Graduate Student News

Congratulations to Mel Hardy (PhD ’25) on the successful defense of their dissertation Literary Case Studies in the Social Power Dynamics of Non-Normative Embodiment: Synthesizing Disability Sentiments across German and Austrian Literature, 1900-1933. Mel defended on August 8, 2025.

We also congratulate PhD students Sally Simpson, Katie Lightfoot, Katie Miller-Purrenhage, and Emilia Endler on successfully passing their written comprehensive exams this semester!

This semester, Katie Miller-Purrenhage had two roles at the Coalition for Women in German and German Studies Association annual conferences. At WiG, Katie served on the steering committee for her final year as a graduate student representative. Additionally, she co-organized a pedagogy panel titled “Palestine, Feminist Pedagogies, and the German Studies Classroom.” This panel featured presentations as well as a workshop. At GSA, she gave a paper presentation titled “Blocked Identities: The Intersection of Racialized, Feminized Spaces in Otoo’s Adas Raum (2021)” on the panel “Black German Pop Culture: Identity, Media, and Creative Expression.” She also co-organized a panel called “Black (Im)Mobility: Media, Mobility, and the Politics of Intersectional Belonging.” Both panels offered great new perspectives in the world of Black German Studies, and she is excited to continue this work in her dissertation.

Emilia Endler moderated a panel on “Soviet Receptions of German History and Literature” and also presented in the panel “Narrative Aesthetics and Social Critique” at the German Studies Association conference in September. Her talk was titled “‘Auch dankbar empfangen können ist ein Glück.’ Geben und Nehmen in Theodor Fontanes Die Poggenpuhls.” 

Information on additional graduate student participation at the 2025 German Studies Association conference can be found in our earlier conference announcement.