Auf Wiedersehen to Dr. Isabell Klaiber

Dr. Isabell Klaiber, Visiting Professor of English from the University of Tübingen, will soon bid farewell to the University of Maryland.

Klaiber was the latest participant in the faculty exchange between the Maryland English Department and the Tübingen American Studies program. Most recently, Maryland hosted Jan Stievermann, a scholar on American Realism and Puritanism, during the 2005-2006 academic year.

Klaiber taught two courses this fall: Engl 313 – American Literature and Engl 479Q – Gender & Genius in 19th Century American Literature. While in the United States, Klaiber also presented a paper at the American Studies Association conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico in October and was the final speaker for Maryland’s Local Americanists series in December.

While pursuing her Ph.D. at Tübingen, Klaiber spent a year at Tufts University lecturing in German and deepening her understanding of 19th century American literature. The opportunity to return to the U.S. was made very enticing by previous participants in the faculty exchange. “It was not much of a question that I would apply for this exchange program,” says Klaiber, “The resources in the US are just incredible for a European Americanist.”

Although she won’t be teaching this spring, Klaiber expects to remain in the area until March to take advantage of research opportunities at the University of Maryland, the Library of Congress, and elsewhere. The experience has been invigorating and offered the opportunity to probe important questions for her research. “One of the overall questions we dealt with in my 300-level course was how ‘Americanness’ is depicted and negotiated in literature. As a non-American instructor, I found this particularly interesting to discuss with my American students,” says Klaiber.

Dr. Jonathan Auerbach taught two courses at Tübingen this summer. Like Klaiber, he also notes that opportunities provided by an exchange provide new perspectives. “I taught a course on American realism and naturalism that featured very close, minute really, readings of short stories, usually no more than two a session. I think I threw them a curveball, because they were used to reporting on biographical details and contextual matters, whereas I was trying to get them to lead class discussions on about the texts,” says Auerbach.

Dr. Richard Cross dates the Tübingen exchange to 1995, when he coordinated a meeting between the two universities. Since then, Maryland and Tübingen have been exchanging faculty members between Germanic Studies, Management, Engineer, and most frequently in American Literature.

The Univeristy of Tübingen is located twenty miles southwest of Stuttgart in a picturesque small city on the Neckar River. Founded in 1477 and enrolling 23,000 students, Tübingen is one of Germany’s oldest and most prestigious universities. Tübingen will next host Richard Cross this spring. Cross will be teaching one seminar on Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, and another on Vladimir Nabokov and Saul Bellow.