B. Board: Germanistik (3yrs)

I am an associate professor of German at Colby College where I also chair the Department of German and Russian. I earned a doctorate in German and an MA in African American Studies from Yale University. My first book, Gender and Identity in Franz Grillparzer’s Classical Dramas: Figuring the Female, was published in 2021. As a scholar of the long nineteenth century and,
most recently, of Black Europe, my commitment to the discipline is dynamic and shifting. I recently joined the GSA Community Fund Committee. I am also committed to the organization’s diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. A member of the Committee on Institutional Transformation and Social Justice, I have been involved in discussions that tackle questions about race and racialization in the GSA and beyond. If elected as Board Member for Germanistik/Cultural Studies, I wish to explore how a focused expansion of the meaning of German Studies would benefit the organization. Even as diverse approaches to the field are
introduced, it is clear that some of the scholarly nuances that un-conventional approaches to the discipline bring are often overlooked. As such, their impact on the intellectual rigor of German Studies disappears from a deeper discourse about the field.

As Professor and Chair of German Studies at Stanford University I have experience working collaboratively with colleagues across periods and disciplines in fostering a strong, diverse, and inclusive intellectual community. I am committed to promoting a scholarly environment where all feel welcome and are able to thrive. My publications have covered a wide range of topics pertaining to medieval and early modern German literature and culture, including text and image, the senses, poetics, gender, visuality, and performance. I am currently co-writing a book (with Fiona Griffiths) on A History of Medieval Germany (900-1220). I have years of experience with the GSA. In 2000 I co-founded (with Sara Poor and William Layher) YMAGINA, a group dedicated to supporting junior colleagues by, among other things, sponsoring annual panels at the GSA. I am now co-coordinator of the newly founded Network of Medieval and Early Modern German Studies, and in this capacity have worked with my colleagues to expand our network and increase our visibility at the GSA. As Board Member, I would represent the earlier periods while working in consort with other members of the board to foster inclusion and diversity of colleagues and scholarship.