Email Address:
eterhorst@southalabama.edu
Phone Number:
(251) 461-1527
Office Hours:
F 2-4pm;
and by appointment

Eleanor Ter Horst

Chair and Associate Professor of German, French and Comparative Literature

Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature

Education

B..A. Yale University 1987
M.A. University of Michigan 1992
Ph.D. University of Michigan 1996

Research Interests

Comparative Literature
18th- and 19th-Century French and German Literature
Early 20th-Century French and German Literature
Gender and Sexuality Studies
Classical Reception
Interdisciplinary Foreign Language Pedagogy

Publications

Book

Studies in Honor of Robert ter Horst. Ed. Eleanor ter Horst, Edward H. Friedman and Ali Shehzad Zaidi. Fair Lawn, NJ: TSI Press, 2017
Lessing, Goethe, Kleist, and the Transformation of Gender: From Hermaphrodite to Amazon. New York: Peter Lang, 2003

Journal Articles

“The Conjugations of Don Juan.” Studies in Honor of Robert ter Horst. Fair Lawn, NJ: TSI Press, 2017.
“Obscure Conceptions: The Origins of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Das Gelübde and Kleist’s Die Marquise von O… “ Forthcoming in Colloquia Germanica (Winter 2017).
“The Classical Aesthetics of Schlegel’s Lucinde.” Goethe Yearbook 23 (2016).
"The Fortuitous Arch: Reconstructing Classical and Christian Interpretations of Sexuality in Kleist's Das Erdbeben in Chili." European Romantic Review. 2014.
"Masks and Metamorphoses: The Transformation of Classical Tradition in Goethe's Römische Elegien." German Quarterly 85.4 (Fall 2012).
"The Triangulation of Desire and the Chain of Reproduction in Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Ingeborg Bachmann." Seminar 47.3 (Summer 2011).
"Foreign Languages and Sustainability: Addressing the Connections, Communities and Comparisons Standards in Higher Education." Co-authored with Joshua M. Pearce. Foreign Language Annals 43.3 (Fall 2010).
"The Comedy and Tragedy of Sacrifice in Fatih Akin's Auf der anderen Seite." Rondas Literarias de Pittsburgh 2009.
"Overcoming Language Challenges of Open Source Appropriate Technology for Sustainable Development in Africa." Co-authored with Joshua M. Pearce. Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa. 11. 3 (Winter 2009).
"Service Learning for Sustainable Development in Foreign Languages." Co-authored with Joshua M. Pearce. Sustainability at Universities: Opportunities, Challenges and Trends 2009. Ed. Walter Leal Filho. New York: Peter Lang, 2009.
"Foreign Languages and the Environment: A Collaborative Instructional Project." Co-authored with Joshua M. Pearce. The Language Educator (October 2008).
"Urban Pastoral: Tradition and Innovation in Apollinaire's 'Zone' and Rilke's 'Zehnte Duineser Elegie.'" Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature 32.1 (Winter 2008).
"The Pendulum of Poetry: Metaphor and Mediation in Rilke's Duineser Elegien." German Quarterly 79.3 (Summer 2006).

Book Reviews

Review of Untimely Beggar: Poverty and Power from Baudelaire to Benjamin. By Patrick Greaney. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. German Quarterly 82. (Spring 2009).
Review of From Goethe to Gide: Feminism, Aesthetics and the French and German Literary Canon 1770–1936. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2005. Ed. Mary Orr and Lesley Sharpe. German Quarterly 80.1 (Winter 2007).
Review of two scholarly books on Heinrich von Kleist (Erika Berroth's Heinrich von Kleist. Geschlecht—Erkenntnis—Wirklichkeit and Jochen Schmidt's Heinrich von Kleist. Die Dramen und Erzählungen in ihrer Epoche.) Monatshefte 97.1 (Spring 2005).
"Forcibly Removed from the Womb." Collages & Bricolages 15 (2002). A Review of The Fantastic Ordinary World of Lutz Rathenow.

Presentations

"Cross-Cultural Utopias in Kleist's Earthquake in Chile." VII Alexander von Humboldt, Claudio Gay & Ignacio Domeyko Conference. Santiago, Chile. January 2014.
"Strengthening Language Programs: Collaborative Models of Distance Education." ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Conference, November 2013
"Holy Families and the Ambiguity of Violence in Kleist's Das Erdbeben in Chili and Die Heilige Cäcilie oder die Gewalt der Musik." GSA (German Studies Association) Conference, October 2013
"Interdependence of Urban and Pastoral Structures in Kleist's Das Erdbeben in Chili." NASSR (North American Society for the Study of Romanticism), August 2012.
"The Metamorphoses of Desire in Goethe's Römische Elegien." Goethe Society of North America Conference, Fall 2011.
"Masks and Metamorphoses: The Transformation of Classical Tradition in Goethe's Roman Elegies." Invited lecture in the Contexts for Classics series, University of Michigan, November 2010.
"Gendered Performance in Goethe's Römische Elegien." NEMLA (Northeast Modern Language Association) Conference, Spring 2010.
"Overcoming Language Challenges of Open Source Appropriate Technology for Sustainable Development in Africa." Third International Environmental Congress, April 2009.
"Teaching Foreign Languages and the Environment." NEMLA (Northeast Modern Language Association) Conference, March 2009.
"Walls and Bridges: Fatih Akin's Im Juli and Gegen die Wand." Transcultural German Studies Conference, March 2007.
"Triangular Relationships as a Challenge to Family Structure in Fouqué's Undine." NEMLA (Northeast Modern Language Association) Conference, March 2006
"Zones of the Lyric: Metaphor and Apostrophe in the Poems of Rilke and Apollinaire." ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) Conference, April 2005
"Communicative German via ITV: A Collaborative Program in Modern Languages." Joint presentation with Leo Gruber. Conference: "Collaborative Programs and the Future of Distance Education." Clarion University, October 2004.
Foreign Language as an Aid to Reading for At-Risk Students." TASS (Teaching Academic Survival Skills) Conference, March 2004
"From Berlin's Sidewalks to Penn's Woods: Teaching Languages and Cultures in a Rural Setting." ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) Conference, April 2004
"Border Crossings in Françoise de Graffigny's Lettres d'une Péruvienne." ACLA Conference, April 2003
"Advanced Language and Civilization and Culture Classes delivered by Interactive Video: How to prepare and what to expect." Conference: "Modern Languages in an Era of Distance Education," Clarion University, October 2001.
"International Perspectives: Germany." Conference: "After September 11: Arabs, Afghans, Americans and Anthrax," Clarion University, September 2001.
"Distance Education and Foreign Languages: How Is It Possible?" Joint presentation with Charles Tichy. PSMLA (Pennsylvania State Modern Languages Association) Conference, September 2001.
"Contemporary Berlin." Slide lecture presented at German Reunification Conference, Slippery Rock University, October 2000.
"Masculinity and Militarism: The Seven Years' War and G. E. Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm." ASECS Conference (American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies), April 2000.
"The Future as Potentiality: The Subjunctive and Metaphoric Substitution in Rilke's Poetry." NEMLA Conference (Northeast Modern Languages Association), April 2000.
Panel organizer: "Beyond Language?: National Identity and Transnationalism in Recent Film" and Paper: "Beyond Speech, Beyond Silence: Is the Language of Gesture Transnational?" presented at the ACLA Conference, March 1999.
"Translating Across Cultures and Genres: Versions of Femininity and Masculinity in Lessing's Miss Sara Sampson." ACLA Conference, March 1998.
"Subversions of Gendered Narrative in Mozart's Magic Flute." The Narrative Conference, April 1996.

Honors and Awards

Winner of the 2012 North American Goethe Society's Essay Prize for "Masks and Metamorphoses: The Transformation of Classical Tradition in Goethe's Römische Elegien." German Quarterly 85.4 (Fall 2012).

Summer Research Stipend, 2012

International Programs Grant to investigate study abroad options in Germany, 2010
Clarion University College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Development Grant, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
Clarion University Foundation Grant, 2004
Mellon Dean's Dissertation Fellowship, University of Michigan, 1995–9
Exchange Lectureship in the Departments of German and English Université de Lausanne, Switzerland, 1994–95
Regents' Fellowship, University of Michigan, 1990–94
DAAD Summer Fellowship; Regensburg, Germany, summer 1991
Fulbright Teaching Assistantship; Lycée Joubert, Ancenis, France, 1987–88

Courses

All levels of German and French language, literature and culture classes.