Thyra Knapp
- Associate Professor and Director of German Studies, Languages
Contact Info
- Email: thyra.knapp@UND.edu
- Office: 701.777.4657
- Dept: 701.777.3813
Office Address
Merrifield Hall Room 325
276 Centennial Drive Stop 8198
Grand Forks, ND 58202
Biography
Since coming to UND in 2011, I have enjoyed teaching German language, literature, and culture on all levels of instruction. In the German Studies Program, I find that my research informs my teaching every day, and sharing this passion with my students invariably sparks their interest as well.
My research focuses on the interrelation of image and text in German literature of the twentieth century; more specifically, the ways in which visual art is perceived and interpreted in both prose and poetry. Questions of aesthetics and representation at the intersection of these media are explored in my dissertation ("Ja, Ihr seid gemalt": Ekphrasis and the Outsider in Three Postmodern German Novels, 2008), portions of which have been published as articles in Seminar, Monatshefte, and German Quarterly.
Introductory German (First Year)
Intermediate German (Second Year)
Conversation and Composition (Third Year)
German for Writing Proficiency: Advanced Grammar
Self and Society: The First-Person Narrative
Die Deutschen I: Vom Germanentum bis zur Aufklärung
Die Deutschen II: Von der Weimarer Republik bis zur Jahrtausendwende
German Culture through Film
Vom Falken bis zum Panther: A Survey of German Poetry
German Stories, German Histories: Deutsche Literatur von der Aufklärung bis zum Fall der Mauer
Literature in Translation: German and Scandinavian Crime Fictions
Literatur auf der Bühne: A Survey of German Drama
Business German
German for Reading Knowledge
Introduction to German Cultural Studies
Metropolis: City and the Self (MCLL Capstone)
“Spiraling Toward Happiness: City and the Self in Christa Wolf’s Unter den Linden,” Feminist German Studies 34 (2018) 101-124.
“Shadowland: Swiss Identity and Urs Faes’s Ombra,” German Studies Review 38:3 (2015) 617-633.
“Gerhard Richter and the Ambiguous Aesthetics of Morality,” Colloquia Germanica 45:1 (2012) 95-112 [published spring 2015]
Walking the Tightrope, Riding the Ring: Movement and Meaning in German Circus Imagery," Germanic Notes and Reviews 44:2 (Fall 2013) 18-27.
"Picturing German: Teaching Language and Literature through Visual Art." Die Unterrichtspraxis 45:1 (Spring 2012) 20-27.
"Taboo and Tragedy in Frank Wedekind's Frühlings Erwachen." Upstage online journal (February 2012) http://www.oscholars.com/Upstage/issue3/taboo3.html
"'Beim Straucheln und beim Stürzen und beim Schreien': Representation and Identification in Gert Hofmann's Der Blindensturz." The German Quarterly 84:3 (Summer 2011) 328-343.
"'Trennung, Teilung, Spaltung': Ekphrasis as the Unifying Fissure in Anne Duden's Das Judasschaf." Monatshefte 102:3 (Fall 2010) 360- 383.
"Mediating Marginality: Ekphrasis and the Outsider in Christoph Geiser's Das geheime Fieber." Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 46:4 (November 2010) 419- 436.
Summer 2017 Office of Instructional Development Summer Development Grant: Go Global Academy
Summer 2017 Arts and Sciences Summer Cluster Proposal Grant: Go Global Academy
Spring 2016 Max Kade Foundation Grant for UND Students to Travel to Berlin
Fall 2014 Office of Instructional Development Flexible Grant for the FLARR Conference
Fall 2014 Senate Scholarly Activities Committee Travel Grant
Fall 2013 Senate Scholarly Activities Committee Travel Grant
Summer 2013 Office of Instructional Development Summer Mini-Project Grant
Spring 2012 Senate Scholarly Activities Committee New Faculty Scholar Award
Spring 2012 Max Kade Foundation Grant for UND Students to Travel to Berlin
Fall 2011 Faculty Instructional Development Travel Grant
Fall 2011 Senate Scholarly Activities Committee Travel Grant
Summer 2010 Fulbright Commission Baden-Württemberg Seminar for American Faculty in German and German Studies
2009 -2010 Nominee, Excellence through Commitment Outstanding Faculty Member in the University Core Curriculum, Southern Illinois University
2004-2005 University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School Advanced Dissertator Fellowship
1998-1999 Graduate Direct Exchange Scholar, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
1994-1995 Graduate Direct Exchange Scholar, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität Bonn
Ph.D. 2008 Department of German, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dissertation: “Ja, Ihr seid gemalt”: Ekphrasis and the Outsider in Three Postmodern German Novels
1998-1999 Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Graduate Direct Exchange Award)
M.A. 1998 Germanic Languages and Literatures Department, University of Kansas-Lawrence
1994-1995 Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (Graduate Direct Exchange Award)
B.A. 1994 Germanic Languages and Literatures Department, University of Kansas-Lawrence