VIRGINIA L. LEWIS

Department of Modern Languages and Communications
Tech Center 248
Northern State University
1200 S. Jay Street
Aberdeen SD 57401
(605)626-7696
virginia.lewis@northern.edu


 


EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 1983-1989
Ph.D. in Modern German Literature, May 1989
Specialization: 19th- and Early 20th-Century Prose
Dissertation: “The Arsonist in Literature: A Thematic Approach to the Role of Crime in German Prose from 1850-1900.” Horst S. Daemmrich, Director
M.A. in German Literature, August 1986
Master’s Papers: “Kreis, Mittelpunkt und Verbindung: die Bedeutung konzentrischer Strukturen in Goethes Märchen und dem Märchen Klingsohrs,” Horst S. Daemmrich, Advisor
“Dissolution and the Spacial Setting in the Poetry of Georg Trakl,” Frank Trommler, Advisor

UNIVERSITÄT HAMBURG 1987-1988
DAAD Fellow
Doctoral research in the interrelationship of crime, literature and society in 19th-century German literature
Advisors: Jörg Schönert, Joachim Linder

AUBURN UNIVERSITY 1977-1983
Graduate work in French Literature, 1981-1983
B.A. with Highest Honors in French and Art History, 1981
Rome ‘81 Summer Program in Art History
Undergraduate study in German and Music

UNIVERSITÉ DE PARIS, ÉCOLE NORMALE DE MUSIQUE 1979-1980
Participant in Sweet Briar College Junior Year in France

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 1978-79
Received two Diplomes d’Honneur for coursework pursued towards B.A. in French


FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS

Honored as one of 400 Outstanding Auburn Women Graduates in Celebration of the Centennial of the Admission of Women to Auburn University 1992
Dean’s Scholar Award, University of Pennsylvania 1989
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Stipendium for doctoral research 1989-1988
Annenberg Fellow in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania 1983-1987
Adolf D. Klarmann Prize for Excellence in the Study of German Literature, University of Pennsylvania 1986
First Prize, graduate level, Auburn University Annual French Contest 1983
Phi Sigma Iota, Drake University 1990
Delta Phi Alpha, University of Pennsylvania 1983
Phi Kappa Phi, Auburn University 1980
Pi Delta Phi, Auburn University 1980


TEACHING AND ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE

Assistant Professor of German, Northern State University, 2005-
Duties include teaching undergraduate courses in German language and culture, German program development, and scholarly research
Courses I teach include, Germans, Nazis, and Jews, German Film as Literature, Food in German Literature and Culture, German for Commerce, and all levels of German language from beginning to advanced

Assistant Professor of German, Lycoming College, 2004-2005
Duties included overseeing the German program and coordinating the Foreign Language Teaching Assistant and instructors, teaching all levels of German in an undergraduate major, student recruitment and retention
Courses taught include Das Deutschsprachige Hörspiel, Augenblicke der Deutschen Kultur, Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced German

Visiting Associate Professor of German, University of Missouri, 2001-04
Coordinator, Elementary German Program
Duties included: T.A. and program coordination for German 1, German 2, and German 3
Resource person for German 106 and 206 (Intermediate/Advanced)
T.A. Pedagogy Seminar
Developing and maintaining program website
Teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in German language and literature
Courses taught include: The Medieval German Epic (graduate level), German Internship and Methods (graduate pedagogy course), Der Mensch und die Erde in der deutschsprachigen Literatur von Goethe bis Kafka (graduate level), German Conversation and Composition, Elementary German

Assistant/Associate Professor of German, Drake University 1989-2001
Selected Courses taught in German (* designates taught for graduate credit):

*Der Mensch und die Erde in der deutschsprachigen Literatur von Goethe bis Kafka
The German-Language Novel in Prussia and Austria
*German Women Authors from the Medieval Age to the Present
The German Novella
Individual and Society in the Works of Goethe
Adventure and Vengeance in the Medieval German Epic
*History of the German Language
*German Identity
Business German
German Composition and Conversation
Elementary German for Business
Beginning and Intermediate German
Selected Courses taught in English (* designates taught as a distance course via the Internet):
*The Holocaust and German National Identity (German Studies)
Hungary, Its History and Culture (Honors)
Great Poetry, Drama and Prose of Hungary (Honors)
Is Paradise Lost? (First Year Seminar)
Knights, Maidens and Dragons: The Medieval Epic in France and Germany (First Year Seminar)
The Literatures of Eastern Europe (Honors)
The German Novella (Writing Across the Curriculum)
Study Abroad Advisor, Drake University 1990-1992
Duties included administration of Study Abroad Program, maintenance of affiliate agreements with numerous international study abroad organizations, assisting students in selection of study abroad site, application process, advice and support during stay abroad and reintegration upon return to Drake.

Lecturer in German, University of Pennsylvania 1988-1989
Coordinated Beginning German Program
Taught Advanced German Reading, German Drama of the 19th Century, and German for Reading Knowledge
Teaching Fellow in German, University of Pennsylvania 1985-87
Taught Introductory German
Writing Across the University Fellow, University of Pennsylvania 1986-1987
Served as writing consultant in undergraduate seminars in the German Department
Teaching Assistant in German, Auburn University 1983
Taught Introductory German
Teaching Assistant in French
Taught Introductory French


BOOK-LENGTH PUBLICATIONS
Globalizing the Peasant: Access to Land and the Possibility of Self-Realization. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007.
Jewish Life: Tales from Nineteenth-Century Europe, by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Translated and with an Afterword by Virginia L. Lewis. Riverside: Ariadne Press, 2002.
Flames of Passion/Flames of Greed: Acts of Arson in German Prose Fiction 1850-1900. New York: Peter Lang, 1991, for the series “Studies on Themes and Motifs in Literature.”
Schön Kästnerisch verfahren, Roman. Novel written in German, under consideration by Lerato Verlag.

ARTICLES
“Land, Self, and Nation in Rebreanu’s Ion: Commodification and the Dismantling of Meaning,” article under consideration by Slavonic and East European Review
“Agency and Morality in Ferdinand von Saar’s ‘Die Steinklopfer,’” in Ferdinand von Saar: Richtungen der Forschung / Directions in Research, Gedenkschrift zum 100. Todestag, edited by Michael Böhringer (Vienna: Praesens Verlag, 2006), 101-113
“Gottfried Keller’s Critique of Enclosures in Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe,” in Neophilologus (2005)89: 73-87
“Joseph Roth,” in: Encyclopedia of Literary Translation, Olive Classe, ed. (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000), 2:1192-1196
“Endre Ady,” in: Encyclopedia of Literary Translation, Olive Classe, ed. (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000), 1:5-7
“Effi Briest,” in Reference Guide to World Literature, Laura Stanley Berger, ed. (Detroit: St. James Press, 1996), 427-428
“The Other Face of Modernization: The Collapse of Rural Society in East Central European Realism and Naturalism,” in: Neohelicon: Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum XXII (1995), 221-245
“The Price of Emancipation: Peasant-Noble Relations as Depicted by Novelists Jozsef Eötvös and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach,” in: Hungarian Studies Review XX(1993), 3-23
“Work and Freedom in the Minority Community: Ferdinand von Saar’s ‘Die Torglodytin,’“ in The German Mosaic: Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Society, Carol A. Blackshire-Belay, ed. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1993), 11-20
“Otto Glaubrecht,” “Ludwig Habicht,” “Franz Hedrich,” “Ewald August König,” “Adolf Pichler,” “August Silberstein,” and “Ernst Wichert” in: Literatur Lexikon: Autoren und Werke deutscher Sprache, Walter Killy, ed.
(Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1989-91), 4:170, 446, 5:95-6, 6:428, 9: 161, 11:43, 12:289
“A Reconciliation,” short story published in NRG, 1987

REVIEWS
“A German Poststructuralist,” review essay of Discourse Networks 1800/1900 by Friedrich A. Kittler, trans. David E. Wellberry, in Papers on Language and Literature, 28/1(1992), 100-106
Review of Schwierige Interdisziplinarität: Zum Verhältnis von Soziologie und Geschichtswissenschaft, Pierre Bourdieu, ed. by Elke Ohnacker and Franz Schultheis, in German Studies Review 30/3(2007), 682
Review of Companion to German Realism, Todd Kontje, ed., in German Studies Review 27/1(2004), 154-155
Review of Kinderliteratur als Zeitdokument: Alltagsnormalität der Weimarer Republik in Erich Kästners Kinderromanen by Susanne Haywod, in German Studies Review XXIV/1(2001), 193-194
Review of Ferdinand von Saar: Zehn Studien, edited by Kurt Bergel, in German Studies Review XXII(1999)
Review of The Shifting Fortunes of Wilhelm Raabe by Jeffrey L. Sammons, in German Studies Review XVII(1994), 392-393
Review of Der gläserne Himmel by Rainer Michael Schaper, in German Studies Review XIV(1991), 632-33
Review of Goethe und die Jungen by Johannes Weber, in German Studies Review XIV(1991), 622
Review of Die Posaune der Reform by Sigrid Bauschinger, in Deutsche Bücher XX(1990), 293-294
Review of John Henry Mackay: Die gedachte Welt: Ein Roman und drei Geschichten aus dem Nachlaß, Edward Mornin, ed., in German Studies Review XIV(1991), 185-186

CREATIVE WORKS
Schön Kästnerisch II: Eine Familie findet sich wieder, novel written in German, currently in the editing process


SCHOLARLY PRESENTATIONS
“Stifter’s Brigitta, Heidegger’s Notion of ‘Bauen,’ and the Colonization of Eastern Hungary,” paper presented at the international symposium “Adalbert Stifter: Reading, Fearing, Thinking” held at Cornell University, October 2006
“Narrative, Ethics, and Policy: Reclaiming our Humanity,” paper delivered at Northern State University, October 2005
“Memory and the Nibelungenlied in Peter Hirche’s ‘Nähe des Todes,’“ paper read at the 29th Annual Conference of the German Studies Association, Milwaukee WI, September 2005
“Enclosures and Coming of Age: Keller’s Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe as a Window on the Experience of Globalization,” 57th Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, University of Kentucky, Lexington KY, April 2004
“A New Perspective on Heimatliteratur: Heinrich Sohnrey in Light of Karl Polanyi,” 26th Annual Conference of the German Studies Association, San Diego CA, October 2002
“Teaching Culture Communicatively,” Southwest Conference on Language Teaching, Oklahoma City OK, March 2002
“Illness, Superstition and Poetic Justice in Berthold Auerbach’s Diethelm von Buchenberg,” conference of the Society for Literature and Science, Atlanta GA, October 1996, and the Pennsylvania Foreign Language Conference, Duquesne University, September 1995
“On an Integrated Approach to the Historical Study of Central and Eastern European Literature,” international conference on “Germany and Eastern Europe” hosted by the University of Florida in Gainesville, March 1996
“Extending the Margins: Decadence in the Poetry of Minka Czobel,” 12th Annual Conference on Foreign Literature, Wichita State University, April 1995
“Hungarian Literature - European Literature,” 19th Annual Conference of the American Hungarian Educators’ Association, April 1994
“Peasant-Noble Relations in the Novels of Jozsef Eötvös and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach,” 17th Annual Conference of the German Studies Association, October 1993
“The Place of Hungary in the Liberal Arts Curriculum,” 18th Annual Conference of the American Hungarian Educators’ Association, April 1993
“Christianity and Intolerance in the Popular Literature of Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Case of O. Glaubrecht,” 108th Convention of the Modern Language Association, December 1992
“(Non?)-Working Minorities: The Ethics of Work in Late Nineteenth-Century German Literature,” 15th Annual Conference of the German Studies Association, September 1991
“The German Work Ethic in the Slavic Community: Cultural Conflict in Ferdinand von Saar’s ‘Die Troglodytin,’“ International Symposium on Germanic Languages and Literatures, the Ohio State University, March 1991
“Forester, Poacher and Conflict: Literary Convention and the Defunctionalization of the Crime of Social Protest,” 14th Annual Conference of the German Studies Association, October 1990
“Why A University?” paper delivered on behalf of the Student Activities Board National Awareness Committee at Drake University, October 1990
“The Good Work Made Great: Manipulation of Literary Tradition in Isolde Kurz’s ‘Die Humanisten,’“ 7th Annual Wichita State University Conference on Foreign Literature, April 1990
“A Rivalry,” short story read at the 20th Century Literature Conference at the University of Louisville, May 1985
“Die Frau in Keller’s Kleider machen Leute,” 51st Annual Meeting of the American Association of Teachers of German, November 1983


GRANTS
Northern State University, Summer Research Stipend for completion of the book manuscript “Globalizing the Peasant,” summer 2006
Northern State University, Distance Delivery Initiative grant awarded for the development of the upper-level distance course German for Commerce
Academic Transformation Grant offered by Educational Technology at Missouri (ET@MO) at the University of Missouri-Columbia, academic year 2003-2004, co-applicant: Roger Cook, for pedagogical and technological updating and innovation in our intermediate German sequence
Drake University Faculty Development Grant and Drake University Center for the Humanities Grant, “Wirtschaftsdeutschseminar” sponsored by the AATG and held at the Heinrich-Heine Universität, Düsseldorf, July 1996
Drake University Faculty Research Grant, “The Jewish Experience in Eastern Europe” for study in Krakow and surrounding sites in Poland, March 1996
American Council of Learned Societies “East European Language Training Grant” for advanced Hungarian Language Study at the Debrecen Summer University, July-August 1995
Drake University Faculty Research Grant, “Debrecen University Summer School in Hungarian,” July-August 1993
Drake University Center for the Humanities Program for Research Support for Tenure-Track Faculty Grant, Fall semesters 1992 and 1993, release time for research on the concept of an integrated East Central European literature
Drake University Faculty Research Grant, “Literature: Voice of Power: A Comparative Study of Literature and Social Change in Germany, Austria and Hungary, 1840-1870,” funded research in Budapest July-August 1991
Drake University Center for the Humanities Grant, “Hungarian Language Study with Linguatheque Institute,” Budapest, August 1990
Drake University Faculty Research Grant, “A Thematic Analysis of the Role of Poaching and Wood Theft in German Prose of the Nineteenth Century,” May-June 1990
Drake University Center for the Humanities Grant and funding from Drake University Office of the Provost, “Flames of Passion/Flames of Greed: Acts of Arson in German Prose Fiction 1850-1900,” June-July 1990
Drake University Computer Intensive University Project Grant, “Software for Use in German Language Instruction,” May 1990


ACADEMIC SERVICE
South Dakota World Languages Association, President, 2008-
Search Committee, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Spring 2008
Library Committee member, Northern State University, 2006-2008
South Dakota World Languages Association, Secretary-Treasurer, 2005-2007
Assessment Coordinator for German and Spanish, South Dakota Board of Regents’ Teacher Quality Enhancement project, Northern State University, 2006
Vice Chair, South Dakota Board of Regents Humanities Discipline Council, 2006-
Graduate Faculty member, Northern State University, 2005-
Missouri Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German, Newsletter Editor, 2001-2003
Member, Iowa Humanities Board, 1994-1996
Phi Sigma Iota Advisor for the Department of Modern Languages and Literature at Drake University, 1989-2001
Committee Service at Drake University:
Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee (Co-Chair, 1995-1996)
Arts and Sciences Council
Arts and Sciences Faculty Cabinet
Departmental Promotion and Tenure Committee (Chair, 1998)
Advisor for Open-Enrolled Students
Summer Registration Student Advisor
etc.


PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATIONS

Certification as an Oral Proficiency Tester, ACTFL, 1986
Certification in Braille Transcription, National Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, The Library of Congress, 1987
Certificate of Outstanding Achievement at the superior level in Hungarian, Debreceni Nyari Egyetem (Debrecen Summer University), 1995


COMMUNITY SERVICE
Volunteer Website Translator (English to German), Hyperemesis Education and Research Foundation, http://www.helpher.org/international/germany/DE_mothers/DE_index.php
www.dict.cc Hall of Fame: I am a regular contributor to this German-English Internet dictionary, entering new terms and checking others’ submissions to keep it updated and see to its constant improvement
Volunteer Fundraiser, Meow House no-kill animal shelter, Williamsport PA, 2004-date
Performer, Columbia Community Orchestra, 2001-2004
Board Member, Des Moines Community Orchestra, 1996-98
Volunteer Site Interpreter for Living History Farms, 1994-2001
Volunteer Braillist for Iowa Department for the Blind, 1989-1996
Translator in German, Hungarian, French and other languages for the Council for international Understanding and other organizations


LANGUAGE SKILLS
English: native speaker

German: near-native competency
French: excellent oral and written skills
Bulgarian: intermediate level, current study
Hungarian: advanced level
Middle High German: excellent reading skills
Other languages studied: Dutch, Latin, Gothic, Old High German