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German Department Website
Russian Department Website
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The Department of German and Russian views the learning of a foreign language as an integrated four-year process. The German
section integrates a German language component into all its upper-division courses taught in English. For both programs, the learning of the language and literature is embedded into a broader cultural studies framework–the interdisciplinary study of the contemporary cultural, social, economic and political life of the German and Russian speaking peoples in their historical and international contexts.
The German Studies Program in Claremont is an intercollegiate major that is administered by German faculty at Pomona College and Scripps College.
The Russian program at Pomona College serves the whole Claremont Consortium, drawing also on a number of cultural studies and history courses taught at Claremont McKenna College. The Russian program allows students to pursue a major of a cultural or a traditional literature studies type, with a focus on Russia proper or the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe (REES).
The European unification process is creating a new economic power block, and the globalization of business is ensuring that American as well as foreign firms are increasingly internationally based. Pomona has a longstanding tradition of strong commitment to the study of Central and Eastern Europe, and the end of the Cold War has only served to increase the importance of and the interest in this region. Germany plays a prominent role in these changes in Europe, not only in the European Union but also in the developing areas of the former Communist block. Furthermore, Russia and a widespread use of Russian as the language of communication have helped shape the new states that emerged from the
collapse of the Soviet Union. This means that knowledge of German and Russian opens doors for citizens of the United States in these parts of the world.
Students of either language, whether majors or not, have the opportunity to study in Germany or Russia and/or to reside in the
Oldenborg Center for Foreign Languages and International Relations. In addition, both programs are enhanced by Pomona's state-of-the-art
Foreign Language Resource Center with its full set of cutting-edge networked media equipment. The Oldenborg Center has a satellite feed for foreign language television and radio programs and regularly offers international films. All of these elements, together with dedicated faculty and staff, form the strong support system for foreign language study that is offered by Pomona College. Students who wish to study abroad are urged to contact a department member and start planning in their freshman year.
All faculty members of Russian and German teach both lower-division language courses and upper-level courses in literature and cultural studies, most of them in the foreign language but some in English as well.
Among the Russian faculty, Anne Dwyer's research bridges the Russian and German sides of the department by examining the literary dynamics of Russia and Austria as multiethnic empires. She teaches nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian prose, Nabokov, and Moscow-Berlin. Konstantine Klioutchkine teaches Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, nineteenth-century Russian literature, cultural history, and media studies. Larissa Rudova, like Klioutchkine a native of Russia, has published extensively on contemporary Russian literature and culture. She is the author of two monographs on Boris Pasternak. Her recent co-edited book is
Russian Children’s Literature and Culture (2008).
Rita Bashaw is the Director of the Oldenborg International Center and a Professor of German. Her research interests include cultural history, German-Jewish identity, language learning and international education. Felix Kronenberg, born in Hannover, Germany, teaches aspects of contemporary German media; stereotypes in popular and consumer culture; language learning, pedagogy, and technology. He is also the director of Pomona College's Foreign Language Resource Center. Hans Jürg Rindisbacher, a native of Switzerland, specializes in cultural, interdisciplinary, and comparative approaches to German studies. His expertise is in sensory perception (olfaction) in literature. Friederike von Schwerin-High, originally from Frankfurt, has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. Her research and teaching focus on the enlightenment, German classicism, intellectual history and culture, and minority literatures.
The German program coordinates all its offerings with the Scripps College German Department. This cooperation adds, in effect, two faculty members to the Claremont German Program: Roswitha Burwick, the Distinguished Professor of Modern Languages at Scripps College and specialist in Romanticism and fairytales; and Marc Katz,
who specializes in cultural studies.
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German Department Website
Russian Department Website
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