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Curriculum Vitae
Craig J. Decker
Department of German and Russian Studies
Bates College
3 Andrews Road
Lewiston, Maine 04240-6048
Phone (207) 786-6288
FAX (207) 786-8331
e-mail:
Education
Ph.D.(German) University of California, Irvine, 1986.
M.A.(German) University of California, Irvine, 1980.
B.A.Bates College, Summa cum laude with Highest Honors in German, 1978.
Additional Studies
Karl-Eberhardts Universität, Tübingen, West Germany, 1979.
Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich, West Germany, 1976-77.
Centro de Artes y Lenguas, Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1976.
Goethe Institut, Murnau, West Germany, 1975.
Academic Employment
Bates College
Professor of German, 1999-present.
Associate Professor of German, 1992-99.
Assistant Professor of German, 1986-92.
Instructor in German, 1984-86.
Oregon State University
Instructor in German, 1983-84.
University of California, Irvine
Teaching Assistant and Associate, 1978-1983.
Courses Taught at Bates College
Fundamentals of German
Courses Taught at Bates College (cont.)
Intermediate German
German Composition and Conversation
Nineteenth-Century German Literature
Early Twentieth-Century German Literature (1890-1933)
Postwar German Literature (1945-68)
German Literature of the 1970s
Senior Seminar in German Literary History
Workshop in German Translation
The Development of German Drama
The German Cinema
The German Novelle
Austrian Literature
Austria: Its Language(s) and Culture
Living with the Nazi Legacy
Modern Germany: Representations and Reflections
Representing Austrian Fascism
Berlin and Vienna, 1900 - 1914
From Habsburg to Haider: Austria in the Twentieth Century
Staged Marriages
Administrative Positions
Director, Bates College Fall Semester Abroad Program in Vienna, Austria, 2006.
Founding Director, Vienna Seminar, Wayne State University Junior Year in Munich Program, 2003-06.
Chair, Department of German, Russian, and East Asian Languages and Literatures, Bates College, 1993-97, 2003-06.
Founding Director, Bates College Fall Semester Abroad Program in Vienna, Austria, 2001.
Acting Chair, Division of the Humanities, Bates College, July-December 1998.
Founding Director, Bates College Fall Semester Abroad Program in Berlin, Germany, 1992.
Acting Chair, Department of German, Russian, and East Asian Languages and Literatures, Bates College, Winter 1992.
Chair, Committee on Off-Campus Study, Bates College, 1986-87, 1989-91, 1994-97.
Teaching Assistant Supervisor, German Program, Department of Foreign Languages, Oregon State University, 1983-84.
Publications
Books Edited
The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. Editor for German-language Drama. Gen. Eds. Gabrielle H. Cody and Evert Sprinchorn. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 1721pp.
Austrian Identities: Twentieth-Century Short Fiction. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 2004. 231pp.
Balancing Acts: Textual Strategies of Peter Henisch. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 2002. 308pp.
Books Translated
Stone’s Paranoia. By Peter Henisch. Intro. Craig Decker. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 2000. 97pp.
Articles
“An Annotated Syllabus for Teaching Advanced German Language and Austrian Culture.” AP German Teacher’s Guide. Ed. Miriam Parris. New York: The College Board (in press).
“Modern Austrian Drama and Theater, 1860-2000.” The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. Eds. Gabrielle H. Cody and Evert Sprinchorn. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 81-87.
“Reading Peter Henisch Balance: An Introduction.” Balancing Acts: Textual Strategies of Peter Henisch. Ed. Craig Decker. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 2002. 1-6.
“Intertextual Satire and the Affluent Society: Production, Consumption, and Kommt eh derKomet.” Balancing Acts: Textual Strategies of Peter Henisch 210-27.
“Geschichtstheater - Theatergeschichte: Szenen aus der Zweiten Republik” (co-authored with Kathy Brzovic). Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur 46.1 (2002): 17-25.
“Introduction.” Stone’s Paranoia.By Peter Henisch. Trans. Craig Decker. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 2000. 1-4.
“‘wenn je etwas gut und ganz werden soll’: Bachmann’s ‘Unter Mördern und Irren’ and the Political Culture of the Stammtisch.” Heimat. Special issue of Modern Austrian Literature 29.3/4 (1996): 43-56.
Articles (cont.)
“Waldheim’s Austria and the Rhetoric of Identification: The Case of Steins Paranoia” (co-authored with Kathy Brzovic). Rhetoric in German Contexts. Special issue of Carleton Ger-manic Papers 23 (1995): 43-52. (A revised version of this article appears as “The Ironic Case of Austro/Jewish Identity: Psycho-Political Rhetoric in Steins Paranoia,” Balancing Acts: Textual Strategies of Peter Henisch 131-45.)
“Johann Nestroy.” Nineteenth-Century German Writers to 1840. Vol. 133 of Dictionary of Liter-ary Biography. Eds. James Hardin and Siegfried Mews. Detroit/Washington, D.C./London: Gale
Research, 1993. 218-32.
“‘mir san a liebe Familie in an lieben Land . . .’: Fascism and the Family in Peter Turrini’s Sau-schlachten” (co-authored with Kathy Brzovic). The Contemporary Austrian Volksstück. Special issue of Modern Austrian Literature 26.3/4 (1993): 183-97.
“The Hermeneutics of Democracy: Nestroy, Horváth, Turrini and the Development of the ‘Volksstück.’” Seminar 27.3 (1991): 219-32.
“Photographic Eye, Narrative I: Peter Henisch’s Die kleine Figur meines Vaters.” Monatshefte 83.2 (1991): 147-60.
“‘. . . und den Kasten zusammenhauen’: Televisual Questions and the Dramas of Franz Xaver Kroetz.” The German Quarterly 64.1 (1991): 25-34.
“The Struggle for Stasis in Ödön von Horváth’s Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald” (co-authored with Kathy Brzovic). German Studies Review 13.3 (1990): 391-404. (Awarded the German Studies Association 1991 Article Prize.)
“Toward a Critical Volksstück: Nestroy and the Politics of Language.” Monatshefte 79.1 (1987): 42-61.
Reference Entries
“Ödön von Horváth.” The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. Eds. Gabrielle H. Cody and Evert Sprinchorn. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 626-27.
“Tales from the Vienna Woods.” The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. 1325-26.
“Peter Turrini.” The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. 1388-89.
“Volksstück.” The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. 1431.
Translations
“Crossing the Border.” By Ödön von Horváth. Austrian Identities: Twentieth-Century Short Fiction. Ed. Craig Decker. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 2004. 88-93.
“Crimes of an Innsbruck Merchant’s Son.” By Thomas Bernhard. Austrian Identities: Twentieth-Century Short Fiction. 127-36.
“Oh, My Dear Augustine.” By Barbara Frischmuth. Austrian Identities: Twentieth-Century Short
Fiction. 137-46.
“A Neighbor of Mine and Musil’s.” By Barbara Frischmuth. Austrian Identities: Twentieth-Century Short Fiction. 147-50.
“Baronkarl.” By Peter Henisch. Austrian Identities: Twentieth-Century Short Fiction. 151-81.
“Inventory.” By Felix Mitterer. Austrian Identities: Twentieth-Century Short Fiction. 182-85.
“The Right Nose.” By Doron Rabinovici. Austrian Identities: Twentieth-Century Short Fiction. 195-202.
Reviews
Review of Bettina Matthias, The Hotel as Setting in Early Twentieth-Century German and Austrian Literature: Checking in to Tell a Story. The Germanic Review (in press).
Review of Stefan Krammer, »redet nicht von Schweigen . . . «. Zu einer Semiotik des Schweigens im dramatischen Werk Thomas Bernhards. Modern Austrian Literature 36.3/4 (2003): 100-1.
Review of Herbert Herzmann, Tradition und Subversion: Das Volksstück und das epischeTheater. The German Quarterly 72.4 (1999): 408-9.
Review of Johann Nestroy, Stücke 23/I: Unverhofft. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, ed. Jürgen Hein. Modern Austrian Literature 31.2 (1998): 135-36.
Review of Michelle Mattson, Franz Xaver Kroetz: The Construction of a Political Aesthetic. The German Quarterly 71.2 (1998): 202-3.
Review of Johann Nestroy, Stücke 17/I: Der Talisman. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, eds. Jürgen Hein and Peter Haida. Modern Austrian Literature 30.1 (1997): 127-28.
Review of Daniela Strigl, »Wo niemand zuhaus ist, dort bin ich zuhaus« Theodor Kramer: Hei-matdichter und Sozialdemokrat zwischen den Fronten. Modern Austrian Literature 29.1 (1996): 150-51.
Reviews (cont.)
Review of W.E. Yates, Nestroy and the Critics. Monatshefte 87.2 (1995): 256-57.
Review of Calvin N. Jones, Negation and Utopia: The German Volksstück from Raimund to Kroetz. Seminar 31.1 (1995): 83-85.
Selected Conference Papers
“Pedagogical Tales from the Vienna Woods or Reading Interwar Austria Intensively.” AmericanAssociation of Teachers of German Annual Conference (Session Title: “Teaching Austria: Teaching Innovation”), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 2003.
“Production, Consumption, and Intertextual Satire in Peter Henisch’s Kommt eh der Komet.” German Studies Association Twenty-First Annual Conference (Session Title: “Popular Culture, Unpopular History: Narrative Strategies of Peter Henisch”), Washington, D.C., September 1997.
“Topic-Based Instruction and the Multi-Layered Text: Austrian National Identity.” AmericanAssociation of Teachers of German Annual Conference (Session Title: “New Reading Strategies for a Cultural Studies Curriculum”), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 1996.
“Ingeborg Bachmann’s ‘Unter Mördern und Irren’ and the Normalization of the Past.” German Studies Association Eighteenth Annual Conference (Session Title: “Austria’s Nazi Legacy: Rhetoric, Resistance, and the Body Politic”), Dallas, Texas, September 1994.
“Absence of Mind in the Presence of Anti-Semitism: Peter Henisch’s Steins Paranoia.” The Jewish Presence in Contemporary Austrian Literature: Ninth Annual Symposium on Austrian Literature and Culture, Riverside, California, April 1994.
“‘mir san a liebe Familie in an lieben Land’: Fascism and the Family in Peter Turrini’sSau-schlachten.” The Contemporary Austrian Volksstück: Eighth Annual Symposium on Austrian Literature and Culture, Riverside, California, April 1993.
“All in the Family: Thomas Bernhard’s Vision of Austria’s Nazi Legacy.” Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Conference (Session Title: “Familien, Geschichte, Familien-Geschichte”), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 1993.
“Vater-Literatur, Foto-Literatur: Representation and Reflection in Peter Henisch’s Die kleine Figurmeines Vaters.” German Studies Association Fifteenth Annual Conference (Session Title: “Remembering Austrian Fascism: Representation, Reproduction, Obliteration”), Los Angeles, California, September 1991.
“Nestroy, Satire, and the Prospects of Social and Political Change.” Social and Political Change in Literature and Film: Florida State University Comparative Literature and Film Circle Six-teenth Annual Conference (Session Title: “German Satire and Socio-Political Change”), Selected Conference Papers (cont.)
Tallahassee, Florida, February 1991.
“Arresting the March of History: The Dynamics of Stasis in Ödön von Horváth’s Geschichtenausdem Wiener Wald.” Literature and Film in the Historical Dimension: Florida State University Comparative Literature and Film Circle Fifteenth Annual Conference (Session Title: “Resisting, Rewriting, Reconciling History”), Tallahassee, Florida, February 1990.
“Re-Thinking the ‘Volksstück.’” German Studies Association Twelfth Annual Conference (Ses-sion Title: “Towards a Re-Evaluation of Austrian Political and Literary History”), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 1988.
“Intertexts, Intermedia: Televisual Questions and the Dramas of Franz Xaver Kroetz.” Inter-Textuality: Literary and Cinematic Representation. Florida State University Comparative Literature and Film Circle Thirteenth Annual Conference (Session Title: “Television, Radio and Popular Culture”), Tallahassee, Florida, January 1988.
“‘Das Volk aber liegt wie Dünger auf dem großstädtischen Acker’: Büchner, Horváth, and Lin-guistic Hegemony.” Büchner: Image and Influence, Ottawa, Canada, February 1987.
“The ‘Natural Approach’: Foreign Language Teaching Methodology and its Practical Applica-tions.” Pacific Northwest Council on Foreign Languages Thirty-Fifth Annual Conference, Mis-soula, Montana, May 1984.
Invited Lectures
“Film, History, Film History: Volker Schlöndorff’s Der junge Törless,” Words In Motion: Literary Films, Goethe-Institut, New York, NY, December 2005.
“Staging History: Scenes from Postwar Austrian Theater.” 1000 Jahre Österreich. Ein internatio-nales Symposium zur österreichischen Literatur der letzten hundert Jahre, Montreal, Canada, September 1996.
“Toward a Hermeneutics of the ‘Volksstück.’” Department of Germanic Languages and Litera-tures, Princeton University, December 1990.
Editorial Boards
Modern Austrian Literature, 1999-2008.
Teaching Austria, 2006.
Manuscript Referee
Arachne
Austrian History Yearbook
Cambridge Opera Journal
Modern Austrian Literature
Seminar
Teaching Austria
Visions and Visionaries in Contemporary Austrian Literature and Film
Outside Evaluator for Tenure and Promotion
Lafayette College, 2005.
Indiana University Southeast, 2002.
University of Connecticut, 2000.
Haverford College, 1999.
Utah State University, 1997.
Other Professional Activities
Certified Reviewer, College Board Advanced Placement Syllabus Audit, 2007-present.
Test Development Committee, SAT Subject Test German, 2006-present.
Document Rater, College Board Advanced Placement Syllabus Preaudit, 2006.
Moderator, “Spatial Economies in Berlin,” German Studies Association Twenty-Ninth Annual Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2005.
Advanced Placement Reader in German, 2004-present.
Modern Language Association Delegate Assembly, Regional Representative for New England and Eastern Canada, 2003-05.
Session Organizer and Moderator, “From Habsburg to Haider: Multi-Ethnic Austria 1900/2000,” Modern Language Association One-Hundred-Sixteenth Annual Convention, Washington, D.C., 2000.
Moderator, “Austria at the Turn of Two Centuries: 1900 and 2000,” American Association of Teachers of German Annual Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, 2000.
“Österreich—Ein Land mit vielen Gesichtern,” Seminar sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of German and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs; Graz and Vienna, Austria, 1999.
Other Professional Activities (cont.)
“Austrian Literature After Thomas Bernhard,” Seminar sponsored by the Center for Contem- porary German Literature, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, 1999.
Session Organizer and Moderator, “Violence Across Continents, Violence Across Texts,” Conference on Violence in Film and Literature, Tallahassee, Florida, 1999.
External Review Committee, Department of German, College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, 1998.
Session Organizer, “Popular Culture, Unpopular History: Narrative Strategies of Peter Henisch,” German Studies Association Twenty-First Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., 1997.
“Teaching Languages with Technology,” Workshop sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foun-
dation, Middlebury, Vermont, 1995.
“Technology and Teaching German,” Seminar sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of German, South Hadley and Northampton, Massachusetts, 1995.
Session Organizer, “Austria’s Nazi Legacy: Rhetoric, Resistance, and the Body Politic,” German Studies Association Eighteenth Annual Conference, Dallas, Texas, 1994.
“Literatur und Gesellschaft im neuen Deutschland,” Seminar co-sponsored by the European Academy, Berlin and Loyola College; Berlin, Germany, 1991.
Session Organizer and Moderator, “German Satire and Socio-Political Change,” Conference on Social and Political Change in Literature and Film, Tallahassee, Florida, 1991.
National Advisory Council, Junior Year in Munich Program, 1988-present.
Moderator, “Visual Arts and Politics in the Weimar Republic,” German Studies Association Twelfth Annual Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1988.
Consultant, “The New German Cinema,” Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, 1986.
Advisory Council, Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 1985.
“Teaching German Film as Film,” Seminar co-sponsored by the Goethe Institute, Boston and Clark University; Worcester, Massachusetts, 1985.
“Concepts and Ideas of German Drama,” NEH Summer Seminar, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, 1985.
Awards
Language Teaching and Learning Support Fund Grant, Bates College, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006.
Faculty Development Fund Grant, Bates College, 2005.
Barlow Faculty Travel Grant, Bates College, 2002.
Professional Development Grant, Bates College, 1999.
President’s Fund for Publication of Scholarly Work, Bates College, 1997.
McGinty Faculty Research Fund, Bates College, 1993.
German Studies Association Article Prize, 1991.
Roger C. Schmutz Faculty Research Grant, Bates College, 1990.
NEH Summer Seminar Fellowship, 1985.
German Academic Exchange Service Grant, 1979.
Rodney F. Johonnot Graduate Fellowship, Bates College, 1978.
Gilbert-Townsend Graduate Fellowship, Bates College, 1978.
Election to Phi Beta Kappa, 1978.
Memberships
Modern Language Association
American Association of Teachers of German
German Studies Association
Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association
Phi Beta Kappa