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German Department Faculty


Current Full-time Faculty


Elke Nicolai, Associate Professor
Office: Room 1406 Hunter West
Phone
: (212) 772-4985
E-mail: enicolai@hunter.cuny.edu

Professor Nicolai will be on leave through the Spring 2024 semester

 

Professor Nicolai holds her Ph.D. from the "Universität -Gh- Siegen", Siegen/Germany. She has published a book on Klaus Mann and his literary contemporaries in the mid-twenties and early thirties; a bibliography of the international literature of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), that also came out in book form, as well as articles and reviews on the Weimar Republic, Exile Literature and Contemporary German literature. Dr. Nicolai's research and teaching focuses on literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. In Germany, she prepared students for the "Mittelstufenprüfung" given by the Goethe Institute and the German proficiency exam for admission to German universities. She currently serves as the test site coordinator for these exams at Hunter College. She is a member of the Modern Language Association, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, the German Studies Association, and the Women in German Association.


Lisa Marie Anderson, Professor & Chairperson 
Office
: Room 1408 Hunter West
Phone
: (212) 772-5006
Email
: lisa.anderson@hunter.cuny.edu

Spring 2024 Office Hours

Mondays: 2:00-3:00pm. Tuesdays and Wednesdays: 4:00-5:00pm. 

Professor Anderson studied at Rutgers University and the University of Pennsylvania, and taught at Lock Haven University and Duke University before joining the Hunter faculty in 2006. Her research and teaching focus on German literature from the 18th-20th centuries, and her areas of expertise include the intersections between literature and religion, the First World War and German pacifism, and translation studies. Her book German Expressionism and the Messianism of a Generation was published by Rodopi in 2011; other writings of hers on messianism have also appeared in both academic journals and edited volumes. Professor Anderson has also written about the role of the First World War in the work of two German-Jewish writers: Margarete Susman and Ernst Toller. She is the editor of two books about Johann Georg Hamann, Hegel on Hamann (2008) and Hamann and the Tradition (2012). Likewise, Professor Anderson has translated the Expressionist poet Elke Lasker-Schüler and the contemporary philosopher Peter Sloterdijk. Her latest project is about the German novella as developed and contested by Goethe and Kleist. And finally, Professor Anderson co-founded Hunter’s Academic Center for Excellence in Research and Teaching (ACERT). Her website is http://cuny.is/lisamarieanderson.

 

Eckhard Kuhn-Osius, Associate Professor
Office: Room 1404 Hunter West 
Phone: (212)772-5068
E-mail
: ekuhnos@hunter.cuny.edu

Spring 2024 Office Hours

TBA

Raised and partially trained in Germany, Prof. Kuhn-Osius received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a dissertation on the topic of what we mean if we say that we understand a literary text. His literary interests include Goethe, 18th-century enlightenment era literature, and the 20th century up to the present. Special areas of concentration include, but are not limited to, Goethe's Faust, the literary reaction to World War I, and the works of Heinrich Boell. He has published over thirty articles and reviews on literary and pedagogical topics. Professor Kuhn-Osius has a strong interest in teaching German at all levels from the beginning to the Ph.D. level. He has special expertise and interest in teaching German language to very advanced learners and is also the main author of a three-volume series of introductory textbooks which are currently used and/or tested at various colleges in CUNY. Professor Kuhn-Osius participated in the work on several grants from the NEH to improve language and literature teaching. In the work on these grants he has received training and certification as an oral proficiency tester. He also has been serving as Chair of the AATG Testing Commission for many years with the primary responsibility for preparing the annual national German tests administered in high schools throughout the USA. Dr. Kuhn-Osius is fascinated by the processes of intercultural communication. For this reason he stays in close contact with current developments in German life and society. He has served in various study abroad capacities including as director of the Hunter summer program in Germany.


Aine Zimmerman, Doctoral Lecturer
Office
: Room 1407 Hunter West
Phone:
(212)772-4274
Email
: azimm@hunter.cuny.edu

Spring 2024 Office Hours

Tuesdays: 12:00-2:00pm, by appointment on Zoom. Mondays and Thursdays: 12:00-12:30pm, in-person, walk-ins welcome. 

Dr. Zimmerman received her Ph.D. in German Studies from the University of Cincinnati, with a dissertation on German-Jewish love stories in literature and film after the Holocaust. She teaches a course on this topic, as well as German language, literature and culture courses at all levels in the Hunter German department. She studied German at the University of Washington and the Goethe Universität in Frankfurt, Germany, and has taught Deutsch als Fremdsprache (DaF) at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster, Germany. She has a special interest in pedagogy and technology, and designed and authored the e-textbook currently used in the third-year German Composition and Conversation courses. She is also an active professional translator.

 

Christina Mekonen, Doctoral Lecturer
Office
: Room 1437 Hunter West
Phone: (212)772-4982
Email
:
cm5176@hunter.cuny.edu

Spring 2024 Office Hours

Tuesdays: 2:00-4:00pm on Zoom. Wednesdays: 2:00-4:00pm in-person. 

Dr. Christina Mekonen graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a Ph.D. in Germanic Studies and a Concentration in Second Language Teaching. She holds an M.A. in Deutsch als Fremdsprache (Teaching German as a Foreign Language) as well as a B.A. in Germanic Linguistics and American Studies from the Humboldt University of Berlin. She has taught a wide range of courses: from beginning to advanced German language courses as well as culture, film, and literature courses, including a course on contemporary minority voices in Germany. As a teacher, it is her goal to increase student motivation and facilitate learning. She is a firm believer that students learn best in a learner-centered environment that allows for collaborative learning. In addition to foreign language pedagogy, her research interests include Diaspora Studies, Genocide Studies, Critical Race Studies, and Transnational Literature. Her dissertation project titled "Somewhere in the flesh mirror I saw myself: Black-Jewish Poetic Encounters vis-à-vis the Holocaust" explores how Black and Jewish authors have imagined each other in poetry.  

 

Professor Dorothy James, Professor Emerita

Professor James received her Ph.D. in German from the University of London, U.K. She has also studied in Munich and Vienna. She was a professor of German at Hunter College for 20 years, and chair of the German Department for fifteen years. She was also a member of the faculty at the Graduate School, CUNY. She has written books on nineteenth century German drama ( Raimund and Vienna, Cambridge University Press, 1970, Georg Bü chner's Dantons Tod (Modern Humanities Research Association, 1982.) She also edited Patterns of Change, German Drama and the European Tradition, Peter Lang, 1990. Since the early eighties, she has been active in the movement to introduce proficiency-based foreign language teaching into the college and high school curriculum, and was trained as a tester of oral proficiency on the ACTFL model in 1983, and as a trainer of testing in 1985. She headed the NEH funded Hunter College project to institute a proficiency-based curriculum in an urban university. She was also Project Director of the NEH-funded Project at CUNY: "A Model Curriculum in German: From Zero Knowledge to Ph.D. orals" (1994-1997). She has published on institutional context as well as teaching procedures. She was President of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (1990), Interim Director of Foreign Languages at the Modern Language Association, and Editor of the ADFL Bulletin (1990-91), Chair of the MLA Advisory Committee on Foreign Languages and Literatures (1995-6). She has received awards from NYSAFLT (1989) and the Northeast Conference (1993) and received the first ADFL Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession in 1994.

Professor Annette Kym, Professor Emerita
E-mail: akym@hunter.cuny.edu

Prof. Kym holds her Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. She has published a book on Hesse's role as a Critic, and numerous articles on pedagogical topics. She is certified as an oral proficiency tester. She served as a mentor in the project "Spreading the Word: Improving Foreign Language Instruction in Colleges and Universities," organized by ACE, funded by NEH. Dr. Kym's literature teaching focuses on Swiss literature, East German literature and women in German literature. She has also taught courses on German for business and economics. Together with other faculty members, she prepares students for the various language examinations given by the Goethe Institutes world wide. Dr. Kym has developed distance learning courses on interactive television as well as on-line courses for which she received several grants. Dr. Kym was awarded the Distinguished Teacher Award presented by the New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers  and the Presidential Award for Excellence for Teaching  by Hunter College. 

 


Current Adjunct Faculty


Dr. Nina Merolle
Office:
1439 Hunter West
nmerolle@hunter.cuny.edu

Spring 2024 Office Hours

TBA

 

Ioana Wicker
Office:
1439 Hunter West
iw50@hunter.cuny.edu

Spring 2024 Office Hours

Tuesdays: 2:25-3:25pm in-person. Fridays: 2:25-3:25pm in-person. 

 

 

 

 

 

David Koch
Office:
1439 Hunter West
dk.hunter.cuny@gmail.com

Spring 2024 Office Hours

TBA

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anne-Katrin Titze
Office:
1439 Hunter West
Email: atitze@hunter.cuny.edu

Spring 2024 Office Hours

TBA

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