Research Projects and Conference Presentations
Course Projects
Folktales of 乐播传媒 College
Course: EUS 233/RUSS 233 “Russian Myths & Legends” (Winter 2025)
The Russian Myths & Legends class has composed a captivating collection of seventeen folktales titled Folktales of 乐播传媒 College, now published as a self-made book. The students chose to remain anonymous to adhere to folklore conventions. This unique work is available for viewing and is proudly displayed in the German & Russian Department.
Instructor: Marina Filipovic
Hanna Ranis 鈥�27
Memories from the Space Race
Course: EUS 317/GSS 317/RUSS 317 鈥淏eyond Human: Cyborgs and Technology鈥� (Fall 2024)
For her final project, 鈥� Hanna Ranis interviewed her father, who was nine years old during the Moon landing, and analyzed his earliest memories of the historical and technological narratives surrounding the Apollo 11 mission. Hanna鈥檚 project weaves together oral histories, including a family-narrated account of her great-grandmother, a twelve-year-old Romanian girl who immigrated alone to the U.S. in the early 1900s, and her distinctive reactions to the televised Moon landing. Through these personal stories, Hanna looks at the portrayal of astronauts as cyborgs, examines broader narratives of space exploration and contrasts them with the Soviet space “conquering” (osvoenie kosmosa). She also analyzes the media coverage of Apollo 11 and its lasting impact on both personal and collective memories.
Link to the project:
Instructor: Marina Filipovic
Summer Research Projects
Kate Blandford ’18
Berlin and the Urban Landscape in Graphic Narratives
Kate embarked on his project with the initial question, 鈥淗ow does Berlin operate in the graphic novel?鈥� Specifically, how does the setting of Berlin create a graphic atmosphere of collective memory, monument, and void in Sebastiano and Lorenzo Toma鈥檚 graphic novel adaptation of Der Himmel 眉ber Berlin (originally a film by Wim Wenders)? During her research apprenticeship with Professor Kazecki, Kate studied basic graphic novel theory for context, and hunted for annotated graphic novels set in Berlin (and which she believed to be thematically similar to Der Himmel 眉ber Berlin) both in/around the city itself and online, and compiled an extensive bibliography of secondary source material relevant to his project (on graphic novels, on Berlin, and on urban landscapes, for example). The result is a substantial annotated collection of both primary and secondary sources.
Project Advisor: Jakub Kazecki, German
Gregory Fitzgerald ’17
Discovering German Culture: City Treasure Hunts in Berlin
Can the scavenger hunt format be used to teach a sufficiently rigorous undergraduate course on Berlin鈥檚 history, culture, and urban landscape? For ten predetermined historical and cultural themes, Greg set out to create a scavenger hunt in Berlin, which, paired with discussion sessions, would build an undergraduate course for English-speaking students in Berlin. Greg proceeded systematically by collecting data on site (GPS coordinates, photos, notes), drafting logistically sound routes, testing the directions, conducting in-depth research on each topic, and finally by creating specific on-site tasks aimed at effectively communicating the desired learning outcomes for students. He completed five of these routes. Five additional routes remain in the research stage. In their completed form, the routes offer a progressive, hands-on format to teach students about Berlin鈥檚 cityscape.
Project Advisor: Jakub Kazecki, German
Conference Presentations
Ollie Russell ’21
“Mitsuko Yamato as the National Socialist Ideal”
10th Undergraduate Research Conference in German Studies, Lafayette College and Moravian College, April 10, 2021.
Greg Fitzgerald ’17
“Looking for Clues About German Culture: A Model Scavenger Hunt for Teaching Cultural Courses in Berlin”
Undergraduate European Studies Conference, University of Guelph, November 26, 2016.
Eric Adamson ’15
“The German 鈥楶ISA-shock鈥� and Changing Attitudes Towards Comprehensive Schooling”
Undergraduate European Studies Conference, University of Guelph, March 21, 2015 (The presentation was awarded the Certificate of Merit).