E. Board: Graduate (2yrs)

John Gillespie (MA, Middle Tennessee State University, 2018) is a fifth-year PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Gillespie studies twentieth-century German and Czech societies, and his dissertation explores the importance of beer to identity formation and state policies in the postwar Germanys and Czechoslovakia. He authored “Cold (Beer) War: The German Volksgetränk in East German Rhetoric (1945-1971)” in Food, Culture and Identity in Germany’s Century of War (2019) and “Imbibing the Future: Alcohol Moderation and Modernity in 1960s and 1970s East German Broadcast Media and Film” in Contemporary European History (2022). Gillespie has received research grants from the DAAD, MTSU, Vanderbilt University, and the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Additionally, he won the Southern Historical Association’s Snell
Memorial Prize for the best graduate paper in European History in 2019. Gillespie has been a GSA member since 2019, presented at the 2020 virtual conference, and will present again in 2022. He also served as Vice President and President of Vanderbilt’s Graduate History Association from 2019 to 2021. If elected, Gillespie will advocate for initiatives to improve the market-readiness and public outreach of GSA student members and work to further promote equity and inclusivity in the organization.

As a Ph.D. candidate who is invested in social justice and has published on German literature (QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking) and poetry as social activism (Fat Studies), I will support the GSA in developing policies that foster feminist, anti-racist, trans-friendly, and accessible environments. I will draw upon my involvement within GSA—from my first presentation (2018) to participating in the seminar “Sexuality Studies and the Law” (2021) and contributing to the upcoming roundtable “The Place of Trans* in German Studies” (2022). If elected, I will serve the GSA in three main ways: backing social justice initiatives, encouraging greater accessibility, and expanding mentorship. In my role, I would support the Committee for Institutional Transformation and Social Justice’s recommendations to the board and ensure open communication channels. Regarding accessibility, I will encourage efforts to make future programs more attentive to accessibility needs (including childcare, all-gender restrooms, quiet rooms, etc.). I will also pursue an expansion of the Community Fund, supporting graduate students and those precariously employed. Finally, I hope to establish wide-ranging mentorship structures while not overburdening those most often called upon to serve in these roles. Caring, intentional mentorship networks are crucial to growing a more diverse German Studies.