International Languages & Cultures: Alexandra Merley Hill, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of German
Buckley Center 384
Phone: 503-943-7204
E-mail: hilla@up.edu

Academic degrees
Ph.D., German and Scandinavian Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009
M.A., Germanic Languages & Literatures, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2005
B.A., Vassar College, 2001

Teaching and research interests
Contemporary literature and culture, women’s writing in German, the short story, history and culture of divided Germany, twentieth-century German art

Teaching at UP
As an instructor, it is my goal to excite the interest of each student, so that, when the class is over, students will continue to learn and explore on their own. This interest need not be in the German language itself (though of course this is preferable!), but it can be in German or Austrian culture, the desire to travel or study abroad, or explore a topic tangentially related to the course material. After all, studying a foreign language goes far beyond learning grammar and spelling: it also encompasses literature, art, and film; coffee houses, subway tickets, and television.  

Courses taught at UP
Elementary German (101-102)
Intensive Elementary German (105-207)
Intermediate German (201)
German Conversation and Composition (301)
Contemporary German Culture (304) (Multiculturalism in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland)
Survey of 20th-Century German Literature (404) (The German Short Story)
Return from Study Abroad (491)

Current projects
This summer I finished editing the book Germany in the Loud Twentieth Century, which will be published with Oxford University Press. The book asks what Germany sounded like at different points in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I also spent the summer researching the history of knitting in Germany as part of women’s daily lives, for which I received a Butine research grant. I will be presenting my findings at the Women in German conference in October.

About my research
My research topics may seem widely separated (motherhood in contemporary literature and Socialist Realist art in the former East Germany), but they are actually connected by a common philosophy: the social responsibility of the artist. Because artists and authors traditionally share a high regard in German culture, they—even today—are asked to comment and reflect on anything from major political events to every day life. I am curious about this privileged status and wonder what responsibilities (if any) come with it: should authors speak out for the oppressed? Does art have an obligation to include social commentary? Is there such a thing as art for art’s sake?

Publications: Papers and Articles
“Motherhood as Performance: (Re)Negotiations of Motherhood in Contemporary German Literature.” Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature. (special issue, forthcoming).
“’Female Sobriety’: Feminism, Motherhood, and the Works of Julia Franck.” Women in German Yearbook 24 (2008). 209-228.
”Julia Franck.” The Literary Encyclopedia. 27 December 2007. The Literary Dictionary Company. 17 January 2008. http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11890
“The Art of Conspiracy: Magnus von Plessen and the Frustrated Gaze.” From Weimar to Christiania: German and Scandinavian Studies in Context. Eds. Florence Feiereisen and Kyle Frackman. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007.  

Ledanff, Susanne. Hauptstadtphantasien. Berliner Stadtlektüren in der Gegenwartsliteratur 1989-2008. Bielefeld:
Aisthesis, 2009. In: German Studies Review (forthcoming)
Rectanus, Mark, ed. Über Gegenwartsliteratur. Interpretationen und Interventionen. / About Contemporary
Literature. Interpretations and Interventions.Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2008. In: German Studies Review (October
2010). 47-48.
Webber, Andrew J. Berlin in the Twentieth Century: A Cultural Topography.New York: CambridgeUniversity
Press, 2008. In: The German Quarterly 83.3 (Summer 2010). 399-400.
Gerstenberger, Katharina and Patricia Herminghouse, eds. German Literature in a New Century: Trends,
Traditions, Transitions, Transformations.New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2008. In: German Studies Review
33.1 (February 2010). 228-229.Taberner, Stuart, ed. Contemporary German Fiction: Writing in the Berlin Republic. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. In: Studies in Twenieth- and Twenty-First Century Literature 33.1 (Winter 2009).
Franck, Julia. Die Mittagsfrau. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 2007. In: Focus on German Studies 15 (2008).
Franck, Julia.  Die Mittagsfrau. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 2007. In: World Literature Today. (March-April 2008): 66-67.
Hacker, Katharina. Die Habenichtse. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2006. In: Focus on German Studies 14 (2007).
Holz, Keith. Modern German Art for Thirties Paris, Prague, and London: Resistance and Acquiescence in a Democratic Public Sphere. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. In: Centropa 7.1 (2007): 142-144. 
Franck, Julia. “The Miracle (of) Woman” (Translation) In: The Women in German Yearbook 24 (2008). 229-240. 

Awards 
Butine Grant. University of Portland. For summer research of project titled: “Women’s Work: Knitting in the GDR at the Intersection of the Political and the Social.” AY 2009-2010Butine Travel Grant. University of Portland. To defray travel expenses to St. Louis Symposium on Contemporary Literature. AY 2009-2010WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis Travel Grant. WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis. Travel grant to attend the Symposium on German Literature at the MaxKadeCenter in St. Louis. 26-28 March 2010.
Finalist for Distinguished Teaching Award. University of MassachusettsAmherst. 2007-2008.
University Fellowship. University of MassachusettsAmherst. 2007-2008.
Volkswagen Travel Grant.  Washington University at St. Louis, Seminar Weekend on Contemporary German Literature in Marbach. 2007.
Graduate Student Travel Grant.Modern Language Association. 2006.
Graduate School Travel Grant.University of Massachusetts Amherst. 2004.
Travel Award. Goethe Institut, Boston. 2004.