Dissertations and Alumni Careers

Alumni Profiles & Dissertations

  • Leonie Ettinger, Ph.D. 2023
    "A Fatherland for the Fatherless: Crises of Authority in Expressionist Literature"
    Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, NYU College Core Curriculum
  • Endre Holéczy, Ph.D. 2023
    “Framing the Modern Subject: Stage Directions in German-Language Drama from 1889 to 1922”
  • Benjamin Dillon Schluter, Ph.D. 2023
    "After Geo-Graphy: Oceanic Turns in German Thought and Culture Around 1800"
    Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, NYU College Core Curriculum
  • William Cheung, Ph.D. 2022
    "The Colors of Modernity: Limning the Margins in Walter Benjamin, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Peter Altenberg"
    Abby O'Neill Fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University
    Social Studies Teacher, Brooklyn Technical High School
  • Marie-Luise Goldmann, Ph.D. 2021
    "'Gebannt, gebannt!' Zur Poetik des Banns in der Novelle des Realismus."
    Editor, Die Welt in Germany
  • Ferdinand Bubacz, Ph.D. 2019
    “Die Möglichkeiten der Sinne – Wahrnehmungsmodelle und Wirklichkeitsinszenierungen bei Robert Musil und Rainer Maria Rilke”
    Program Coordinator Bachelor Program, Munich Business School
  • Hyowon Cho, Ph.D. 2019
    "Rehearsal for the Eschaton"
    Assistant Professor in the Dept. of European Languages & Cultures, Sogang University in Korea
  • Sean Larson, Ph.D. 2019
    "Built on Sand: Weimar Republic Representation and the November Revolution."
  • Temitope Noah, Ph.D. 2019
    “Nietzsche, Luther, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra”
    Visiting Research Fellow, University College London
  • James Wagner, Ph.D. 2019
    "Irony and 'Unpolitics' in Wartime: An Overdue Critical Analysis of Thomas Mann’s Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen and Its Place in the Critical Theory Tradition."
    Adjunct Instructor, NYU
    Translator
  • Dominik Zechner, Ph.D. 2019
    "The Survival of Literature: Kafka and the Problem of Finitude"
    Assistant Professor of German, Rutgers University
  • Daniel Cheng, M.A. 2018
    Arbitrariness, Personhood, and Property in Hegel's Philosophy of Right
    Accounts Assistant, Verso Books Publishing Company
  • Jacob Denz, Ph.D. 2018
    "A Feeling Unlike Any Other: Reactionary Rhetorics of Rechtsgefühl in Kleist, Droste-Hülshoff, and Fontane"
    Law Clerk, United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio
  • Kurt Hollender, Ph.D. 2017
    Literary Potions and Poisons: Schiller, Goethe, Kleist
    Visiting Assistant Professor of German, College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University
  • Jonathan Kassner, Ph.D. 2017
    Autonomie und Kreatuerlichkeit: Hunde in der Literatur der Goethezeit und der Moderne
    Tech Talent Acquisition Specialist EMEA at Belden
  • Susanne Fuchs, Ph.D. 2016
    Scenes of Surrender Figures of War Sociality and Subjectivity in German Drama around 1800
    Visiting Lecturer in German Studies, Wellesley College,
    Translator
  • Carmen Schmechel, Ph.D. 2015
    "Schiller und Freud: Vom Erhabenen zur Sublimierung. Eine Wissensgeschichte intellektueller Leidbewältigung"
  • Jerome Bolton, Ph.D. 2015
    "Toward a Theory of the Veteran: The Trenches, Trauma, and Technology's 'Third' Hero"
  • Nimrod Reitman, Ph.D. 2015
    "On the Serious Motherhood of Men: Dissonance in Music, Rhetoric, and Poetry"
  • Kevin Vennemann, Ph.D. 2015
    "'(denn unser Organismus ist oligarchisch eingerichtet)' - Thermodynamik und der Verfall einer Familie"
    Assistant Professor in the Department of German Studies, Scripps College
  • Ruth Zisman, Ph.D. 2015
    "Displaced Battlefields: Sigmund Freud and the Reading of War Zones"
    Assistant Professor of the Humanities, Bard College
  • Andrea Hacker, M.Phil. 2014
  • Sarah Harris, M.A. 2014
    "Disjointed Narratives: Limbs, Gears, and the Monstrosities of the Human Form in Romanticism"
  • Dania Hückmann, Ph.D. 2014
    "Das Versprechen der Gerechtigkeit: Rache im Realismus"
  • Lydia B. Tang, Ph.D. 2013
    "Die Inszenierung der Einbildungskraft: Phantasie und Publikumsbezug in Lessings Dramatik, Kritk und Ästhetik"
    Assistant Director of Programs, Modern Language Association
  • Alicja Kowalska, Ph.D. 2013
    "Bildung und Rebellion. Jugend in literarischen und philosophischen Texten von Johann G. Herder bis Friedrich Nietzsche"
    Translator
  • Joshua Winchester, M.A. 2013
    "Apprehension: Towards Franz Kafka's Ethics"
  • Lauren Stone, Ph.D. 2013
    "The Turn to Childhood: Toward a Theory of the 'Kinderstube' in Stifter, Rilke, and Benjamin"
    Assistant Professor of German, University of Colorado
  • Thorsten Carstensen, Ph.D. 2012
    "Romanisches Erzählen: Peter Handke und die epische Tradition"
    Associate Professor of German, Indiana University-Purdue University
  • Allan Madin, M.A. 2012
    "Romancing the Stone: Stone as trope in Novalis' novel fragments: Die Lehrlinge zu Sais and Heinrich von Ofterdingen"
  • Barbara Natalie Nagel, Ph.D. 2012
    "Der Skandal des Literalen. Barocke Literalisierungen bei Gryphius, Kleist, Büchner"
    Associate Professor of German, Princeton University
  • Chadwick Smith, Ph.D. 2012
    "The Self-Defeat of Enlightenment Politics: German Premises of Global Human Rights"
    Instructional Designer, Yellowbrick.co
    Translator
  • Jeffrey Champlin, Ph.D. 2011
    "The Making of a Terrorist: German Rogues in Götz von Berlichingen, Die Räuber, and Michael Kohlhaas"
    Lecturer of Literature, Barenboim-Said Akademie
  • Christopher J. Delcker, M.A. 2011
    "Die Geraeuschkulisse Berlins bei der Einfuehrung des Tonfilms"
  • Leigh Gold, Ph.D. 2011
    "'Ich sterbe am Leben': Else Lasker-Schueler and the Work of Mourning"
  • Daniela Leder, Ph.D. 2011
    "Wenn Maedchen Ueberleben inventur im Gewalthaushalt bei J.M.R. Lenz und Frank Wedekind"
  • William Rauscher, Ph.D. 2011
    "Powering Down: Disfigurations of Authority in the Modern Era"
    Post-doc at the NYU German Department through the Morse Academic Program
    Copy/Online Writer, Ardency Inn, 2012
  • Nicola Behrmann, Ph.D. 2010
    "The Signature of Emmy Hennings Dada. Autobiography and Abandonment"
    Associate Professor of German at Rutgers University
  • Antje Pfannkuchen, Ph.D. 2010
    "When Nature Begins to Write Herself: German Romantics Read the Electrophore"
    Associate Professor of German at Dickinson College
  • Hilger Schmerwitz, M.Phil. 2010
  • Thomas Stachel, Ph.D. 2010
    "Der Ring der Notwendigkeit: Friedrich Schiller nach der Natur"
    Independent language coach, translator, and editor at www.stachel-english.de
  • Cornelia Uhlenhaut, Ph.D. 2010
    "Zur Ökonomie des Genusses bei Bertolt Brecht"
  • Julia Goesser Assaiante, Ph.D. 2009
    "Body Language and the Body of Language: Corporeality, Subjectivity, and Language in Johann Georg Hamann"
    Lecturer of German in the Department of Modern Languages at Trinity College
  • Peter Banki, Ph.D. 2009
    "The Forgiveness to Come: Dreams and Aporias"
    Lecturer in the Department of Humanities and Languages at the University of Western Sydney, Australia
  • Brian W. Kassenbrock, Ph.D. 2009
    "Novalis and the Two Cultures: The Chiasmic Discourse of Mathematics, Philosophy, and Poetics"
  • Irani-Tehrani Amir, Ph.D. 2008
    "Persian Figures in German Letters (1700-1900)"
    Assistant Professor, US Military Academy - West Point, New York
  • Yevgeniy (Zhenya) Pomerantsev, Ph.D. 2008
    "Enchanted Truths: Romantic and Post-Romantic Models of Poetic Knowledge in E.T.A. Hoffman, Gottfried Keller, and Fyodor Dostoevsky"
    Russian Program Coordinator and Lecturer at the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures, Fordham University
  • Alexandra Huster, Ph.D. 2007
    "Eigene Wege Gehen. Zur literarischen Konstruktion des Sonderlings"
    Management and communication trainer, Pro: Aktiv Management AG in Munich, Germany
  • Edna Epelbaum, Ph.D. 2006
    "Das Drama zum Ende. Friederike Roth, Elfriede Jelinek, und Theresia Walser"
    CEO/owner of Cinevital AG and Cinepal SA, Switzerland
    Artistic director of the Festival du Film Francais d'Helvetie
  • Gilbert W. Meyns, Ph.D. 2006
    "Der himmel über Hellas und Halberstadt: A study of the image of the sky in Greek philosophy and recent German literature (Plato and Alexander Kluge)"
  • Jörg Kreienbrock, Ph.D. 2005
    "Robert Walser"
    Professor of German, Northwestern University
  • Ulrich Plass, Ph.D. 2004
    "The Art of Transition. Language and History in T.W. Adorno's Notes to Literature"
    Associate Professor in the Department of German at Wesleyan University
  • Kirk Wetters, Ph.D. 2004
    "'Life and Opinions': On the Foundations of Modern Discourse"
    Associate Professor of German, Yale University
  • Andrea Dortmann, Ph.D. 2003
    "Winter Facets: Traces and Tropes of the Cold"
    Clinical Associate Professor, and Language Program Director in the Dept. of German, NYU
  • Paul Greene, Ph.D. 2002
    "Hoffmannian Variations: The Figure of E.T.A. Hoffmann in Scott, Baudelaire, Wagner, Freud, and Kofman"
  • Saskia Hintz, Ph.D. 2002
    "Writing in Another Tongue: Contemporary German Minority Literature and Creative Writing in German as a Foreign Language"
    Senior Instructor of German, University of Colorado, Boulder