All current members of the German Studies Association are strongly encouraged to vote in each year’s election. Information and ballots are sent out annually to GSA members via email and posted to the GSA website. Results of the elections will be posted here.
GSA Online Elections, May 22 - June 12, 2026
The voting procedure will be simple: Current GSA members receive email instructions to the email address in their GSA profile. The email will originate from ElectionRunner.com and contain a unique, member-specific link to their ballot on May 22. It is no longer necessary for members to log-in to vote.
If you are a current GSA member and do not receive an email, please check your spam folder for an email from ElectionRunner.com. If you have become a member on or after May 22, or if you encounter technical problems, please contact GSA Operations Director Dr. Josh Seale (operations@thegsa.org). If you have problems remembering your log-in ID or email, please contact our partners at Johns Hopkins UP (JRNLCIRC@jh.edu).
You will be electing six new members of the Board, whose terms will begin on 1 January 2027.
Biographies of all the candidates are below.
BOARD POSITIONS
GSA Board Position #1: Historical & Social Sciences (3 years)
Subfield: Medieval/Early Modern/19th-Century
Adam Blackler (University of Wyoming)
I am an associate professor of history at the University of Wyoming. My research emphasizes the transnational dimensions of imperial occupation and colonial violence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I have authored one book, entitled An Imperial Homeland: Forging German Identity in Southwest Africa (2022), co-edited one volume, published five book chapters, one journal article, and numerous public-facing essays for academic societies online. Since completing a research sabbatical in 2025, I have submitted two article manuscripts and have begun drafting two new book monographs. My research has been funded by the DAAD, the NEH, the Ellbogen Center, and the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut (FUB). I have received the University of Wyoming’s Extraordinary Merit in Research Award, the Extraordinary Merit in Teaching Award, and the John P. Ellbogen Meritorious Classroom Teaching Award.I joined the GSA as a graduate student in 2011 and have attended every conference since that time. I am an active member in the Black Diaspora Studies Network and currently serve on the editorial board of Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association and the Pacific Coast Book Award Committee (AHA). If elected, I will focus on advocacy for emerging and early-career scholars and endeavor to use my positive energy to promote humanities research at the GSA and beyond.
Yair Mintzker (Princeton University)
I am an historian of early modern and modern Europe with a focus on German-speaking lands, and the author of three monographs in these fields: The Defortification of the German City, 1689-1866 (Cambridge, 2012), The Many Deaths of Jew Süss (Princeton, 2017), and I, Wandering Jew (Princeton, 2026). My research is grounded in careful archival work and engages with broader questions of interpretation, method, and narrative.
Beyond my scholarship, I have sought to contribute to the professional infrastructure that supports German studies in the U.S. I serve on the boards of two publication series in German history, where I work closely with authors and editors to support the development and dissemination of new research and ideas. I also serve as treasurer of the Friends of the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, helping to sustain initiatives that promote scholarly exchange and collaboration between Germany and North America.
I’d love to bring my experience and energy to the GSA executive board. I have always been so grateful for the sense of community the GSA fosters and would be thrilled by the opportunity to support GSA members myself so our organization can continue to thrive.
GSA Board Position #2: Historical & Social Sciences (3 years)
Subfield: 20th/21st Century
James A. van Dyke (University of Missouri)
I am Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Missouri. My work focuses on the political history of art, examining how German artists, institutions, and works have been shaped by catastrophic historical events, social contradictions, and extreme ideological responses they provoked. I am the author of Franz Radziwill and the Contradictions of German Art History, 1919-1945 (University of Michigan Press) and Otto Dix in Detail: Painting and Precarity in the Field of Weimar Culture (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming). A third book, Representing Shell: Modernism, Petroculture, and Politics in Germany between the Wars, is in progress.
As immediate past President of the Historians of German, Scandinavian, and Central European Art and as a member of the DAAD’s North American selection committee for pre-doctoral study and research scholarships, I have been especially committed to the support of graduate students and emerging scholars, and to fostering broad scholarly community and exchange. If elected, those would remain my priorities. Of particular interest to me is the GSA’s pilot program for regional meetings. Together with the national conference, this initiative has the potential to benefit colleagues at all stages of their careers, but especially the most precariously situated, in the face of shared challenges.
Heidi Tworek (University of British Columbia)
I am a Professor of History and Public Policy at the University of British Columbia where I direct the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions. My research explores the history and policy of media and communications in Germany and globally. My book, News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945, won three awards, including the David Barclay Book Prize. I have co-edited four volumes and eight special issues alongside writing over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. I have co-edited the Journal of Global History since 2019.
At the GSA, I have chaired the Barclay Book Prize committee. I serve on the Academic Advisory Board of the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. I also bring considerable experience of serving other professional organizations such as the Business History Conference.
Alongside my work as a historian, I am very involved in policy and public communications, including advising governments on expert committees, serving as a senior fellow at major think tanks, and media engagement in English and German. I’d be eager to incorporate this experience into the GSA, for example by supporting a wider range of career trajectories for GSA members or creating new connections beyond academia.
GSA Board Position #3: Literature & Cultural Studies (3 years)
Daniel Magilow (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
I am Professor of German at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where I teach and research photography and film and their intersections with Holocaust Studies, Weimar and Nazi Germany, and postwar memory. I am the author, co-author, editor, or translator of six books, including The Photography of Crisis: The Photo Essays of Weimar Germany, Holocaust Representations in History: An Introduction (Bloomsbury) and The Absolute Realist: Collected Writings of Albert Renger-Patzsch, 1923–1967 (Getty). My work has been supported by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Getty Foundation, the DAAD, and the NEH.
I have an extensive record of professional service, including four years on the Academic Council of the Holocaust Education Foundation of Northwestern University. I am currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
My nearly twenty-five years in the GSA have included annual conference participation, coordinating the Visual Studies Network, and service on the Graduate Student Essay Prize and Sybil Halpern Milton Book Prize committees. I would be honored to serve on the Executive Committee. I can bring to it a strong commitment to mentorship—especially for early-career scholars—and to advocating aggressively for German Studies and the humanities in today’s challenging cultural and political climate.
Agnes Mueller (University of South Carolina)
I am a professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina, where I also serve as core faculty in Jewish Studies and as program director in Comparative Literature. My work focuses on post-1945 and contemporary literature, Holocaust memory, and German American relations. My most recent monograph, Holocaust Migration (Cambridge University Press, 2026), examines Holocaust memory in relation to Jewish and Muslim identities in literature. My research has been supported by grants from DAAD, the Max Kade Foundation, and most recently the American Academy in Berlin.
I have been an active member of the German Studies Association since I was a graduate student in 1994, attending nearly every annual conference and serving on the programming committee in 2010. The GSA has been central to my intellectual development, and I would be honored to serve in this role.
If elected, I will work to promote the GSA’s visibility and mission, with particular attention to mentoring early-career and junior scholars. I am committed to strengthening interdisciplinary networks while also fostering new connections that expand their reach. I also aim to support more public-facing work that highlights the relevance and impact of our interconnected fields.
Graduate Student Member of the GSA Board (2 years)
Martin Schwartz (University of Washington)
I am a PhD candidate at the University of Washington in German Studies and Cinema + Media Studies, and am currently a Dissertation Fellow at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. My dissertation examines continuity and change in the form and content of cultural antisemitism in the postwar FRG, across film, stage direction, written drama, and public discourse. I have presented on cultural antisemitism, Holocaust memory and cinema, and contemporary art at GSA, AJS, and elsewhere. My work across disciplines gives me great appreciation for German Studies’ disciplinary breadth. 2026 will mark my third GSA conference.
Scholarly associations like GSA can help emerging and established scholars navigate the disparate networks and ways of knowing that make German Studies so rich. I am keenly grateful for GSA’s professional development opportunities for graduate students: feedback received through a mentorship pairing helped me secure my first publication. If elected, I would aim to support networking initiatives both between and among graduate students and established scholars, and to expand training opportunities for members in or approaching the academic job market. The academy is changing rapidly, and I envision GSA as a place where students can understand and help shape this change. Thank you.
Laura Stahl (University of Michigan)
I am a PhD candidate in the German department at the University of Michigan. My dissertation explores the significance of “Americana” through a study of three German fan communities, each centering around a specific time or space in American history. My work is rooted in contemporary discussions of race and ethnicity, as well as gender, performance theory, and Indigenous studies. With such an interdisciplinary topic, I have had the privilege of drawing upon the knowledge of scholars across many subfields of German studies. Knowledge exchange like this has been an invaluable resource for myself and my peers. As the graduate student representative to the Board, my work would center around fostering exactly such exchange. I would work to boost graduate student involvement with the GSA by conducting outreach to graduate programs. I would also ensure that graduate students at the annual conference have spaces to ask questions and learn from more senior scholars. In addition to the established graduate student reception, I would expand event offerings to include initiatives like a faculty roundtable on job hunting, Q&A sessions with recent graduates — resources that would empower graduate students to successfully navigate our increasingly complex future career landscape.
GSA Vice President (2 years)
Thomas Lekan (University of South Carolina)
Tom Lekan (PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999) is Professor and Associate Chair of History and an affiliate of the School of Earth, Ocean and Environment at the University of South Carolina. Tom’s publications examine German environmental history through a “glocal” lens that explores local sustainability traditions of Heimat while interrogating the injurious legacies of green imperialism in East Africa. He is the author of Imagining the Nation in Nature: Landscape Preservation and German Identity (2004), Our Gigantic Zoo: A German Quest to Save the Serengeti (2020), and, with political scientist Carol Hager (Bryn Mawr College), Green Germany: Local Pathways to Global Sustainability, forthcoming this year. A GSA member since 1997, Tom teamed up with colleagues in literature and film studies to establish the Environmental Studies Network (co-chair, 2012-2015) and served on the Executive Board, including its Executive Director hiring committee (2018-2020). He joined the German Studies Review Editorial Board (2023-2025) and was a contributing member of GSA book prize, nominating, and climate action committees. If elected, he would build collaborative working groups to help bolster the organization’s commitments to inclusivity, next-generation career opportunity, and trans-Atlantic cooperation. He supports partnerships with affiliate organizations like the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) as a cornerstone of this approach, particularly at this vulnerable moment for higher education.
Jonathan Olsen (Texas Woman's University)
Jonathan Olsen (Ph.D. University of Maryland) is Professor of Political Science at Texas Woman’s University. Olsen is the author of six books and numerous scholarly articles in, among others, German Politics, German Politics and Society, Party Politics, Journal of Religion and Politics, and Problems of Post-Communism. His first book, Nature and Nationalism. Right-Wing Ecology and the Politics of Identity in Contemporary Germany (1999 [2024]), was one of the earliest analyses of “eco-fascism.” He has been both a junior and senior Fulbright Scholar as well as a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) fellow and has held visiting appointments at the University of Münster, the University of Potsdam and the European University Viadrina (Frankfurt-Oder). He sits on the executive board for the International Association for the Study of German Politics (IASGP) and on the editorial advisory boards for German Politics and German Politics and Society.
Olsen has been a member of the GSA since 1998, serving on the executive board from 2023-2025 and as panel organizer for the Political Science section for several conferences. He would like to continue the work of the GSA in elevating the importance of teaching and learning, as well as fostering greater connections to cultural/political and media organizations.
GSA Secretary (3 years)
CJ Jones (University of Notre Dame)
CJ Jones is Professor of German Studies at the University of Notre Dame. They earned their Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Their interdisciplinary research focuses on medieval Christian culture, drawing on literature, ritual studies, women’s studies, manuscript studies, and music. They have published two monographs: Ruling the Spirit (Penn Press, 2018) and Fixing the Liturgy (Penn Press, 2024), as well as the translation Women’s History in the Age of Reformation (PIMS, 2019) and the co-edited volume Form und Affordanz: Interdisziplinäre Zugänge (Harrassowitz, 2024). Their commitment to the GSA has included organizing panels for the pre-modern group YMAGINA, co-chairing the Religious Cultures Network (2016-19), facilitating the Medieval and Early Modern German Studies Network as webmaster (current), and serving on the Seminars Committee (2022-2025). They also serve on the editorial board of The German Quarterly and as general editor of two book series: Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions (Western Michigan University Press) and Liturgie und Volkssprache (De Gruyter). If elected as GSA Secretary, they will advocate for their priorities of professional engagement: forging connections across disciplinary boundaries; supporting graduate students, early career researchers, and contingent faculty; and engaging scholars in Europe and the UK.
Jonathan Wipplinger (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
I am Associate Professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2006). My scholarship explores intersections of music and (popular) culture in the German-speaking world from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. My first book, The Jazz Republic: Music, Race, and American Culture in Weimar Germany (2017), traces the impact and influence of American jazz on German culture in the early twentieth century. My current project, Resonant Lives: Listening to Popular Music in Germany since 1900, seeks to reframe the history of popular music from the perspective of the listener. At UWM, I teach German language, literature, and culture courses at all levels and in 2022 received the Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award. I have been an active member of the GSA since 2005, consistently presenting as well as organizing panels and leading seminars. In addition to previously serving on the Program Committee (2019-2020), I am a long-standing member of the Sound Studies Network. If elected as GSA secretary, I will strive for transparency and timeliness in all communications and welcome the opportunity to serve an organization whose interdisciplinary mission and diverse membership I so strongly support.
GSA Online Elections, 15 May–15 June 2025
The voting procedure will be simple: Current GSA members receive email instructions to the email address in their GSA profile. The email will originate from ElectionRunner.com and contain a unique, member-specific link to their ballot on May 15. It is no longer necessary for members to log-in to vote.
If you are a current GSA member and do not receive an email, please check your spam folder for an email from ElectionRunner.com. If you have become a member on or after May 15, or if you encounter technical problems, please contact GSA Operations Director Dr. Josh Seale (operations@thegsa.org). If you have problems remembering your log-in ID or email, please contact our partners at Johns Hopkins UP (JRNLCIRC@jh.edu).
You will be electing four new members of the Board, whose terms will begin on 1 January 2026.
Biographies of all the candidates are below.
BOARD POSITIONS
Germanistik (3 years)
Qinna Shen (Bryn Mawr College) [Winner]
Qinna Shen received her Ph.D. in German from Yale and is Associate Professor and Chair of German at Bryn Mawr College. Her research focuses on 20th-century German culture, visual studies, and Asian German Studies. She is the author of The Politics of Magic: DEFA Fairy-Tale Films (2015) and and the co-edited volume Beyond Alterity: German Encounters with Modern East Asia (Spektrum series, 2014). Her second co-edited volume Charting Asian German Film History: Imagination, Collaboration, and Diasporic Representation and her second monograph Jiny Lan and the Art of Subversion: Chinese-German Culture and Politics through a Feminist Lens are both forthcoming in 2025 with Camden House. She is on the editorial board of German Studies Review. Her GSA service includes the Program Committee (2017–2020); DAAD/GSA Article Prize Committee (Chair, 2021); Seminar Committee (Chair, 2023 and 2024). She is co-editor of the GSR’s 2026 issue marking the GSA’s 50th anniversary. Her service to the field is driven by her commitment to teaching, scholarship, and collaborating with scholars at all stages of their careers. If elected, she will draw on her experiences in diverse academic and cultural settings to listen, advise and advocate for German Studies in the changing landscape of the 21st century.
Holly Yanacek (James Madison University)
I am an Associate Professor of German at James Madison University, where I have a secondary appointment as a Research Development Associate for the College of Arts and Letters. I earned my Ph.D. in German Studies from the University of Pittsburgh in 2016. My research focuses on 19th- to 21st-century German literature, emotion studies, gender studies, care ethics, animal studies, and posthumanism. I co-edited two volumes—Animals, Machines, and AI (DeGruyter, 2021) and Keywords for Today (Oxford UP, 2018)—and my monograph, Rethinking Feeling: On the Renegotiation of Emotions in German Novels at the Fin de Siècle, is under contract with Bloomsbury. My research has been supported by Fulbright, the German Historical Institute, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Since 2013, I have participated in the annual conference and served the GSA in the following roles: Graduate Student Essay Prize Committee (2017-2018), Emotion Studies Network Coordinator (2018-2022), and Program Committee (2025). If elected to the Executive Board, I will work to ensure that colleagues from all institution types and career stages feel heard, represented, and welcomed within the GSA. I would draw on my passion for interdisciplinary research, collaboration, and mentoring to support the diverse needs of our membership.
History (3 years)
Astrid M. Eckert (Emory University) [Winner]
I teach modern German and European history at Emory University in Atlanta. My education was a German-American co-production, with degrees from the University of Michigan (MA 1995) and the Free University Berlin (MA 1997, PhD 2003). My first position was as a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., before transferring to Atlanta in 2006. My most recent book on the inter-German border (West Germany and the Iron Curtain, OUP 2019) moved me from political and cultural contemporary history into environmental history, which is now my focus. I gave my first paper at the GSA in San Diego in 2002; Gerhard L. Weinberg chaired the panel at the time. Since then, I’ve come to regard the GSA as my ‘home’ society, and I attend whenever possible. I’ve tried to contribute to its mission by convening panels, offering commentaries, serving on the DAAD Book Prize Committee, the Archives Committee, the Program Committee, and the Nominating Committee. Together with Priscilla Layne, I conceived and launched the Emerging Scholars Workshop (ESW) as the first GSA event dedicated exclusively to graduate students. Supporting emerging scholars continues to be one of my priorities.
Will Gray (Purdue University)
Since 2004 I have been teaching European and international history at Purdue University in my home state of Indiana. My article and book publications focus on German history in a European and global context, featuring such topics as the Deutsche Mark, European integration, Ostpolitik, military exports, and nuclear proliferation. My current book project examines German engagement in Brazil in the 20th century, approaching the capitalist entanglements of trade and investments against the backdrop of military dictatorship, human rights abuses, and environmental devastation. In 2015 I was honored to receive the DAAD Prize for German and European History from the AICGS (now the American-German Institute). At the GSA I served for several years on the Archives Committee, and in 2014-15 on the DAAD Book Prize committee. Many years ago (2004-8) I was an editor for the H-German listserv. As a lifetime GSA member, attending nearly every year since 2000, I’ve always appreciated the broad humanistic approach in evidence at each conference, having first come to German history through film, literature, and music. If elected, I would help strategize the GSA’s response to public hostility toward professional scholarship, by encouraging more outward-facing activities and emphasizing the plurality of voices within academia.
Social Sciences / Society (3 years)
Deborah Ascher Barnstone (University of Sydney)
I am Professor and Head of Architecture at The University of Sydney. I am both a licensed architect as well as an art and architecture historian, which means that my scholarship straddles traditional research and professional practice, interrogating the origins of modernism and the relationships between art, architecture, and culture. I have published widely most recently, The Color of Modernism: Paints, Pigments and the Transformation of Modern Architecture in 1920s Germany in 2022 with Bloomsbury Academic. Passionate about German art and architecture, I have been involved in promoting German Studies scholarship for many years in the US, Germany, and Australia. As inaugural co-chair of the GSA Visual Culture Network with Tom Haakenson, I organized numerous GSA sessions, hosted the first networking cocktail parties, and then founded an ongoing scholarly book series now with Bloomsbury Academic, Visual Culture in German Contexts. Almost every year, I lead a study abroad architectural design studio in Berlin that combines an art history topic with design hosted at German academic institutions as a way of expanding the reach of German Studies. I particularly enjoy creative challenges and would welcome working on the GSA Board to further extend the reach of our disciplines nationally and internationally.
Kira Thurman (University of Michigan) [Winner]
I am an Associate Professor of History, German Studies, and Musicology at the University of Michigan, with affiliations with AfroAmerican and African Studies. My first book, Singing like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, was supported by awards from Fulbright, the American Academy in Berlin, IFK, and the Institute for Advanced Study, and won seven awards including the GSA’s DAAD Book Prize (History/Social Sciences). It was named one of NPR’s favorite books of 2021. My new research examines the intertwining histories of disco and decolonization in the late 20th century. As an interdisciplinary scholar and cultural historian, I have loved being a member of the GSA since I attended my first conference as a graduate student in 2010. I have been a co-organizer of the Music and Sound Studies Network, a facilitator for an Emerging Scholars Workshop, and organizer of many panels and roundtables. If elected, I will support the board’s ongoing efforts to meet the needs of a broad range of constituents. I am committed to mentoring the next generation of Germanists, supporting our interdisciplinary networks, amplifying new or often unheard voices, and finding solutions to the very real challenges ahead for our fields.
GSA Online Election, 15 November–15 December 2024
An election for a GSA Executive Board position will take place online between Friday, November 15 and Sunday, December 15 (ballot closed at 11:59pm EDT).
The voting procedure will be simple: Current GSA members receive email instructions with a link to the ballot on November 15, and use their GSA log-in credentials to vote.
If you are a current GSA member and do not receive an email, please make sure that GSA is in your contacts list and check your spam folder if not. If you have become a member on or after November 15, or if you encounter technical problems, please contact GSA Operations Director Dr. Jennifer L. Jenkins (operations@thegsa.org). If you have problems remembering your log-in ID or email, please contact our partners at Johns Hopkins UP (JRNLCIRC@jh.edu).
You will be electing one new member of the Board, whose term will begin on 1 January 2025.
Biographies of the candidates are below.
BOARD POSITION
Germanistik (3 years)
Christine Rinne (University of South Alabama) [Winner]
Christine Rinne (Ph.D., Indiana University, 2005) held two visiting positions before joining the faculty at the University of South Alabama. She is currently associate professor of German in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature, directs the International Studies program, and coordinates the Global Engagement Certificate. Her research focuses on reproductive labor and material culture through the lens of the maidservant in 19th- and 20th-century texts; she is currently exploring the cleaning lady’s growing popularity in crime fiction. She is drafting a monograph entitled "Soldiers Writing in Uncertainty: German POWs Prepare to Return Home," which analyzes the content and format of newspapers published by German prisoners of war held at two camps in Alabama from 1943–46. She has presented her research at numerous GSA conferences, served on the 2016 and 2017 GSA program committees, and is a member of the GSA mentoring initiatives task force. She would welcome the opportunity to actively engage in GSA’s conversation about how to best adapt to our evolving academic environment and develop new programming to better include scholars in all phases of their career.
Brett Sterling (University of Arkansas)
I am an Associate Professor of German at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. My research interests include German-language comics, diversity and representation in German-speaking Europe, and the works of Hermann Broch. My first book, Hermann Broch and Mass Hysteria: Theory and Representation in the Age of Extremes, analyzed how Broch used literature and theory as distinct but complementary means of conceiving and countering the mass hysteria of National Socialism. The book received the Radomír Luža prize in 2023. My current book project will present the first comprehensive history of German-language comics written in English. Since joining the GSA in 2014, I have worked consistently to promote the study of comics within German Studies by developing numerous panel series, as well as co-founding and co-organizing the GSA Comics Studies Network in 2017. As co-organizer, I have collaborated with colleagues in networks including Black Diaspora Studies, Queer and Trans Studies, and Asian German Studies. If elected, I would bring this interdisciplinary spirit to the GSA Board. I am especially eager to work for greater inclusivity and accessibility within the GSA. Further, I hope to work with colleagues to develop strategies for sustaining German Studies for the long term.
GSA Online Elections, 29 April–29 May 2024
Elections for GSA offices took place online between Monday, April 29 and Wednesday, May 29 (ballot closed at 11:59pm EDT).
The voting procedure will be simple: Current GSA members receive email instructions with a link to the ballot on April 29, and use their GSA log-in credentials to vote.
If you are a current GSA member and do not receive an email, please make sure that GSA is in your contacts list and check your spam folder if not. If you have become a member on or after April 29, or if you encounter technical problems, please contact GSA Operations Director Dr. Jennifer L. Jenkins (operations@thegsa.org). If you have problems remembering your log-in ID or email, please contact our partners at Johns Hopkins UP (JRNLCIRC@jh.edu).
You will be electing four new members of the Board, whose terms will begin on 1 January 2025.
Biographies of all the candidates are below.
BOARD POSITIONS
Vice President (2 years)
Ela Gezen (University of Massachusetts)
Ela Gezen (Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2012) is Associate Professor of German at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research and teaching focus on 20th and 21st century German literature and culture, with emphases on literatures of migration, theater, minority discourses, transnationalism, and cultural theory. She is the author of Brecht, Turkish Theater, and Turkish-German Literature (2018) and is currently working on her second book, Cultures in Migration: Turkish Artistic Practices and Cultural-Political Interventions in West Berlin. Besides her editorial work, she has published articles on music, theater, and literature, focusing on the intersection between aesthetics and politics in both Turkish and German contexts. She has attended every GSA conference since her very first in 2008, and in addition to presenting papers, has collaborated with colleagues on organizing seminars, panels, and roundtables. Within the GSA she has served on the Program and Arts Night Committees, the Vision and Advocacy Working Group, the Executive Board, and is currently chairing the newly implemented Mentoring Award and Initiatives Committee. Together with colleagues, she plans to continue advocacy work, facilitate cross-committee and multi-organizational cooperation, and support existing committees in their efforts in making the GSA a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive professional organization.
Todd Herzog (University of Cincinnati) [Winner]
Todd Herzog (PhD University of Chicago, 2001) is Professor of German and Film Studies and Director of the Niehoff Center for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cincinnati. He has published six books and over forty articles on topics ranging from the modernist crime story to the history of German-Jewish travel writing on North America. He co-edited the Journal of Austrian Studies from 2011-2021.
A lifetime member of the GSA, Todd co-chaired the Law and Legal Cultures Network (2013-2023) and served on the Executive Board (2020-2022). He has co-chaired the initial stages of the GSA’s Strategic Plan, from the first draft of a mission statement to the current membership survey that will guide the plan.
In the coming years, the GSA will focus on the strategic plan. The key tasks should be: (1) finding creative and sustainable ways to connect GSA members beyond the annual conference and (2) promoting a sense of belonging among members with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, disciplines, and career paths. If elected, Todd would work to elevate the importance of teaching and learning within the GSA, showcasing these endeavors alongside scholarship and the arts and highlighting the important work of GSA members in this area.
Germanistik (3 years)
Vance Byrd (University of Pennsylvania) [Winner]
I am a Presidential Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania, where I hold a secondary appointment in History of Art. I teach and publish on literature in German since the late eighteenth century, visual culture, history of the book and periodicals, environmental studies, and commemorative culture. My research has been supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation, Fulbright, the NEH, the National Humanities Center, and the Getty Research Institute.
I have been an active member of the GSA. I have given papers, organized panels, as well as convened and participated in seminars, roundtables, and plenary sessions at our annual meetings. I served on the GSA-DAAD Book Prize Committee, Program Committee, and I was the Program Director in 2021. I currently represent the Association on the Advisory Committee of the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies. I always try to be practical and transparent when problems need to be solved. It would be an honor to support the GSA in its advocacy role for the study of language and the humanities on our campuses, as well as in its function for professional development, mentorship, and intellectual exchange at our conferences.
Brett Sterling (University of Arkansas)
I am an Associate Professor of German at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. My research interests include German-language comics, diversity and representation in German-speaking Europe, and the works of Hermann Broch. My first book, Hermann Broch and Mass Hysteria: Theory and Representation in the Age of Extremes, analyzed how Broch used literature and theory as distinct but complementary means of conceiving and countering the mass hysteria of National Socialism. The book received the Radomír Luža prize in 2023. My current book project will present the first comprehensive history of German-language comics written in English. Since joining the GSA in 2014, I have worked consistently to promote the study of comics within German Studies by developing numerous panel series, as well as co-founding and co-organizing the GSA Comics Studies Network in 2017. As co-organizer, I have collaborated with colleagues in networks including Black Diaspora Studies, Queer and Trans Studies, and Asian German Studies. If elected, I would bring this interdisciplinary spirit to the GSA Board. I am especially eager to work for greater inclusivity and accessibility within the GSA. Further, I hope to work with colleagues to develop strategies for sustaining German Studies for the long term.
History/Social Science (3 years)
Heather Morrison (SUNY, New Paltz) [Winner]
As an associate professor of history at SUNY New Paltz, I write about Vienna’s intellectual circles in the 1780s. My past publications focused on freemasonry and publication practices in that decade of enlightenment activism. I am now working on a book about a botanical expedition sent around the world to gather plants, animals, and minerals for the Habsburg imperial collections. I have been supported by the Botstiber Institute for Austrian American History, a Richard Plaschka fellowship from the Austrian government, and a Fulbright. In serving the field, I have been on the GSA’s program committee and otherwise worked to promote Habsburg and Austrian studies through a long stint editing the HABSBURG H-net list. With my research focusing on pre-1800 global exchange and race, a background at an underfunded mid-sized state university, and connections with a range of centers and programs supporting the Austrian side of German Studies, I feel I can support and help expand the GSA’s goals of representation and serving member needs. On the board, I would focus on building community and mentoring through the association, communicating the value of knowledge work in German Studies, and supporting our strong interdisciplinary networks and increasing their visibility.
Eva Giloi (Rutgers University, Newark)
Eva Giloi is Associate Professor in the History Department at Rutgers University, Newark. She received her PhD from Princeton in 2000. Her dissertation "'Ich Kaufe Mir den Kaiser': Royal Relics and the Culture of Display in 19th-Century Prussia" received the Fritz Stern Prize (German Historical Institute, Washington D.C.). Her publications include Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture in Germany, 1750-1950, Constructing Charisma: Celebrity, Fame, and Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe, and Staging Authority: Performance and Power in the Long Nineteenth Century. She was Alexander-von-Humboldt Senior Research Fellow in 2012-2013 at the Center for the History of Emotions, Max-Planck-Institute für Bildungsforschung, and Martin L. and Sarah F. Leibowitz Member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 2019-2020. She has written on material culture, visual culture, museums, monarchy, fame as a social code, charisma in the urban space, photography, copyright, consumer culture, and trademark law, most recently “Looking at Monarchy Askance: Royal Brand Names and Trademark Law in the German Empire” in Central European History. From 2016-2021, she served as Board Member on the German Studies Review Editorial Board and is currently the Central European History representative and Board Member of the Friends of the German Historical Institute.
Graduate Student Representative (2 years)
Charlie Johnson (University of Illinois, Chicago)
Charlie Johnson received their MA from the University of Illinois in Chicago in 2021 and is currently a PhD student, TA, and Head TA in the department of Germanic Studies at UIC. As a TA, Charlie is committed to practicing inclusivity in the classroom with an emphasis on gender-inclusive language. While interested in inclusive pedagogy, Charlie’s dissertation “Trans/Figurations” investigates ruptures in binaries and gender identity in German literature from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century and the ways in which gender is entangled with the concept of "Bildung." In 2019 they received the Max Kade Fellowship and have earned Max Kade travel grants for attending conferences and studying abroad. They have also received the Astrida Orle Tantillo Bridges award, a competitive, merit-based internal scholarship that has been used to carry out various projects relating to their research. They have also won Robert Kauf awards for excellence in teaching and research. Charlie recently presented a paper at ACTFL on the topic of gender-inclusive language and one titled “Gender Ambivalence in Musil’s Törleß” at the Austrian Studies Association conference. They are working on a forthcoming publication on gender-inclusive language with Unterrichtspraxis. Charlie is a member of the German Studies Association, the Austrian Studies Association, AATG, and ACTFL.
Lorna McCarron (Georgetown University) [Winner]
I am a PhD candidate in the Georgetown University German Department. In my dissertation I explore the depiction of marginalized bodies in twenty-first-century German-language literature, drawing on material feminist approaches while also engaging critically with concepts of race and disability. I have had the pleasure of sharing my work on these topics at GSA conferences over the past three years—presenting on panels in 2021 and 2023 and participating in a seminar on Medical Humanities in 2022—where I benefited greatly from meeting like-minded scholars. If elected for the role of GSA graduate student representative, I would advocate for the scheduling of more professionalization events for junior scholars at the annual conference. In addition to the existing graduate student reception and Emerging Scholars Workshop, events such as CV clinics or the implementation of mentorship programs would create spaces for graduate students to develop their resumes, learn more about different job opportunities, and expand their networks beyond their institutions. Given that conferences can be difficult to navigate, particularly for groups that have been underrepresented in academia, I hope that such programming would make opportunities for professionalization at the GSA more accessible and foster greater graduate student engagement at the conference.