I grew up in Blankenese, a suburb of Hamburg, Germany. After my “Abitur” (high school diploma), I lived and worked for one year in Israel and England. In Munich I studied Deutsch als Fremdsprache at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität. During my graduate studies I taught German to Turkish immigrants in Munich.
In 1982/83, I moved to China where I taught German literature at the First Language Institute in Beijing. I returned to Munich to write my Master’s thesis on how German Prose was studied and interpreted in China. After I received my MA in 1984, I worked at the Munich branch of the American Defense Language Institute while continuing to study for my doctorate which I received in 1992. My thesis was on the image of Germany in American high school History textbooks published between 1924-1988. It was published in 1996 under the title Deutsche Preußen und Germanen.
Since coming to Wesleyan in 2008, I held teaching positions at Plymouth State College in Plymouth, NH, Dartmouth College, and Fairfield University in Fairfield, CT where I also worked as Associate Director of International Studies and Academic Advisor for Study Abroad.
My professional interests are: German literature and culture of the 19th, 20th, and 21st century; foreign language methodology, and technology, and German film. My current research is on “Interkulturelle Literatur” in Germany, i.e., German literature written by authors of non-German descent.