College Advisors
For genereal inquiries about any foreign language study, the CLAS advisors are the best starting point. They can also connect you with a specific language advisor or faculty member on the departmental level. For specific advising on German Studies and German language classes, please contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Office Hours:
M – F, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm
Walk-ins on Wednesdays 1:00 – 4:00 pm
or by appointment
Office Hours:
M – F: 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and by appointment
Faculty Advisor for Majors and Minors
Fall 2021 Office Hours:
By appointment
Via Zoom or Skype
Research and Teaching interests: Dr. Linden's research focuses on modern German-Jewish literature and thought, Austrian and German modernism, and the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. His first book, Karl Kraus and the Discourse of Modernity (NUP 2020), assesses the Viennese satirist Karl Kraus's literary production as well as Kraus's relationship to other important theorists of European modernity (Kierkegaard, Benjamin, Adorno). Dr. Linden has taught all levels of German language and culture, including courses on German film and on the German-language literature of 20th-century exiles and contemporary refugees.
German Language Program Coordinator
Fall 2021 Office Hours:
M, W, 10:00 - 11:00 am
Both In-Person and Via Zoom or Skype
Research and teaching Interests: German language and culture, applied linguistics, instructed second language acquisition.
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Fall 2021 Office Hours:
Rresearch and teaching interests: Dr. Vanchena's current research focuses on German immigrant culture in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She is creating a scholarly digital archive of poems written by German Americans during the First World War. She uses this poetry to examine how German immigrants and their descendants defined their national identity from 1914 to 1918. She also engages with the local history museum to study the Turner movement in Lawrence, KS. Dr. Vanchena teaches courses on the German-American experience, German-language literature, and contemporary German-speaking Europe. She regularly teaches lower-level and advanced online courses for the BGS degree completion program.
Faculty Study Abroad Advisor
Fall 2021 Office Hours:
F: 3:00 – 4:00 & by appointment
Both In-Person and Via Zoom or Skype
Research and teaching interests: Dr. Meyertholen received her Ph.D. in Modern German Literature and Culture from Indiana University in 2014. Her interests connect post-1750 German literature and culture with art history and museum studies, and focus on painting in German-speaking Europe as represented through and in relation to different media. Bringing this fascination with modes of representation into the classroom, she engages art, film, and other visual media as a means to energize and enhance language learning.
Dr. Meyertholen has taught language and literature courses at all undergraduate levels, including for overseas study programs in both Germany and Austria. She has also studied at universities in Berlin and Würzburg, and worked in Munich. Her publications have explored interrelationships between Heinrich von Kleist and Caspar David Friedrich, Goethe's morphological thought and Wassily Kandinsky, and fairy tales in the foreign-language classroom. Past presentation topics have included Goethe’s poetry, the depiction of animals and zoos in art, Socialist aesthetics and political resistance, and fairy tales in literature, film, and pedagogy.
