Fall 2023 - Spring 2024 Awards
Goethe Essay Prize
Endowed in 1935 by Ludwig Vogelstein, is awarded annually for the best essay
on any topic in German literature or culture. Originally it was awarded for
essays on Goethe—no surprise there!—and was only open to graduate students
and seniors. We thought that more of you deserved recognition for your effects
and so we have expanded the scope over the years.
Freshman/Sophomore Category
1st Prize - Xianyi Zhou
Marx and Mao
Junior/Senior category
1st Prize - Emily Hong
Instant Commodities: Time-Space Compression and Commodification in Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project and the US Consumer Credit Market
1st Prize - Craig Jacobson-Immelt
Klangvolle Meisterschaft: Eine nuancenreiche literarische Entdeckungsreise in Else Lasker-Schülers
Gedicht 'Versöhnung' und die Dualität von Profanem und Heiligem
2nd Prize - Rafael Uzan
Stasi files and Vergangenheitsbewältigung in The Lives of Others: An Accurate Portrayal?
Graduate Category
1st Prize - Luke Witchey
Resistance to Signification: Rhetoric and Genre in Hofmannsthal’s “Ein Brief”
Simmons Award
Simmons Award in German is given to the student who has done the “best work in German” in the College of Arts & Sciences. This year’s recipient was Myka Melville.
Fall 2022 - Spring 2023 Awards
Goethe Essay Prize
Endowed in 1935 by Ludwig Vogelstein, is awarded annually for the best essay
on any topic in German literature or culture. Originally it was awarded for
essays on Goethe—no surprise there!—and was only open to graduate students
and seniors. We thought that more of you deserved recognition for your effects
and so we have expanded the scope over the years.
Freshman/Sophomore Category
1st Prize - Rares-Stefan Bucsa
The Power of Literature: Fighting Totalitarianism in German Literature and Beyond
1st Prize - Caitlin Sigda
Stepmothers & Maidens & Werewolves, Oh My!: An Analysis of the Morality Assigned to Gender Non-Conforming Characters in Fairy Tales
Junior/Senior category
1st Prize - Hui Yuan
Poetry after Auschwitz: Memory, Trauma, and Testimony in W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz
2nd Prize - Magda Kossowska
Wallraffs (Alis) Doppelidentität in Ganz Unten
2nd Prize - Lindy Liu
Reconcile with Myself - Searching for “What is Real” and Human Nature in the World of Cinema and Arts
Graduate Category
1st Prize - Nora Siena (Romance Studies)
Parables and/as paradigms: The Role of Kafka’s Parables in Agamben’s Biopolitical Project
Simmons Award
Simmons Award in German is given to the student who has done the “best work in German” in the College of Arts & Sciences. This year’s recipient was Magda Kossowska.
Fall 2021 - Spring 2022 Awards
Goethe Essay Prize
Freshman/Sophomore Category
1st Prize - Emily Hong (HE)
Politics of Pleasure: Sexual Power and Possession in Elfriede Jelinek’s The Piano Teacher
2nd Prize - Andrew Shim (EN)
The evolution of self-expression in foreign environments: Applying Miguel Sicart’s “play” into Amo’s life in Yoko Tawada’s “The Shadow Man”
Junior/Senior category
1st Prize - Viktoria Catalan (A&S)
Kant on Seeking the Unconditioned as a Transcendental Illusion: Is It Justified?
Graduate Category
1st Prize - Mariaenrica Giannuzzi (German Studies)
Kleist in Italy: An Icon of Gendered Conflicts
2nd Prize - Dennis Wegner (German Studies)
Queer Constellations, Cosmic Contacts: Trans-Forming Greek Mythology and the Narrative of Europe in Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s Meteoriten
Simmons Award
Simmons Award in German is given to the student who has done the “best work in German” in the College of Arts & Sciences. This year’s recipient was Fabio Santiago Cabrera (A&S)
Fall 2020 - Spring 2021 Awards
Goethe Essay Prize
Freshman/Sophomore Category
1st Prize - Kelly Lu (A&S)
Nietzsche, Truth, and the Individual
2nd Prize - Eli Pallrand (A&S)
With and Above Culture
Junior/Senior category
1st Prize - Zelai Xu (A&S)
Kant vs. Berkeley on Idealism
2nd Prize - Sammy DeLorenzo (A&S)
Das Echte Leben der Anderen: Ostdeutscher Kultur in West- und Ostdeutscher
Graduate Category
1st Prize - Emir Yigit (German Studies)
To Stand Above One’s Own: The Possibility of Self-Judgment, Self-Mastery and the Right to One’s Life
2nd Prize - Shirley Le Penne (Government)
What Constitutes Equality in a Context of Punishment? Deciphering the Hidden Calculus in Kant
3rd Prize - John Anspach (English)
Love and Belief in Freud’s Delusions and Dreams
Fall 2019 - Spring 2020 Awards
Goethe Essay Prize
Freshman/Sophomore Category
1st Prize - Fabio S. Cabrera
From Camels to Children: The Bad Conscience and Nietzsche’s Life-Affirming Spirit
Honorable Mentions:
Casey Martin
A Noble Struggle: Comparative Morality in Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals
Rory Sheppard
Nietzsche and the Will: Exploring Strength through Self-Control
Junior/Senior category
1st Prize - Leo Levy
Eine Subversion des Struwwelpeters. F.K. Waechters intertextuelle Kritik an Childismus
Graduate Category
1st Prize - David Dunham
The Data and Narratives of Cases: Karl Philipp Moritz and Johann Georg Zimmermann
Honorable Mentions:
Tamar Gutfeld
Dunkele, sehr dunkele, ziemlich dunkele Dinge – Family and Language in Stifter’s Turmalin
Dennis Wegner
Queer Gothic Realism: The Symbolic Heteronormative Order in Jeremias Gotthelf’s Die Schwarze Spinne
Fall 2018 - Spring 2019 Awards
Goethe Essay Prize
Freshman/Sophomore Category
2nd prize - Daniel Morton
Forbidden Fruit, or Natural Instinct? On the Genesis of Western Morality
Junior/Senior category
1st prize - John Yoon
Georg Trakls “Verfall”: Eine Interpretation
2nd prize – Reika Sullivan
Der Begriff der Bewegung in Hölderlins “Heidelberg”
2nd Prize - Griffin David Warren Smith-Nichols
Die Artikulierung der kulturellen Erneuerung in der Lyrik Stefan Georges:
Abrechnung mit dem Abgrund
3rd prize Senior - Joshua Sadinsky
Polarisierte deutsche Wahrnehmungen der amerikanischen Jazzmusik während
der Weimarer Republik: Jazz in Weimarer Kultur und Literatur
Graduate Category
1st prize – Daniel Friedman
„Betrachten Sie diese Dinge?“ – Lukács, Kracauer and the Difficulty of Realism
2nd prize - Mark Mandych
Translating Inheritance: Zafer Senocak’s Fiction of Family and Identity
2nd prize – Jette Gindner
Streaming Fictitious Capital: Christian Petzold’s Yella (2007)
Goethe Institute Exams
Elizabeth Schmucker
Simmons Award
Simmons Award in German is given to the student who has done the “best work in German” in the College of Arts & Sciences. This year’s recipient was Marc Foley.
Heidelberg Exchange
German Studies also has a direct exchange program with the University in Heidelberg and this year that scholarship was awarded to two students: Javier Agredo
Language Certificate in German Language Study
For having achieved an advanced level of language competence through course work at the 3000-level corresponding to the criteria set by The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (level B2+)
2022-2023
- Hali Dietsche
- Brendan Klein
- Ryan Park
- Jaylyn Tinker
- Javier Villalpando-Hernandez
- Emma Kennett
- Zeke Lawrence
- Alice Hu
- Lulu Yuan
- Adelyn Carney
- Tenny Yin
- Caleb Schmitt
- Audrey Yin
- Max Mandeville
- Emily Hong
- Alexander Joos
- Zach Cheslock
- Grace Hoedemaker
- Sonia Talarek
- Sonia Shneyerson
- Phalguni Miraj
- Mayumi Schaepers-Cheu
- Naiqi Zhang, Grant Smith
- Gabriel Montalvo-Zotter
- Sofia Pereira
- Katariina Alanko
- Michael Cadogan
- Juan Cancel
- Viktoria Catalan
- Samuel DeLorenzo
- Yixiao Guo
- Madison Keele
- Johanna Keigler
- Konstantin Kirovski
- Alexander LaPorte
- Julia Morse
- Ryan Morton
- Kate Siegel
- Nicholas Sola
- Lewis Wolf
2020-2021
- Fiona Bishop
- Patricia Corujo
- Jeremy Coyle
- Yiduo Ke
- Brian Leffew
- Skyeler McQueen
- Emine Özen
- Andrew Sheldon
- Manya Weintraub
2019-2020
- Yuqing Cao
- Ariana Croese
- Olivia Gillespie
- Austin Haycox
- Leo Levy
2018-2019
- Hodol Kim
- Julia Hermann
- Ellie Schmucker
- Reika Sullivan
- Yujia Zhang
- Alex Aliaga Auqui
- Samuel Barnum
- Hallie Black
- Zhinsheng Ivy Deng
- Yue Ding
- Margaret Jia
- Maura Roach
- Justin Shin
- Michael Stolkarts
- John Woltornist
- Caroline Dagmar Chang
2017-2018
- Anna Boucheva
- Jared Gurba
- Lewis Haber
- Daniel May
- Michaela Novakova
- Neil A. Stilin
- Emma Kim Tall
- Maxwell Vega
2016-2017
- Xinyi (Lena) Li
- Joshua Sadinsky
- Juliane Scholtz
- Lauren Elizabeth Stechschulte
- Emma Stillings
- Eric Zimmermann
2015-2016
- Constanza Andrea Arevalo
- R. Delphi Cleaveland
- Leighton Fernando Cook
- Melanie Kauffeld
- Edward Francis Klimowicz
- Anjum Malik
- Melissa Lucia Sermiento
- Caitlin Johanna Wischermann