Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth was invited to give a lecture and lead a workshop at Sewanee University of the South, contributing to a series of events for German Campus Week on October 8.  Berroth’s talk, “Cultures of Environmentalism in Germany: Learning to Care,” addressed the larger Sewanee community, while the workshop on environmental activism engaged students of German specifically. The event was sponsored by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Washington D.C., and the Department of German and German Studies at Sewanee.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth was invited to be a featured speaker at the Belmont University 20th Annual Humanities Symposium: Reading as a Radical Act, which convened in Nashville, Tennessee, from September 27 to October 4. Berroth’s presentation, “Read to Me! Read with Me! Increasing Awareness of Diversity and Inclusion for Readers and Listeners of All Ages,” addressed the power of reading as a social activity in contemporary German cultures, featuring examples from children’s books, poetry slams, the 20th anniversary of Vienna’s One City–One Book project, and the importance of overcoming the one-inch barrier (i.e., the reluctance to read subtitles of films telling stories from other languages and cultures). Berroth also designed a related quiz that Belmont students took to earn their Wellcore Cultural Well-Being credits.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth hosted the 4th Biannual Joint Conference of the North Texas, Houston, and South Texas Chapters of the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) September 17–18. The virtual conference brought together over 60 German educators at the high school and college levels, promoting the sharing of scholarship, outreach, mentoring, and networking. Berroth presented a research paper titled “Lies Mir Vor! Lies Mit Mir! Anregungen Zur Inklusion in Kinder- und Bilderbüchern” on current publications for ages three and up that promote empathy around themes of diversity and inclusion for young audiences as well as adult readers through complex connections of images and text and “Mehrfachadressierung”—strategies engaging multiple audiences across generations. Berroth mentored Melina Boutirs ’22, a German and education double major, who presented research completed for her German capstone, “German-language Hip Hop in Modern Language Teaching and Learning: Increasing Social Justice and Diversity in the Curriculum,” that was well-received by teachers seeking to integrate contemporary German music topics into their curricula. 

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth presented a research paper and coorganized and comoderated a section of four panels for the XIV Congress of the International Association for German Studies (IVG), which met in hybrid form July 26–31, 2021, in Palermo, Italy. The IVG meets every five years with the aim of promoting international cooperation in the field of German studies. This year’s motto was “Wege der Germanistik in Transkulturellen Perspektiven.“ Berroth’s contribution addresses inclusion and diversity in representations of disabilities in contemporary German cinema. Her paper opened the section “B14: Behinderungen und Herausforderungen: Disability Studies in der Germanistik.”

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth presented the paper “Opening Language Learning to Social Justice: Designing an OER German Curriculum” at the virtual Language Education for Social Justice conference and the 37th Summer School of Applied Language Studies hosted by the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, June 1–3, 2021. An international group of scholars, educators, and artists answered central questions: What does social justice have to do with language education? Why do we need to talk about social justice as language teachers, teacher educators, and researchers? How can research look at and beyond language in education with the goal of being a catalyst for critical thinking, democracy, equity, and peace? Berroth’s contribution focused on the collaborative authoring and editing of an open educational resource, Grenzenlos Deutsch , an introductory German curriculum.