Scholarly, Professional, and Community Engagements of Graduate Students

Forthcoming and Recent Presentations

2026

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2026, September) (Forthcoming). “Teaching Palestine in the German Studies Classroom.” Seminar participant at the German Studies Association (GSA) annual conference. Phoenix, Arizona. 

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2026, September) (Forthcoming). “Borderless and Brazen: Celebrating May Ayim’s Poetry, Prose, and Political Activism.” GSA 2026; co-sponsored by Feminists in German Studies (FiGS) and BDSN (Black Diaspora Studies Network). Panel series organizer. Phoenix, Arizona. 

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2026, September) (Forthcoming). “Celebrating 40 Years of Black German Studies.” GSA 2026; co-sponsored by WiG and BDSN. Panel organizer and moderator. Phoenix, Arizona.

2025

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2025, September). “Black (Im)Mobility: Media, Mobility, and the Politics of Intersectional Belonging.” GSA 2025; co-sponsored by FiGS and BDSN. Panel organizer and moderator. Arlington, Virginia. 

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2025, September). “Blocked Identities: The Intersection of Racialized, Feminized Space in Sharon Dodua Otoo’s Adas Raum (2021).” GSA 2025; sponsored by BDSN. Paper presentation. Arlington, Virginia.

Schauhoff, Kristina (2025, May). “Practices of virtual exchange revisited: A systematic review of projects using synchronous tools”. Panel co-presentation with Prof. Joe Cunningham at CALICO conference in San Diego, CA, hosted by San Diego State University.

Schauhoff, Kristina (2025, March). „Ein Erdling spricht gerade mit einem Marsianer. Oder umgekehrt.“ Linguistische, psychologische und epistemische Vulnerabilität im (fiktiven) Asylverfahren in Abbas Khiders Roman Ohrfeige. Presentation at the Workshop: Fliehende Sprachen. Grammatik – Literatur – Politik in Dresden, Germany, hosted by TU Dresden.

2024

Lightfoot, Katie. (2024, September). Reimagining the Museum: An Exploration of the Anacostia Community Museum. Online presentation at the Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum.

Lightfoot, Katie. (2024, February). Reading Alternative Spaces and Border Crossings in Wenders’ Film Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire). Presentation at the Southeast German Studies Workshop hosted by The University of Alabama.

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2024, September). “Life-Writing nach Neutralität: Der Zusammenhang von Skizzen, Selbstverständnis und Zeitgeschichte in Max Frischs literarischem Tagebuch 1946-1949.” GSA 2024. Paper presentation. Atlanta, Georgia.

Parks, Ross. (2024, November). Colonial Europe: Germany’s Lessons for a Postcolonial Continent. Roundtable presentation at University of Cambridge, United Kingdom for the 2024 Doctoral Conference of DAAD-funded Centres for German and European Studies. Critical German and European Studies: ‘International Interventions and the State of The Field.’

Schauhoff, Kristina. (2024, February). “Du hättest eigentlich ein Junge werden müssen”: Challenging Gendered Spaces in Özdamar’s Der Hof im Spiegel. Forthcoming presentation at the Southeast German Studies Workshop hosted by The University of Alabama.

Simpson, Sally. (2024, April). Nostalgia for Empire? The Construction and Deconstruction of the Ungargasse as Idyll in Ingeborg Bachmann’s Malina. Forthcoming Paper Presentation at the Austrian Studies Association (ASA) Annual Meeting hosted by West Chester University, Pennsylvania. 

2023

Eisenbeis, Emma. (2023, October). Maintaining Statelessness: Exploring Bureaucratic Barriers to Belonging in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Gehen, Ging, Gegangen and Abbas Khider’s Ohrfeige. Paper Presentation at the German Studies Association (GSA) Annual Convention, Montreal, Canada. 

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2023, October, November). Language Hybridity in Stefanie Lahya Aukongo’s Buchstaben gefühle. Paper presentation at Georgetown University’s Graduate Conference in Washington, D.C.; Poster presentation at Women in German (WiG) annual conference, Portland, Oregon. 

Parks, Ross. (2023, June). Right Wing Populism: A Transatlantic Issue. Germany, the United Kingdom & the United States Presentation at DAAD Summer School: Intersecting Inequalities hosted by King’s College London, United Kingdom. 

Grants and Awards Received

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2026, April). Graduate Student Research Grant. Georgetown University.

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2026, March). Doctoral Research Grant. Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). 

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2026, February). Zantop Travel Award. Coalition for Feminists in German Studies (FiGS). 

Community Engagement 

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie; Strevey, Stephanie. (2023, September) Organization of Disabilities Workshop “Creating a Culture of Access” with Dr. Amy Kenny, director of the Disability Cultural Initiative at Georgetown University. 

Miller-Purrenhage, Katie. (2023/5). Graduate student representative on the steering committee for the Coalition of Women in German; two year role.

Parks, Ross. (2024/7). Journal Assistant for Georgetown’s German Politics and Society Journal.