Bridget Swanson

Bridget Swanson is a fourth-year graduate student at Penn. She holds a B.A. in German and English Literatures from the University of Miami, and a M.A. in Germanic Languages and Literatures from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests focus both on contemporary film studies, specifically the adaptation of German literary classics, and secondary language acquisition.

In Fall 2010, she co-organized the conference "‘Round and ‘Round We Go: The Endless Carnival" with Amy Tanguay, which focused on the concept of the carnivalesque in literary and media forms in Germany. In Spring 2013 she presented her paper " Liberating the Canon: Christoph Stark’s Julietta and the Spatial Politics of Adaptation" at the graduate student conference "Geist and the Machine" at the University of Pennsylvania. In Fall 2013, she will teach an undergraduate course on Adaptation Studies with Prof. Timothy Corrigan through the Cinema Studies Department.

Along with Dr. Christina Frei and Amy Tanguay, Bridget Swanson is currently co-authoring an innovative textbook for introductory German language and culture entitled Augenblicke: An Introduction to German Language and Culture. In Spring and Fall 2013 she is assisting Dr. Frei in the implementation of these materials in two sections of Elementary German at Penn. The book is forthcoming and represents Bridget Swanson's commitment to teaching and research. Indeed, in addition to the textbook, she has presented on her understanding of effective SLA pedagogy at various venues. In Fall 2011 she presented the approach that informs this textbook at ACTFL's annual conference in the panel "Pedagogy By Design: Linking High School and College Curricula," and in Spring 2013 she introduced the material to her colleagues through a presentation on "Backward Design in Augenblicke: Starting with the End in Mind and Everything that Comes in Between." 

A dedicated teacher, Bridget received the SAS Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Graduate Student in Spring 2013.  Her commitment to education, however, spans beyond the undergraduate classroom, as she also engages her peers in reflection on their own pedagogical methods. In Fall 2010 and Fall 2011 she participated in training UPenn's Foreign Language Fellows, and plans to continue facilitating Foreign Language Fellows in upcoming summers. As a Graduate Fellow for Teaching Excellence with the Center of Teaching and Learning during the 2013 - 2014 academic year, she will organize monthly workshops on pedagogical practices and observe and meet with graduate student teachers to foster productive conversations about their own teaching methods.