Talks & Events
Conferences, Symposia, & Workshops Organized
DDGC Conference: “Interdependence and Solidarity Formations in German Studies and the Arts,” co-organized conference, University of British Columbia and Dartmouth College, April 10-12, 2025. (scheduled)
“The Visible Century: Béla Balázs’s The Visible Man at 100,” co-organized conference at the University of Virginia, September 6-7, 2024.
“Queer/Trans Cinema Studies,” co-organized symposium at the University of British Columbia, March 30, 2024.
“Soziale und narrative Ökonomien: Grimmelshausens Courasche intersektional” [Social and Narrative Economies: Intersectional Approaches to Grimmelshausen’s Courasche], co-organized workshop at the Zentrum für Historische Mediologie at the University of Zürich, June 29-July 1, 2023.
“Thinking with Lauren Berlant,” co-organized workshop, University of Alberta, May 19-20, 2023.
“Watching War: A Symposium on Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front,” co-organized symposium, University of British Columbia and University of Warwick, May 11, 2023.
DDGC Conference: “Creating Just Outcomes and Assessments, Together,” co-organized conference, University of British Columbia, March 31-April 2, 2023.
“Nosferatu at 100,” co-organized symposium, University of British Columbia, March 18, 2022.
“Decentering German Cinema,” co-organized conference, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, November 13-14, 2020.
“The Past and Future of Queer German Studies,” co-organized conference, University of British Columbia, April 24-26, 2020.
“Diversity, Decolonization, and the German Curriculum,” co-organized conference, University of North Carolina, Asheville, March 2-5, 2017.
Panels Organized, Moderated, or Commentated
Co-Organizer, “Intimacies against Empire, Archives of the Ordinary: Aleksandar Hemon’s The World and All that It Holds,” American Comparative Literature Association, May 29-June 1. (scheduled)
Organizer, “The Perils and Pleasures of Language Program Recruitment,” Modern Language Association. (2024)
Moderator, several sessions for DDGC 2023, “The Hotcomes Conference: Creating Just Outcomes and Assessments, Together.” (2023)
Moderator, “From Anthropocene to Zeitgeist: Time and Timeliness in the Works of Schiller and Goethe,” Modern Language Association. (2023)
Co-organizer, Second-Language Teaching and Learning Forum panel: “Minoritized Learners and Instructors in Postsecondary Language Learning Contexts,” Modern Language Association. (2022)
Co-organizer, Second-Language Teaching and Learning Forum panel: “From Theory to Practice: Multilingualism in the Second Language and Teaching Classroom,” Modern Language Association. (2022)
Co-organizer, Association of Departments of Foreign Languages sponsored panel: “Resisting Securitization and Privatization: Toward New Advocacy Models for Language Learning,” Modern Language Association. (2021)
Co-Organizer, “Queer and Trans German Studies Today,” Roundtable, German Studies Association Annual Conference. (2020)
Co-Organizer, Goethe Society of North America sponsored roundtable: “Decolonization and the Age of Goethe,” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. (2020)
Co-organizer of 3-panel series, “Empire and Queerness, 1871-1918,” German Studies Annual Conference. (2019)
Commentator on Panel, “Fontane at 200: Space and Art,” German Studies Association Annual Conference. (2019)
Co-Organizer: “Queer Failure in German Studies,” German Studies Association Annual Conference. (2019)
Commentator, “Reimagining Queer German Histories,” German Studies Association Annual Conference. (2018)
Organizer: “Diversity, Decolonization, and Small Undergraduate German Programs,” American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Conference. (2017)
Co-Organizer: “Converging Stars: Weimar Cinema’s Beauty Pageants, Movie Magazines, and Police Campaigns,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference. (2017)
Co-Organizer of 3-panel series “The Business of Literature: Authorship, Publishing, Aesthetics,” German Studies Association Annual Conference. (2016)
Co-Organizer: “Building a One-Person German Program from the Ground Up,” American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Conference. (2016)
Co-Organizer: “Defining Deviancy: Modern Sexuality and the Global Hygiene Film,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference. (2016)
Co-Organizer: “Mobile Texts: Professional Authorship and the German Literary Field,” Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference. (2015)
Co-Organizer: “Wilhelm Raabe’s Conflictions: Commodity Culture and the Industrialized Press,” German Studies Association Annual Conference. (2014)
Moderator: “’Other ways of being in the world’: A Symposium on the Life and Legacy of José Esteban Muñoz,” Washington University in St. Louis. (2014)
Organizer and Moderator: “Narrating Passing Time in the 19th-century European Novel,” Modern Language Association. (2013)
Organizer: “LGBTQI Graduate Students and Academia,” Modern Language Association. (2013)
Co-Chair and Moderator: “Expressions, Emotions, Embodiment: Dramatics and the German Stage,” Midwest Modern Language Association. (2011)
Chair and Moderator: “German Women Writers,” South-Central Modern Language Association. (2011)
Co-Chair: “Representations of Terror in the German Context: Violence in Visual Culture,” Midwest Modern Language Association. (2010)
Co-Chair: “Death, Sleep and Power: Migration Beyond Physical Borders in the German Speaking Context,” Midwest Modern Language Association. (2009)
Co-Chair: “The New Mainstream: Restriction, Repression, and Progress in the German Context,” Midwest Modern Language Association. (2008)
Papers Presented
“The Late Style of Hedwig Dohm,” “Hedwig Dohm: Literature – Theory – Activism at the Fin de Siècle,” conference, University of Munich, December 18-20, 2025. (scheduled)
“Affect and the Global Politics of Emotion in Nineteenth-Century German Realism,” International Council for Central and East European Studies XI World Congress, July 21-25, 2025. (scheduled)
“DDGC Mutual Aid Network and the Praxis of Interconnectedness in German Studies,” Annual Conference of the Diversity, Decolonization, and the French Curriculum Collective, November 8, 2024.
“Visible Man and Divinatory Intimacy,” “The Visible Century: Béla Balázs’s The Visible Man at 100” workshop, University of Virginia, September 6-7, 2024.
“Solidarity in the Institution,” Arriving at the Present Conference, Princeton University, May 2-4. (2024)
“Tarot against Disciplinarity,” Queer Play Symposium, University of Arizona, March 7-10. (2024)
“Weimar Tarot and the Relational Semiotics of Ernst Tristan Kurtzahn,” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. (2024)
“Elisarion’s Visions: Sensuous Queer Media Engagement around 1900,” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. (2024)
2023 “ars memoriae and the Tempo of the Queer Diaspora in Saleem Haddad’s Guapa,” University of Gießen Conference, “Untimely Encounters: Queer Temporalities and the Reception of Graeco-Roman Antiquity.” (2023)
“Richard Oswald, Popular Cinema, and the Matter of Managing Scandal,” international symposium “Eine Wiener Schule in Berlin, 1900-1933.” (2023)
“Weimar Tarot and the Queer Sensuous Knowledge of Ernst Tristan Kurtzahn,” workshop “Weimar’s Queer Visual Cultures.” (2023)
“The German Studies Tarot Deck,” workshop “Thinking with Lauren Berlant.” (2023)
“The Unbearable Cringe of Misplaced Pacifism,” Watching War: A Symposium on Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front. (2023)
2023 “Realist Affect and the Global Politics of Emotion in Fanny Lewald’s Die Erlöserin,” International Conference on Narrative. (2023)
“The Gilde freiheitlicher Bücherfreunde and the Patterning of Class Solidarity Across Lines of Difference in Weimar Germany,” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. (2023)
“Cruel Optimism and Narrative Efficacy,” Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Narrative. (2022)
“Divinatory Intimacies: Palmistry, Cinephilia, and Weimar Film Magazine Culture,” Newberry Library German Studies Seminar. (2022)
“Industrial Print Culture, Precarious Authors, and the Rise of the Literary Agent,” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. (2022)
“Wilhelm Dilthey’s Rhetoric of Concern,” German Studies Association Annual Conference. (2021)
“Monika Treut’s Cinema of Commitment,” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. (2021)
“Queer Futurity and Language Pedagogy,” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. (2020)
“Fin-de-Siècle Queer Advocacy and the Exemplary Homosexuality of August von Platen,” German Studies Association Annual Conference. (2019)
“The Debilitated Subject in Helma Sanders-Brahms’s Die Berührte,” Canadian Association of University Teachers of German Congress. (2019)
“Feeling Hirschfeld,” Queer Art of Feeling Conference, University of Cambridge (2019)
“The Queer Moment: The locus amoenus& the Politics of Queer Desire in Stephan Lacant’s Free Fall,” Straight to the Front Row: Investigating Contemporary Western Gay Male Cinema Conference at the University of Northampton (2019)
“Decentering the Hegemonic Ideals of German Studies,” Modern Language Association Annual Conference (2019)
“Queer Failure and the Early Lubitsch Slapstick Comedy,” German Studies Association Annual Conference (2018)
Imagined Language Communities, Learners, and Language Use in Arabic, French, and German Language Textbooks,” American Association of Applied Linguistics. With Baburhan Uzum, Bedrettin Yazan, Siham Bouamer, and Samar Zahrawi (2018)
“Another Call to Decolonialize German Studies,” Modern Language Association Annual Conference (2018)
“Diversity, Inclusion, and Access to German Studies: Lessons from a Regional Comprehensive University,” Texas Chapters Meeting of the American Association of Teachers of German (2017)
Roundtable participant, “Black German Studies: Pedagogical Approaches, Practices, and Interventions,” German Studies Association Annual Conference (2017)
“Fandom’s Minutia: Palm Readings in Weimar Film Magazine Culture,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies (2017)
"Highbrow Publishing Praxes and the Shaping of the German National Literary Canon," German Studies Association Conference (2016)
"Integrated Curriculum Building and Small German Program Development," American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Conference (2016)
"Potentials of Genre and the Popularization of the 'Third Sex' in Anders als die Andern (1919)," Society for Cinema and Media Studies (2016)
"Salable Fiction: Mindreading in Wilhelm Jensen's Karin von Schweden," Medicine-Humanities-Social Sciences Symposium at Sam Houston State University (2016)
“Models of Canonicity: Karl Emil Franzos’ Deutsche Dichtung,” Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference (2015)
“Repetitive Poetics: Futility of Fiction in Wilhelm Raabe’s Stopfkuchen,” International Conference on Narrative (2015)
"Publishing Culture and Industrial Waste in Raabe’s Pfisters Mühle,” German Studies Association Annual Conference (2014)
“Polluting Modernity: Publishing Culture and Industrial Waste in Pfisters Mühle,” Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (2014)
“Exploitative Entertainment in Wilhelm Raabe’s Zum wilden Mann,” Midwest Modern Language Association Annual Convention (2011)
“Social Critique and Droste-Hülshoff’s Die Judenbuche,” Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (2011)
“Heinrich Penthesilea von Kleist in the Context of Kleist’s Goethe-Conflict,” South-Central Modern Language Association (2010)
“Work or Leisure: Weimar Politics in Menschen am Sonntag,” Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (2010)
“Challenging Patriarchy: Femininity, Nationality, and Travel in Shirins Hochzeit,” Midwest Modern Language Association (2009)
“Reflections of 18th-century Gender Discourse in Die Wahlverwandtschaften,” Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (2009)
“The New Germany: Gender & Sex in Zaimoglu’s Kanak Sprak and Koppstoff,” Midwest Modern Language Association (2008)
Conference Seminar Participation
Seminar: “Intimacies against Empire, Archives of the Ordinary: Aleksandar Hemon’s The World and All that It Holds,” with paper, “Queer Balkan Fabulation,” American Comparative Literature Association, May 29-June 1, 2025. (scheduled)
Seminar “Rethinking Jewishness in Weimar Cinema,” with paper “Alfred Rosenthal and the Shaping of Weimar Film Periodical Culture,” German Studies Association Conference (2017)
Seminar “Travel Writing from the 18th to the 21st Century” with paper “Counter Travel, or the Refutation of Generic Expectations in Wilhelm Raabe’s Stopfkuchen,” German Studies Association Conference (2015)
Seminar “Narration” with paper “On Boredom and Storytelling in Raabe’s Zum wilden Mann,” German Studies Association Annual Conference (2013)
Invited and Campus Talks
“Mutual Aid im Sprachunterricht: die Kollektivierungspotenziale kleiner Sprachgemeinschaften.” Plenary for the Internationale Tagung der Deutchlehrer:innen, July 28-August 1, 2025. (scheduled)
“Literature in, Not of, Germany: Thinking about Transnational Solidarities and Diasporic Kinship with Lana Bastašić,” Vorzeichen Lecture Series organized by Maha el Hissy in collaboration with the Goethe Institut and poco.lit, June 4. (2024)
“Toward a Pedagogy of Unwellness through Language and Culture Studies,” Center Stage Lecture at Tennessee Tech University, February 28, 2024.
“Anders als die Andern and the Cinema of Mourning,” History of Sexuality Seminar Panel on the Anniversary of the Film at the University of London, February 20, 2024.
“Divinatory Intimacy: Palmistry in Weimar Film Magazine Culture,” Religion for Lunch Lecture Series, UBC Program in Religious Studies, January 24, 2024.
“The Pleasures and Pains of Watching Anders als die Andern,” talk, Dickinson College. (2023)
“Anders als die Andern and the Cinema of Mourning,” talk & film screening, University of Chicago. (2023)
“Feminist Breathing and Queer Intimacy in the Cinema of Monika Treut,” keynote for conference “German Feminisms” at the University of Montreal. (2023)
“Anders als die Andern and the Melodrama of Sexology,” University of Warwick, October 23, 2023.
“German Sexology and the Rise of Queer German Studies,” California State University at Long Beach Public Lecture, October 3, 2023.
“Anders als die Andern and the Cinema of Mourning,” University of British Columbia book launch lecture, September 8, 2023.
“Anders als die Andern and the Cinema of Mourning,” Weimar Film Network lecture, August 23, 2023.
“Gender, Diversity, Equity in Collegiate World Language Textbooks,” co-organized talk, workshop, and roundtable at Northwestern University, April 28, 2023.
“Divinatory Intimacies: Palmistry in Weimar Film Magazine Culture,” University of California Davis Lecture Series, April 19, 2023.
“Creating Community in German Studies,” co-organized graduate student workshop at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, March 3, 2023.
“Epistemic Flexibilities in German Studies,” co-organized talk at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, March 3, 2023.
“Divinatory Intimacies: Palmistry in Weimar Film Magazine Culture,” University of Wisconsin, Madison, January 3, 2023.
“Aerial Aesthetic, Queer Intimacy, and the Politics of Repose in the Cinema of Nils Bökamp and Monika Treut,” Part of the Lecture Series, “Text/Körper. Kultur und (Un-)Sichtbarkeit,” University of Trier, Germany, December 13, 2022.
“Pedagogies of Unwellness in German Studies,” DAAD Fortbildungsseminar, University of Victoria. (2022)
“Multidirectional Solidarities in Times of Crisis,” invited plenary for “Post-Imperialist Futures: Addressing Legacy and Living into Promise,” Unitarian Universalist Association Conference. (2022)
“The Queer Cinema of Mourning: Mädchen in Uniform,” Department of German, Hanover College. (2022)
“Courasche and the Queer Life of Objects,” Configurations of Female Adventure: Dynamics, Spaces, and Alliances Conference, University of British Columbia. (2022)
“Affective Mapping as Queer Pedagogy,” Didaktik der Geschichte Kolloquium, Freie Universität Berlin. (2022)
“Reading Lists: Frustration and Sexual Science Around 1900,” Centre for the History of Emotion Colloquium, Max-Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin. (2022)
“Affective Lists and the Posthermeneutic Impulse of Early Sexual Science,” Media Inventories 3.0 Conference, University of British Columbia. (2021)
“Ferdinand Karsch’s Queer Hermeneutics,” King’s College London. (2021)
“From Individuation to Mutual Aid: On Relational Models for Language Learning and Culture Studies,” University of Connecticut. (2021)
“On Intergenerational Queer Kinship and the Frail Body of August von Platen,” University of Pittsburgh. (2021)
“The Undercommons and German Studies,” University of Pittsburgh. (2021)
“Reading The Undercommons in German Studies,” University of Illinois at Chicago. (2021)
“Badly Disciplined,” German Research Away Speaker, University of St. Andrews. (2020)
“Structures of Longing in Stefan Zweig’s Confusion,” Max-Kade German-American Center Inaugural Community Book Discussion, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (introduction + lead discussion). (2020)
“GSA Forum on Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice,” German Studies Association Annual Conference. (2020)
“Cultures of Concern in Writing About Literature, 1850-1900,” University of Washington (2020)
“Queer German Studies and Language Learning,” Wellesley College (2020)
“Searching for Queer Butterflies,” Keynote address, Ohio State University German Graduate Student Conference (2020)
"Glacial Innovation,” Conference titled “Re-Imagining the Discipline: German Studies, the Humanities, and the University,” Institute for German Cultural Studies, Cornell University (2019)
“On Narrative Efficacy and Boredom in late-19th-century German Fiction,” Hokkaido University (2019)
“Market Anxiety and Fragile Telling in late-19th-century German Fiction,” University of Tokyo (2019)
“The Archive of Xenophobia: Performative Memory in Burhan Qurbani’s We are Young We are Strong,” German Campus Week Talk, California State University Long Beach (2018)
“Wilhelm Raabe and the Crisis of Narration,” University of Calgary (2018)
“On Palmistry and Cinephilia in Weimar Film Periodical Culture,” University of Calgary (2018)
“Audre Lorde’s Germany,” Delta Phi Alpha Keynote, University of Arkansas (2018)
"'Guernica Still Screams': Palimpsest of Resistance," commemorative panel, SHSU (2017)
“68 Nostalgia and the Personal Labor of Women,” ProfSPEAK Series, SHSU Honors College (2017)
“Richard Oswald, Magnus Hirschfeld, and the Populist Appeals of Hygienic Melodrama,” Skidmore College (2017)
“Subversive Cosmopolitanism: Erika and Klaus Mann’s Spanish Civil War Reports,” SHSU Spanish Civil War Panel (2016)
“Hygienic Melodrama: Genre and Scandal in Different from the Others,” SHSU CHSS Faculty Colloquium (2016)