Melanie Adley is a third-year doctoral student. She received a MA in German Literature from Tufts University and a BA in German and Spanish Literature from Boston University. Before attending Tufts, she spent one year in Neumünster as a Fulbright TA. While working on her MA, she studied in Tübingen. Her interests include passive means of voice, epistolarity, psychoanlaysis and gender. More specifically her research focusses on alternative means of coming to voice for women in fin-de-siècle Vienna as it relates to the rise of psychoanalysis and its preoccupation with hysteria. She presented a paper entitled "Epistolary Space in Fraeulein Else" at the department's graduate student conference "Thinking Urban Space" and co-organized with Kristen Sincavage the graduate student conference "Crises of Language." She participated in the fourth International Marbacher Sommerschule/DAAD Meisterklasse "Menschen Beschreiben." As graduate associate for the Women's Studies Program, she is currently planning an interdisciplinary graduate student "future of the field" conference for the study of women, gender and sexuality. 

Matthew Belcher (Dissertation) Matthew Belcher is a Max Kade Fellow for 2003/2004. He graduated from The Citadel in 2002 with a BA in German and political science, and he studied at the Universität Potsdam and the Konrad Wolf Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen in Babelsberg on a Fulbright Grant in 2002/2003. His interests include DDR literature and film. Papers presented: "Fascist Ghosts in GDR Cinema," Philological Association of the Carolinas, UNC-Asheville, March 2002; "Das Komische nach Lessing: Lachen statt Verlachen in Minna von Barnhelm," Philological Association of the Carolinas, UNC-Charlotte, March 2004; "Changing more than Media: Schlöndorff's Politics in the Filmic Adaptation of Die Blechtrommel," University of Pennsylvania German Graduate Student Conference, German Projections, Foreign Reflections: A Conference on Film, Narrative and the Creation of Historical Memory, Nationally and Internationally, April 2004.

Scott De Orio is a first-year graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Daniel DiMassa is a second-year graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a BA in German and theology from Notre Dame and an MA in religion from Yale. His academic interests include the intersection of literature and religion, as well as the confluence of classical, Italian, and German art and literature in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. 

Matthew Handelman is currently in his third year at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his BA from Hamilton College in mathematics and German Literature. After Hamilton, he spent a year as a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship near Hamburg in 2006 - 07. His academic interests explore the literature and philosophy of the early 20th century, specifically focusing on the connections between literary, mathematical and German-Jewish thought.
During his time at Penn he has given papers at the 2009 Graduate Student Conference "Crisis of Language" (University of Pennsylvania), the interdisciplinary workshop "Fiktum vs. Faktum: Mathematik in Literatur und Film des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts" (Uni Freiburg), and participated in the 4. International Marbacher Sommerschule "Menschen beschreiben."

Kathryn Malczyk is a second-year graduate student. She earned her BA in English and German from Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, having studied at the Universität Heidelberg for two semesters. After a year as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Ostbevern, Germany, she began graduate studies at Penn. Her research interests include the medieval period, women's and gender studies, and religion or religious themes in literature. Most recently, she was co-organizer of the 2008 German Graduate Student Conference, "Thinking Urban Space." Katie's review of Practicing Modernity: Female Creativity in the Weimar Republic, edited by Christiane Schönfeld, is scheduled for publication in the Fall 2008 issue of Monatshefte.

Alexander Pichugin (Dissertation) Alexander E. Pichugin's current research interests focus on German prose of the post-war period, but also include 18 th Century German literature, early film, photography and philosophy.
Max Kade Fellow (2002/2003), Recipient of DAAD Scholarship Award (1997/1998), Edmund S. Muskie/FSA Graduate Fellowship Award from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. State Department (2001/2002), Daemmrich-Guenther Memorial Prize for outstanding achievement in German studies (2003), Graduate Student Fellowship for the Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute in German Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich (2004), Scholarship Award for 2008 International Summer School for Ph.D. Candidates and Post-Docs “Fiction and Reality. Resisting Texts 1900–2008” hosted by the Ph.D. Program in Literature of the Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich (2008).
Alexander holds a Diploma with Honors in German Language and Literature from Saratov State University N. G. Chernyshevsky, Russia; Master of Education Degree from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, as well as Master’s Degree in German from the University of Pennsylvania. Alexander has studied in Germany at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and worked as a visiting scholar at the Department of Italian at Rutgers.
Papers presented/published: “Use of Musical Terminology in Teaching Italian at Higher Education Institutions for Music” Theory and Practice of Teaching Native and Foreign Languages at Higher Education Institutions. Saratov State Academy of Right Press, 2000; “Imaging Catastrophe: Destruction of Hamburg in ‘Der Untergang’ by H. E. Nossack,” The Image of the City in Literature, Media, and Society. Selected Papers. Conference of The Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery. Colorado Springs, 2003; “‘Madame DuBarry’ by Ernst Lubitsch: Elements of Style in German-American Cinematic Tradition,” at the “German Projections, Foreign Reflections”: A Conference on Film, Narrative and the Creation of Historical Memory, Nationally and Internationally, University of Pennsylvania (April 2004); “Luftkrieg und Textualität: H. E. Nossack und W. G. Sebald zum Thema der Bombenangriffe auf deutsche Städte,” Graduate-Faculty Colloquium, German Department, University of Pennsylvania (April 2004); “Hero-Warrior or Hero-Poet? Self-representation of Emperor Maximilian I in his ‘Teuerdank,’” The Image of the Hero in Literature, Media, and Society. Selected Papers. Conference of The Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery. Colorado Springs, 2004; „Erlebnis und Umschreibung. Zur Darstellung der Zerstörung deutscher Städte in der deutschen Literatur.“ Stadt und Trauma. Annäherungen – Konzepte – Analysen. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2004. “‘People Like Us Are a Thorn in the Side of the World’: Images of the Outsider in the Writings by Ernst Kreuder.” The Image of the Outsider in Literature, Media, and Society. Selected Papers. Conference of the Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery. Colorado Springs, 2008; “‘The True, the Unreal Reality’: Multiple Realities in ‘The Attic Pretenders’ by Ernst Kreuder” at the 61 st Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, University of Kentucky, Lexington, (April 2008); “Memory Transmission and Barthes’ Concept of Photography in ‘The Emigrants’ by W. G. Sebald” at the 11 th International Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas "Language and Scientific Imagination, University of Helsinki, Finland (July-August 2008); “To Jump from the Moving Train: The Concepts of Time in the Writings of Ernst Kreuder” at the International Summer School for Ph.D. Candidates and Post-Docs “Fiction and Reality. Resisting Texts 1900–2008” hosted by the Ph.D. Program in Literature of the Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich (August 2008); “Crime and Punishment in the Prose of F. Kafka and E. Kreuder” at the Annual Conference of the Midwest Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association, Cincinnati (October 2008); “Late Goethe’s Dialectics of Time” at the Conference “Goethe and the Postclassical: Literature, Science, Art, and Philosophy 1805–1815” by the Goethe Society of North America, Pittsburgh (November 2008). Upcoming publications include: “Genre Allocation of the Works of Ernst Kreuder,” in the volume Genre Fiction in German, Ed.: Vibeke R. Petersen, Alison Guenther-Pal, Bruce Campbell, 2009; and “The Uninsurable and the Unpronounceable: Nothingness and Negation in Post War German Prose, ” Nothing. An International Interdisciplinary Anthology. ( Academy of Finland, 2009).
Alexander’s work experience includes university-level teaching of German, French and Latin, business interpreting (Russia, Germany, Italy), as well as teaching Italian at the university level both in Russia (Saratov State Conservatory) and the U.S. (Rutgers).

Michael Ryan (Dissertation) Michael's primary interests include 20th century literature as well as late 19th century philosophy. In 2005/2006 he has been awarded a DAAD grant to perform research in Berlin, Germany, and in 1999 he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for study in Vienna.  Publications: "Samsa and Samsara: Suffering, Death, and Rebirth in 'The Metamorphosis,'" The German Quarterly; "Kafka's 'Die Soehne: The Range and Scope of Metaphor," Monatshefte; and "The Aggregate Character in Kafka's 'In der Strafkolonie,'" Symposium.

Christopher Schnader (Dissertation) William Penn, Fulbright, and Rotary International Fellowships. Prior to graduate school, Chris taught German at an American high school and worked in Cologne and Berlin in the fields of international exchange, cultural programming, and film. He is currently teaching in the Department of German Studies at Dartmouth College. Chris has presented on the following topics: friendship in eighteenth-century Germany (2005 Fulbright Berlin Seminar); Deutscher Gruß (2005 International Conference on Word & Image Studies); Ostalgie (2006 NeMLA Conference); Wörlitz (2006 GSA Conference); Schiller's Don Karlos and Wallenstein (2007 UPenn Germanics Colloquium); Goethe's memorials to Schiller (2008 GSNA Conference); student video projects (2009 Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning). He reviewed Robert Tobin's Warm Brothers for the 2000 Lessing Yearbook and served as the head translator for Langenscheidt's 2009 American edition of Berliner Platz 1.

Kristen Sincavage is a second-year graduate student.  She received her BA in German Studies from the College of William and Mary.  Her interests include late-18th and early-19th century aesthetics and literary theory.

Gabriella Skwara is a fourth-year doctoral student. She completed an M.A. in German at the University of California, Davis in 2003, where she also received her B.A. in Comparative Literature in 2000. Gabriella hopes to continue to pursue her interests in fin-de-siècle Vienna and in the intersections between critical theory and literature.

Bridget Swanson is a first-year graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Amy Tanguay is a first-year graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mara Taylor (Dissertation) Mara Taylor is a dissertating doctoral student with a B.A. in English and German from Smith College. Her dissertation, “Sex, Sociality, and Suicide: Queer Female Subjectivities in Medical Science and Homosexual Literature in Germany and Austria 1860-1933 , ” traces the emergence of the lesbian identity category in modernity; it uncovers discursive conflicts and cross-pollinations between science and literature that significantly underpinned constructions of this identity . She has presented her work at conferences both in the U.S. and abroad. Papers presented include: “Private Identity in an all too Public World: Alternatives to the Coming-Out Narrative in Weimar Germany” at the South Central MLA (October 2006); and “Je mehr sie gelitten hatte, desto sonniger wurde ihre Kunst: Theatrical Lesbian Subjectivity in Weimar Germany” at Lesbian Lives XIV at the Women’s Education, Research and Resource Centre University College, Dublin, Ireland (June 2007). Publications include the forthcoming “Wir [gehören] auch zu diesen ‘Krafft-Ebingschen! : Sexological Reverse Discourse in German Lesbian Literature” (Germanistik in Ireland 5 forthcoming 2010). Taylor has taught German and Critical Writing at Penn, as well as immersion German language courses at the Free University’s “ Berlin im Sommer” program. She received WiG’s “Susan Zantop Award” as well as Penn’s Alice Paul Center’s “Phyllis Rackin Award” to fund her archival research in 2008. For 2009-2010 Taylor was awarded a Dean’s SAS Dissertation Completion Fellowship. She will also be a Graduate Research Fellow for Penn’s Graduate Humanities Forum.

Nicholas Theis is a first-year graduate student at Penn. He received his BA in German from Austin College in Sherman, Texas and has spent time in Berlin as a FUBIS participant, student at Humboldt University, and recipient of a DAAD research grant. His interests include poetry, the Goethezeit, and the early twentieth century.

Kerry Wallach (Dissertation) Kerry Wallach, a doctoral student specializing in German-Jewish Studies, holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University in the College of Letters (European literature, history, and philosophy). Her dissertation, “Headlining the Jewish Woman: Advertising and the Jewish Press in Weimar Germany,” investigates the construction and marketing of gender identity in the literature, feuilletons, images, and advertisements of German- and Yiddish-language periodicals aimed at a Jewish readership (1919-1933). She earned a graduate certificate in the study of women, gender, and sexuality; other research interests include Yiddish literature, Jewish American literature, visual studies, and consumer culture. Wallach has presented her research at the Women in German Conference; the University of London; LMU Munich; and the University of Cambridge. In fall 2009, she will be presenting at the conferences of the German Studies Association and the Association for Jewish Studies. Publications include “Literary Shorthand: Mascha Kaléko and the World of Journalism” in the Festschrift commemorating Kaléko's 100th birthday (2007); and “Mascha Kaléko Advertises the New Jewish Woman” in “‘Not an Essence but a Positioning’: German-Speaking Jewish Women Writers 1900-1938” (2009). In 2007, Wallach was awarded the Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching by Graduate Students, as well as the Arthur M. Daemmrich and Alfred Guenther Memorial Prize for Excellence in German Studies. She spent 2008-2009 in Berlin, supported by a Leo Baeck Fellowship in German-Jewish History and Culture.

Caroline Weist is a second-year graduate student who holds a B.A. in German and English from the University of Richmond in Virginia.  Her primary research interest at Penn is theater, specifically the intersection of dramatic performance with gender and queer theory.  In the spring, she will be co-organizing the department's graduate student conference.
Before coming to Penn, she spent a year in Germany on a Fulbright research grant to study the production of American plays in the former East Berlin and to serve as dramaturg for the kInDeRdEuTsCh pRoJeKtS premiere "Birds (Eine Konservierung)" [English title: "Preservation (A Bird Mutation)"] in Hildesheim.  She worked again with kInDeRdEuTsCh pRoJeKtS in July 2008 as dramaturg and stage manager for the premiere of FOREIGN C. at the Ontological Theater at St. Mark's Church in New York City.