Susan Derwin, Professor
Office: Phelps Hall 6325
Email: derwin@ihc.ucsb.edu
Other Department Affiliations: Comparative Literature, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (Director)
Interests: Testimonial narrative as a tool for the social reintegration of people who have survived traumatic experiences. Recent work includes essays on moral injury and combat trauma. I also teach and write about the public humanities, including prison education.
Wolf Kittler, Professor
Office: Phelps Hall 6315
Email: kittler@gss.ucsb.edu
Interests: Western literature from Greek antiquity to the present, philosophy, art history, history of science, media technology and critical theory
Gisela Kommerell, Lecturer
Email: gkommerell@ucsb.edu
Interests: translation, syntax and grammar, foreign language pedagogy, as well as German language, literature, history, and music
Larry McLellan, Lecturer
Office: Phelps Hall 6321
Email: mclellan@gss.ucsb.edu
Interests: Learning and teaching of Russian, Slavic linguistics, syntax, discourse, and language pedagogy.
Fabian Offert, Assistant Professor
Office: Phelps Hall 6327
Email: offert@gss.ucsb.edu
Website: http://zentralwerkstatt.org
Interests: Digital/computational humanities, critical AI studies
Anna Pajak, Lecturer
Email: apajak@ucsb.edu
Interests: Curriculum design, second language acquisition, communicative teaching methodology, German-Polish relations and German post-war literature.
Evelyn Reder, Lecturer
Office: Phelps Hall 6317
Email: evelynreder@gss.ucsb.edu
Interests: Language teaching methodology, instructional improvement, and curriculum development.
Andréas-Benjamin Seyfert, Lecturer
Office: Phelps 6220
Email: seyfertab@ucsb.edu
Interests: German film, art, and literature.
Sven Spieker, Professor & Chair
Office: Phelps Hall 6218
Email: spieker@gss.ucsb.edu
Website: https://svenspieker.com
Other Departmental Affiliations: Comparative Literature, History of Art and Architecture, Art
Interests: European modernism, with an emphasis on the Eastern European avant-gardes, postwar and contemporary literature and art (especially in Eastern and Central Europe), and critical theory.
Christina Vagt, Associate Professor
Office: Phelps Hall 6214
Email: vagt@gss.ucsb.edu
Other Departmental Affiliations: Comparative Literature, Film and Media Studies
Interests: Media Epistemologies of Culture and Science, including German and French philosophy (in particular Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Bergson, Freud, Lacan); History and Theory of Science and Technology (in particular physics, AI, behavioral and cognitive science); German Media Theory (in particular Discourse Networks and Cultural Techniques)
Elisabeth Weber, Professor
Office: Phelps Hall 6326
Email: weber@gss.ucsb.edu
Other Departmental Affiliations: Comparative Literature, Religious Studies
Interests: French philosophy and theory; psychoanalysis and trauma studies; German Judaism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; German literature from the nineteenth century to the present; Environmental Humanities (especially Plant Studies); Instructor in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center's "Foundations in the Humanities" prison correspondence program.
Sara Pankenier Weld, Professor
Office: Phelps Hall 6323
Email: saraweld@ucsb.edu
Interests: Childhood in literature, culture, and theory; Russian/Slavic literature, Scandinavian literature, North American literature, comparative literature, and world literature; avant-garde literature, art, and theory; literatures of the north; Indigeneity and childhood; word and image; childhood studies, children’s literature, and picture books.
Kelsey White, Continuing Lecturer
Office: Phelps Hall 6216
Email: kdwhite@ucsb.edu
Interests: Applied linguistics; language program direction; teacher training; diversity, equity, inclusion & accessibility, community-building; instructional technologies