John (Colin) Marston, Class of 2017
I’m attending a six-week Jewish Studies program through the Leo Baeck Institute at Humboldt University in Berlin. I’ll be spending the bulk of the program studying the interaction and integration of Eastern European Jews into Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries, and their respective representation in the novels, criticism, news coverage, and art of that milieu. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the reportage of Austrian-Jewish novelist Joseph Roth, and how he distilled the image of the Eastern European Jew or Ostjuden as a response to questions of authenticity and identity in an increasingly precarious inter-war Europe. I hope to use this program as a base to further deepen my understanding of German-Jewish history, and explore the contexts of diaspora and exile which are unfortunately more and more relevant in our current epoch.
Afterwards, I’ll be pursuing a Masters of Science at Columbia Journalism School in the fall. My hope is that I will accumulate my own reportage while I’m in Berlin, and write a series of pieces about the different immigrant communities that have come to call that city home in our century (from itinerant Israelis to a Turkish community in tumult).
Update:
David Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, came to speak to my class at Columbia Journalism today, and I was moved to remember how only three years ago I took a class with Julie Napolin, which changed my life and made me fall in love with radio, reporting, and the power of storytelling. Still cannot believe the emotional power these stories have and continue to exert
Listen to audio from Colin’s final project here.
Nicole’s Story, Class of 2017
This fall, I will be starting an MA in English at the University of Virginia. My ultimate goal in academia is to complete a PhD and teach, research, and write on Asian American literature. My graduate work will be an extension of my thesis, as I work towards developing questions of gender, race, and post-colonialism in Filipino American literature. My time in the Lit Studies department has been instrumental in preparing me for the individualized, self-motivated perspective necessary for graduate work. The flexibility of the major and the variety of courses helped bring my wide literary interests together, all to develop my own emphasis on postcolonial and Filipino literature.
October 10, 2019
Ann Snitow May 9, 1943-August 10, 2019 Ann Snitow, a founding faculty member of Lang College and the creator of the Gender Studies Program at the New School, passed away on August 10, 2019. She was a beloved member of the Literary Studies faculty. While indeed her books and essays are crucial texts in feminist studies and in the life of the mind, as Literary Studies colleagues our remembrances here are more personal, testaments not just to her work but to the power of her being.
John (Colin) Marston, Class of 2017
I’m attending a six-week Jewish Studies program through the Leo Baeck Institute at Humboldt University in Berlin. I’ll be spending the bulk of the program studying the interaction and integration of Eastern European Jews into Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries, and their respective representation in the novels, criticism, news coverage, and art of that milieu. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the reportage of Austrian-Jewish novelist Joseph Roth, and how he distilled the image of the Eastern European Jew or Ostjuden as a response to questions of authenticity and identity in an increasingly precarious inter-war Europe. I hope to use this program as a base to further deepen my understanding of German-Jewish history, and explore the contexts of diaspora and exile which are unfortunately more and more relevant in our current epoch.
Afterwards, I’ll be pursuing a Masters of Science at Columbia Journalism School in the fall. My hope is that I will accumulate my own reportage while I’m in Berlin, and write a series of pieces about the different immigrant communities that have come to call that city home in our century (from itinerant Israelis to a Turkish community in tumult).
Update:
David Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, came to speak to my class at Columbia Journalism today, and I was moved to remember how only three years ago I took a class with Julie Napolin, which changed my life and made me fall in love with radio, reporting, and the power of storytelling. Still cannot believe the emotional power these stories have and continue to exert
Listen to audio from Colin’s final project here.
Nicole’s Story, Class of 2017
This fall, I will be starting an MA in English at the University of Virginia. My ultimate goal in academia is to complete a PhD and teach, research, and write on Asian American literature. My graduate work will be an extension of my thesis, as I work towards developing questions of gender, race, and post-colonialism in Filipino American literature. My time in the Lit Studies department has been instrumental in preparing me for the individualized, self-motivated perspective necessary for graduate work. The flexibility of the major and the variety of courses helped bring my wide literary interests together, all to develop my own emphasis on postcolonial and Filipino literature.
