Gordon Birrell- Professor Birrell is area chair for German and teaches courses at all levels from beginning German to advanced literature courses. He has published a scholarly book on German Romanticism as well as a number of articles on 19th century and fin-de-siècle literature and the correlations between literature and music in writers such as E.T.A. Hoffmann, Heinrich von Kleist, and Franz Grillparzer.

B.A. Stanford, M.A. Stanford, Ph.D. Stanford

Office: 314 Clements 

Phone: 214-768-2216 

E-mail: gbirrell@smu.edu

Marie-Luise Gaettens- (on leave 2011/2012) Professor Gaettens is chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Her research interests include 20th Century German literature, in particular GDR literature, comparative literature as well as women and gender studies. She has published a book of German women, both West and East German, examining the Nazi past entitled Women Writers and Fascism: Reconstructing History. Professor Gaettens teaches a wide variety of courses ranging from German language to Cultural Formations and film.

Erstes Staatsexamen, Hambug, Germany, M.A. Indiana University, Zweites Staatsexamen/Referendariat, Hamburg, Germany, Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin

Office: 309A Clements 

Phone: 214-768-2210 

E-mail: mgaetten@smu.edu

Robert G. Kohn- Professor Kohn teaches beginning and intermediate German, and has taught advanced grammar and a seminar on postwar film and literature. His research focuses on 20th- and 21st- century German literature and film with specific attention to Holocaust Studies and issues of memory, trauma, and epistemology in dealing with the Nazi past. He has extensive teaching experience and has delivered scholarly papers at several conferences in the U.S. and abroad. 

B.A. DePauw University, M.A. University of Texas at Austin, Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin

Office:  Clements 330 

Phone: 214-768-1413 

E-mail: rkohn@smu.edu

Elise Pflum- Professor Pflum co-directs and teaches German in the annual summer abroad program to Germany- SMU-in-Germany. During the academic year she serves as Director of the Foreign Language Teaching and Technology Center. She has taught first, second and third year German at SMU.

B.A. Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, M.A.- University of Texas at Austin, Ph.D.- University of Texas at Austin

Office: 234A Clements 

Phone: 214-768-2177 

E-mail: eapflum@smu.edu
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