This weekend, two faculty members from CofC’s German and Russian Studies department presented at the annual German Studies Association Conference in Pittsburgh. Dr. Nancy Nenno, Professor of German, gave a presentation entitled “Here to Stay: Black Austrian Studies” on the panel “Rethinking Black German Studies.” Dr. Sarah Koellner, Visiting Assistant Professor of German, presented a paper on Birgit Kempker, Maxim Biller, and Alban Nikolai Herbt in the three-day seminar “On the Very Concept of Autofiction: Theory and History” and was a respondent for the panel ““The (Socio)-Political Role of Football in 20th-Century German Film and Literature.”

This Saturday, Sept. 22nd, CofC German program faculty Dr. Morgan Koerner and Dr. Sarah Koellner and incoming CofC adjunct instructor of German Stevie Laughead attended the annual workshop of the South Carolina chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German on the campus of the University of South Carolina. 30 participants attended the workshop and there were six presentations on different German teaching strategies, tools, and topics from K-16 German teachers throughout the state, followed by an open forum and planning session led by current SCAATG president Dr. Morgan Koerner.

One of the big takeaways of the workshop: there are great things with German happening in education in South Carolina, and we have a clear and strong need to get more German teachers into the system as programs grow and retiring colleagues need to be replaced! Here at CofC we are working hard to do our part and were elated that German and education double majors Denicee Becker ’20 and Lauren Smith ’22 made it up to the workshop as well!

The future is bright for German and education in the state of SC and we are grateful to all of the German teachers and teachers-in-training that are making it so!