By Maryann Henck

CHARACTERS

WILLIAM H. NEW   renowned Cana­di­an lit crit and author (as himself)

INTERVIEWER 1      Sab­ri­na Völz

INTERVIEWER 2      Maria Moss

INTERVIEWER 3      Maryann Henck

UNIVERSITY LOBBY—SUMMER—DAY TIME

It’s a hot and humid July after­noon as the mid­day sun floods the win­dows of the lob­by, but all is freez­ing cold inside thanks to a ful­ly func­tion­ing air-con­di­tion­ing sys­tem at the 13^th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on the Short Sto­ry in Eng­lish at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vien­na. The three inter­view­ers have just left a win­dow­less and chilly lec­ture hall where William H. New gave a simul­ta­ne­ous­ly aca­d­e­m­ic and cre­ative pre­sen­ta­tion that ignit­ed the audience’s imag­i­na­tion. (And, no, it is not an oxy­moron to be a “cre­ative aca­d­e­m­ic.” More about that in the inter­view.) Intrigued by William’s talk, the three inter­view­ers per­suade him to give them an impromp­tu inter­view on the lob­by couch. Dur­ing the cof­fee break between ses­sions, con­fer­ence par­tic­i­pants are milling about, des­per­ate­ly in search of a much need­ed caf­feine jolt and some cook­ies to tide them over until lunch break. Every now and then, cacoph­o­nous cof­fee machines and chat­ter­ing con­fer­ence goers can be heard in the background.

By Sabrina Völz

As far as I can tell, his­to­ry has a bit of an image prob­lem among future Eng­lish teach­ers. It does not seem to be one of those top­ics that receives much atten­tion in Eng­lish class­rooms across Ger­many. I mean, real­ly, who is inter­est­ed in a bunch of dead peo­ple, dates, bat­tles, and maps? Well, to be hon­est, I’m not and prob­a­bly you aren’t either. But luck­i­ly for us, his­to­ry is much more than a col­lec­tion of dull facts and arti­facts. His­to­ry is about peo­ple, places, and events. It is about greed, pas­sion, pow­er, lead­er­ship, and betray­al. It is about achiev­ing suc­cess and admit­ting fail­ure as well as mak­ing good and bad deci­sions. In essence, it is about life. In fact, I am so bold as to sug­gest that his­to­ry can be as fas­ci­nat­ing as any good nov­el. In Joyce Car­ol Oates’ mas­ter­ful short sto­ry, “Death Watch,” the nar­ra­tor writes: “Truth must be mar­ket­ed like any oth­er prod­uct.”^[1] Okay, so let’s mar­ket history.

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By Friederike Fischer

I recent­ly noticed that when­ev­er I read a book there is a voice inside my head. It’s my own voice. Me talk­ing – or rather think­ing – in Eng­lish. The curi­ous thing is that the voice uses dif­fer­ent accents depend­ing on the nation­al­i­ty of the author or my mood.

I am able to hear and use these dif­fer­ent accents because I know they exist. In school I only learned ‘stan­dard’ Amer­i­can Eng­lish, but the Eng­lish lan­guage is actu­al­ly much more col­or­ful and excit­ing than stan­dard Eng­lish alone. As a future Eng­lish teacher, I think that stu­dents should get the chance to get in con­tact with all the Eng­lish varieties.

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By Grant Helle

Let’s face it: Gen­er­a­tion Y – affec­tion­ate­ly known as Gen ‘Why’ – is not exact­ly polit­i­cal­ly mind­ed. This was all the more due cause to devel­op a project geared to ignite stu­dents’ pas­sion for pol­i­tics, in this case, solv­ing the rid­dle of the U.S. Elec­tion System.

The ques­tion posed by Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty Lüneb­urg, the State Insti­tute for Edu­ca­tion and Media of Berlin-Bran­den­burg, eXploratorium/Life, and the Ameri­ka-zen­trum Ham­burg was how to gar­ner stu­dents’ inter­est in the U.S. polit­i­cal sys­tem while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly teach­ing con­tem­po­rary U.S. cul­ture and improv­ing their com­mu­nica­tive com­pe­tence in Eng­lish. This idea devel­oped into a two-month project, with spe­cial empha­sis on new media, such as Inter­net learn­ing plat­forms, MOOCs, and intercultural/democratic edu­ca­tion. Read more »

By Sabrina Völz

It has been my expe­ri­ence that com­pe­ti­tion, apart from the kind found in tele­vi­sion quiz shows, is often frowned upon in Ger­many. For Amer­i­cans, how­ev­er, com­pe­ti­tion may bring back fond mem­o­ries of grade school spelling bees, high school foot­ball games, and employ­ee-of-the-week awards. From an Amer­i­can per­spec­tive, com­pe­ti­tion helps to moti­vate peo­ple to be cre­ative and do their very best work. Even if you don’t win, doing your best is a great achieve­ment. Yes, for many Amer­i­cans, com­pe­ti­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty – some­times referred to as inge­nu­ity – go hand-in-hand. But what do they have to do with me, you ask? If you are a teacher or uni­ver­si­ty fac­ul­ty mem­ber, they have every­thing to do with you. Read more »