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Department of Germanic Languages
University of North Carolina
438 Dey Hall, CB# 3160
Chapel Hill NC 27599
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I
was born in Berlin in 1922 and, after completing high
school there as well as serving in the "Arbeitsdienst,"
I managed to emigrate to Cuba in 1941 where I stayed
until 1945. After serving in the US army I studied first
at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (MAs in Spanish
and German), then at Yale (Ph.D. in German in 1954).
Here Hermann J. Weigand's exciting and always enlightening
approach to literature became the model for my own reading,
teaching, and research. After a term as assistant professor
at Yale, I accepted the position of Chair at Bryn Mawr
College in 1959, then the same position at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1970 to 1975,
after which I continued on the UNC-CH faculty for nearly
two decades. In 1993 I retired. When I look back at
my career, I notice a great variety of activities and
interests: in addition to many different administrative
assignments on and off campus, there was the involvement
with the AATG (president of two state chapters), with
the AP program, and with the Chapel Hill High School
where I taught a weekly class for many years. I have
taught courses on every level, also in the comparative
literature curriculum (picaresque, literary theory).
My areas of specialization have been the Baroque, the
18th century, and the literature around 1800. My publications
have been just as varied: from editions of text books
to those for the general public (as the three volumes
in the well-known series "Dictionary of Literary
Biography"). Spanish authors and their presence
in the German Baroque as well as aspects of the works
of Grimmelshausen, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller have
been especially attractive to me, but lately I have
turned also to authors such as Storm, Nossack, and Andersch.
In spite of my retirement I continue to be active with
the Department of Germanic Languages, filling in to
teach occasional courses, tutoring, and filling a variety
of other needs for the department as they arise.
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