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Faculty in the Department of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures, and Cultures are active in their areas of specialization. LLLC is committed to fostering an environment where research and creative activity thrive; research takes our students and faculty across the globe in the pursuit of scholarly engagement.
German and the Global Midwest
This online archive was developed to support German Iowa and the Global Midwest, a public humanities project at the University of Iowa. It brings together source material on German immigration to Iowa from the State Historical Society of Iowa, the Iowa Women’s Archives, Special Collections at the University of Iowa, the Davenport German American Heritage Center, and additional collections throughout the state.
Articles and chapters
Glenn Ehrstine
- "Das geistliche Spiel als Ablassmedium. Überlegungen am Beispiel des Alsfelder Passionsspiels (Religious Theater as an Indulgence Medium).” Religiöses Wissen im mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Schauspiel, ed. Klaus Ridder, Beatrice von Lüpke, and Michael Neumaier (Tübingen 2021), 259-297. Glenn Ehrstine.
- “Geheimnis und Gattung: Zum Begriff des Mysterienspiels.” Darstellung und Geheimnis in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Jutta Eming and Volkhard Wels, 165- 184. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2021. Glenn Ehrstine.
- “Raymond Peraudi in Zerbst: Corpus Christi Theater, Material Devotion, and the Indulgence Microeconomy on the Eve of the Reformation.” Speculum 93 (2018): 319-356. Glenn Ehrstine.
Sarah Fagan
- "Evidence for sk in German as a Complex Segment." Journal of Germanic Linguistics 32.1 (2020): 84-96. Sarah Fagan.
- "Teaching the German Superlative." Die Unterrichtspraxis 52.1 (2019): 103-110. Sarah Fagan.
Sabine I. Gölz
- "Apostrophe's Double." Konturen, Volume 10: Re-thinking Gender in Reading, (2019): 22-53. Sabine I. Gölz.
Kirsten Kumpf Baele
- "What to Leaf In, What to Leaf Out: Pedagogical Opportunities of a Cultural Icon – Anne Frank’s Chestnut Tree." The Construction and Dynamics of Cultural Icons, edited by Erica Boven and Marieke Winkler, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021, pp. 171-188. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048550838-009 Kirsten Kumpf Baele.
Waltraud Maierhofer
- "Disability as Opportunity in Alissa Walser's Novel about the Blind Maria Theresia Paradis." Disability in German-Speaking Europe: History, Memory, and Culture. Edited by Tanja Nusser, Linda Leskau, and Katherine Sorrels. Rochester: Camden House, 2022, 219-239. Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Justice in Recent German-language Fiction and Film," Reproductive Justice Handbook. Edited by Beth Widmaier Capo. Palgrave Press, 2022. 107-128. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-99530-0_6 Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "Abortion in Sweden and in Henning Mankell's Before the Frost." Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 2021, online first at https://www.tandfonine.com/doi/full/10.1080/08038740.2021,1876164 Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "Breaking the Abortion Taboo: Anne Zorah Berrached's Film 24 Weeks." Maifeminism: Feminism and Visual Culture (Sweden) 14 June 2021, https://maifeminism.com/breaking-the-abortion-taboo-anne-zohra-berracheds-film-24-weeks/ Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "Putting the Souvereignty of Motherhood to the Test: Late-Term Abortion in Anna Zorah Berrached’s 24 Wochen." Feminist German Studies, 37.2 (2021), 53-83. DOI: 10.1353/fgs.2021.0011. Project Muse https://muse.jhu.edu/article/839976 (login with library account). Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "Illustrations for the Divan in Editions of Goethe’s Works during his Lifetime." Publications of the English Goethe Society (Special issue: Goethe's West-östlicher Divan and its Uses), Volume 89, Issue 2-3 (2020), 137-156. Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "Johann Heinrich Ramberg als interkultureller Buchillustrator der Goethezeit: Ein digitaler, vernetzter Werkkatalog." Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik 2020.LII - 1 (2020): 99-114. Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "Die Titelkupfer der Leipziger und Dresdner Künstler Peter Carl Geissler und Gustav Heinrich Naeke sowie Johannes Thomas und Friedrich Wagner Geissler und Naeke zu Goethes Ausgabe letzter Hand." Publications of the English Goethe Society 88.2 (2019): 75-107. Jstor via https://doi-org.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/10.1080/09593683.2019.1639912 Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "Human Trafficking in the Vienna Tatort Episodes 'Angezählt' and 'Falsch verpackt'." Austrian Studies Journal 53.3 (2019): 61-85. Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "Indian womb - German baby? International surrogacy and citizenship in the film Monsoon Baby (2014)." Asian Journal of German and European Studies 4.8 (2019), n.p. DOI https://doi.org/10.1186/s4085; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40856-019-0045-1 Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "Die Titelkupfer von Moritz von Schwind, Vincenz Grüner und weiteren Wiener Künstlern zu zwei Goethe-Werkausgaben." Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte (Vienna) LXV (2018), 105-31. 11 illustrations. https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/downloads/productPreviewFiles/LP_978-3-205-20022-2.pdf Waltraud Maierhofer.
- "'Emotionale Annäherung' statt Zeitreise. Sabine Weigands Die Seelen im Feuer." Germanistik zwischen Tradition und Innovation. Akten Des XIII. Internationalen Germanistenkongresses Shanghai 2015. Edited by Jianhua Zhu, Jin Zhao, and Michael Szurawitzki. Vol. 12. Edited by Stephan Jaeger et al. (Publikationen der Internationalen Vereinigung für Germanistik.) Bern: Peter Lang, 2018, 83-88. Waltraud Maierhofer.
- Johann Heinrich Ramberg als Almanach- und Buchillustrator / J. H. Ramberg as Illustrator of Books and Almanacs. Interactive catalogue of works. [Ongoing Public Humanities database 2019-2020
Books
The Child Witches of Lucerne and Buchau: A Translation of Eveline Hasler's Novel

Edited and translated by Waltraud Maierhofer — original author Eveline Hasler — translated by Jenniefer Vanderbeek — introduction by Waltraud Maierhofer
A translation of Eveline Hasler’s novel, Die Vogelmacherin— literally “The Bird-Maker Girl”—this book tells the story of three children who were prosecuted for witchcraft in seventeenth-century Europe. Challenging strict boundaries between fiction and history, Hasler’s novel draws on trial records and other archival sources that document the legal cases against these children. While the original work offers a detailed portrait of political and religious violence, Maierhofer goes a step further by providing essential context for the novel. Her wide-ranging introduction and meticulous annotations illuminate the relevance and wider significance of Hasler’s writing. For the first time in English, this book brings Hasler’s traumatic history of witchcraft trials to life, exposing the violence of a culture shaped by fear, authoritarian power, and ideals of conformity.
German Phonetics and Phonology: Theory and Practice

By Mary Grantham O'Brien and Sarah M. B. Fagan
The first course book designed to engage students in the pronunciation of modern German by grounding practice in theory.
An essential introduction to the pronunciation of modern German, this unique classroom text is designed to help mid- to upper-level undergraduate students of German produce more accurate and comprehensible German speech. Written in English in a clear and engaging style and employing a minimum of technical jargon, it is the first German phonetics and phonology text to focus on theory and practice, covering topics ranging from the analysis of one's own speech to historical developments and regional variation. This work includes a wealth of exercises supported by an ancillary website audio program designed to help students perceive and produce sounds and prosodic features more accurately. Addressing topics such as word stress, sentence stress, and intonation as well as the pronunciation of individual sounds, this one-of-a-kind primer provides its users with a solid basis in German phonetics and phonology in order to improve their pronunciation of German.
German faculty

Glenn Ehrstine, PhD

Sarah Fagan, PhD

Elke Heckner, PhD

Kirsten Kumpf Baele, PhD

Waltraud Maierhofer, PhD
