awarded the Max Kade Fellowship for 2007. Her personal website with current academic contributions and plans, is available here.

Holly Brining, M.A. Candidate, Fellowship, Germany

Jennifer Lindgren, Ph.D. Candidate

Jennifer Lindgren received her B.A. from Bethany College ( Lindsborg, Kansas), majoring in History and German with a minor in Music (Vocal Performance). She received her M.A. from the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, UIUC in May of 2004, and started the Ph.D. program in the fall of the same year. As an undergrad, Jennifer studied for one year at Philipps Universität, Marburg, Germany and in 2001-2002 she taught English as a “Fremdsprachenassistentin” for one academic year in two secondary schools in Lower Austria. At the University of Illinois, she has taught both German and Swedish. Her academic interests include 20 th century German literature, critical theory, medieval studies and Scandinavian studies.

Jillian Luttrell, M.A. Candidate, Teaching Assistant for German

Jillian hails from southern Indiana. She received her B.A. from Ball State University in Muncie, IN in 2005, majoring in History and German, with a minor in European Studies. She spent 2005-2006 studying at Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet in Muenster, Germany. Her interests include modern German history, culture, literature and film, as well as finding her way back there as soon as possible.

Jim Edenstrom, Ph.D. Candidate, Max Kade Distinguished Fellowship, Germany

Jim Edenstrom received his B.A. from Northern State University in December of 1998, majoring in English and German with a minor in Speech. He received his M.A. in German from UIUC in May 2002. In his time at UIUC, Jim has been an exchange student in Goettingen and in Heidelberg. His area of study is 18th century literature with a focus on Wieland.

Jon Sherman, Ph.D. Candidate, Teaching Assistant for Swedish

Jon Sherman received his BA from the University of Vermont in 1994 with a double major in History and German. He received his MA from the German department of the University of Massachusetts in 1999, and started the Ph.D. program at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in the same year. During his undergraduate years, Jon spent two years studying in Germany at the Universität Tübingen. After receiving his BA, he taught English as a foreign language for two years, the first year at a High School in Upper Austria and then he spent a year teaching English (and occasionally German) at a High School in Olesnica, Poland. Jon is currently working on his Ph.D. in medieval German literature and teaches German and Swedish here at UIUC.

Juliane Schönfeldt, Ph.D. Candidate, Research in Germany

Juliane Schoenfeldt was born and raised in Mainz, Germany. She earned a M.A. (Magistra Artium) in English and German at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universitaet in Heidelberg in July 2001 and completed her M.A. in German at UIUC in December 2001. In her studies, she focuses on Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition and Conversation Analysis.

Kathleen Smith M.A. Candidate, Teaching Assistant for German

I was born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and received my B.A. at the University of Colorado at Boulder in English Lit and Germanic Studies. I received a master's degree in Information Science from the University of Texas at Austin in Summer of 2005 and am currently pursuing a
master's degree in Germanic Languages and Literatures.

In loving memory of Marshall Billings, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department

Prometheus
Poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1773

Martina Hamidouche (nee Huber), Ph.D. Candidate, Fellowship

Martina grew up near Landshut in Bavaria.  As a Teaching Assistant of German, she gained her first teaching experience at “Lycée Pothier” and two primary schools in Orléans, France. In the course of her studies in Germany, she also spent two terms at the University of Wales, Swansea.  Martina earned her "1. Staatsexamen für das Lehramt an Gymnasien" (equivalent of M.A. in Teaching) in English and French at the University of Regensburg in June 2004. She joined the German Department at UIUC in the Fall of 2004.  In May 2006, Martina received her M.A. from Illinois with a thesis on “Working through the past in Eva Menasse’s Vienna.”  Her interests include contemporary Austrian literature, 20th and 21st century German- and French-speaking minority literatures, gender studies and psychoanalysis.

Mary Deguire, Ph.D. Candidate, Research Assistant for German

In the spring of 2004 I completed my MA in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at UIUC. Within the department’s doctoral program my interests include modern German literature, foreign languages for business, and second language acquisition. Before moving to Champaign, I taught German as an adjunct instructor at Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville and at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. In addition to teaching, I have a background in business. In 1999 I received an MA in Administrative Management from Bowie State University through the University of Maryland’s distant learning program. My experiences in Germany include working for the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service in Berlin, internships through the Bundestag Internship Program and through ÉMIGRÉ at Saxony’s Landtag, and two years of study at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn.

Michael Hougentogler, M.A. Candidate

Molly Markin, Ph.D. Candidate, Research Assistant/Fellowship

Molly completed her BA in 1998 with a double major in International Relations and German from The University of Alabama, and she earned her M.A. in 2001 from the same institution in German Studies.  After teaching German at the high school and at the college level for a couple of years, Molly decided to return to graduate school and pursue a PhD in German literature at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  She is interested in 20th- century German literature, focusing on Holocaust literature.  In the department, she has taught courses in German at the 101/102 level and spent the previous year at the Universität Regensburg taking courses on the Uncanny and on Literatur der Nachkriegszeit, as well as struggling with Bairisch.

Paul Meyer, M.A. Candidate

Renata Fuchs, M.A. Candidate, Teaching Assistant for German

I received my B.A. from the University of Florida where I majored in Germanic Studies and minored in Teaching English as a Second Language.  I have lived in Germany on several occasions e.g., many years ago in Mainz, where I attended Studienkolleg at the Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet, and most recently in the picturesque town of Bad Muenstereifel.  My interests include 19th century German and Polish literature as well as second language acquisition.

Rebecca Morrow, Ph.D. Candidate, Research

I received Bachelor of Arts degrees in German and English Literature from Earlham College a really long time ago, and shortly thereafter completed my MA in Germanic Languages & Literatures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After teaching in Vienna, completing my PhD coursework, passing preliminary exams, and working as a rhetoric instructor in the English Department at UIUC, I left the university in 1994 and was employed as a technical writer and editor at an engineering firm in Atlanta, GA, where I also taught technical writing. I returned to UIUC in 2000 to write my dissertation, in which I discuss gendered space; how the more conventionally gendered occupation of that space is subverted in Konrad von Würzburg’s late medieval romance Partonopier und Meliur; and how that subversion affects the function of the romance’s protagonists. Other interests include the marginalized, foreign and other in medieval literature; narrative stance; and 19th and 20th century Scandinavian literature.

Shawn Boyd, Ph.D. Candidate, Off-campus

My broad areas of interest include medieval and early modern German literature and history, as well as Old Norse literature. More specifically, I am currently investigating aspects of cultural differentiation in European courts and cross-regional communication in works such as Parzival, Willehalm, Tristan, and the Nibelungenlied in addition to minor works of the canon. The object of this research is to gain insight into authors’ perceptions of the nature of medieval court culture across the geographic span of Western Europe and thereby contribute to the larger historical debate that asks the question, is European medieval courtly culture localized or universal?

Whitney Luke, M.A. Candidate, Teaching Assistant for German

Whitney received her B.A. in Germany from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with minors in Business and Economics. She has lived in Germany twice, most recently working on the island of Ruegen in the Baltic Sea. She is interested in German teaching and in the Reformation.

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