Education ::

University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Ph.D., Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, 2005
Dissertation: Demonizing Esotericism: The Treatment of Spirituality and Popular Culture in the Works of Gustav Meyrink                          

University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
M.A., Department of Foreign Languages, German, 1999

Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
B.A., German, B.A., Russian, 1995 (Phi Beta Kappa)

Interests ::

In my first publication I explored the intersection of European occultism and popular culture in the vampire literature of the early-twentieth-century Austrian-born author Gustav Meyrink. My current project examines the criteria employed by German nationalist critics to denounce literature and the publishing market in Germany during World War I. Thanks to a New Faculty Scholar Grant, I will travel to Germany and Austria this summer to conduct archival research on my book project, a revision and expansion of my dissertation on Gustav Meyrink. I am also interested in language acquisition and am currently writing an article on genre-writing projects in the advanced language-learning classroom. Finally, my second area of literary research is German Romaniticism, especially fairy tales. A future book project will explore the figure of the witch in European fairy tales.

In addition to active membership in Phi Beta Kappa, I also engage in a number of German Program activities. This semester I established the German Cooking Club along with a number of advanced German students. Currently I also am writing the first edition of the German Program newsletter.

In my free time I am an amateur birder and member of the Grand Forks Curling Club. I also enjoy taking long walks and gardening.