Staff in German Studies 

Dr Hilary Brown

Dr Hilary Brown

Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies

I joined the Department of Modern Languages in 2011 and teach in Translation Studies and German. I am currently Athena Swan Lead for the School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music.

Anna Bettina Freeman

Teaching Fellow in German

Anna Bettina Freeman is a Teaching Fellow in German at the University of Birmingham.

Dr John Goodyear

Dr John Goodyear

Lecturer (Teaching) English as a Modern Foreign Language (EMFL)
Chair of the Year Abroad for the School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music

As Lecturer (Teaching) English as a Modern Foreign Language (EMFL), John Goodyear is the Academic Lead for this programme of study in the Department of Modern Languages. Alongside this teaching work, he is Chair of the Year Abroad for the School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music.

In addition to his teaching role at the University of Birmingham, Goodyear has featured as a presenter on ...

Dr Elystan Griffiths

Dr Elystan Griffiths

Reader in Modern Languages

My research interests focus on the relationship between social and political inequalities and German culture in the period between 1750 and 1850. I have a particular interest in outsider figures, and above all the work of J.M.R. Lenz and Heinrich von Kleist. I have recently published a monograph on German-language pastoral writing, and am currently working on projects on the ...

Professor Nigel Harris

Professor Nigel Harris

Professor of German

I am a medievalist with an extension into the sixteenth century. I am particularly interested in late-medieval didactic literature in German and Latin, in the presentation of animals in literature, and in the Swiss Reformation.

Professor Sara Jones

Professor Sara Jones

Professor of Languages, Cultures and Societies

Sara Jones is Professor in the Department of Modern Languages. Her current research analyses the political, social and cultural processes of remembering state socialist dictatorship.

Dr Katharina Karcher

Dr Katharina Karcher

Senior Lecturer in German

My work focuses on protest movements and political violence in the 20th and 21st centuries. In this context, I am particularly interested in questions of gender, race, class, dis/ability, and political ideology. My research transgresses disciplinary boundaries and draws on a range of theoretical frameworks including feminist theory, cultural studies, and critical security studies.

Dr Nicholas Martin

Dr Nicholas Martin

Director of the Institute for German Studies
Reader in European Intellectual History

Nicholas Martin is Reader in European Intellectual History in the Department of Modern Languages (German Studies), and Director of the University’s Institute for German Studies

His research interests include aspects of modern German intellectual history and of the cultural history of war and political violence in twentieth-century Germany.

Academic CV

Dr Regina Seiwald

Dr Regina Seiwald

Teaching Fellow in German
Deputy Director of Languages for All

I am a Teaching Fellow and the language co-ordinator for Languages for All (LfA) German. Besides teaching most of the modules, I work closely with colleagues from the German Department and external departments, such as Law, whose joint students are hosted by LfA. I am a native speaker of German, and I come from the Tyrol in Austria. I have been teaching German at the University of Birmingham ...

Nadine Sturm

Nadine Sturm

DAAD-Lektorin

Nadine Sturm is DAAD Lecturer in German Studies, teaching mainly German Sprachpraxis (Communicative Skills), Landeskunde and Use of Language. Her research interests are focused on German present-day language, including construction grammar, corpus research and German syntax.

Dr Ruth Whittle

Dr Ruth Whittle

Associate Professor
HeFI Fellow

As a student, you are most likely to know me in my role as the School’s Chair of Year Abroad. I teach in all German Core language courses as well as Translation in Practice and post-1870 German literature classes.

I am interested in students and their learning journeys, particularly in Modern Languages and have published papers and books on The Year Abroad, Students as Partners, and Staff ...

Emeritus and Honorary Academic Staff

Professor William John Dodd

Professor William John Dodd

Emeritus Professor of Modern German Studies

I joined the University of Birmingham as a lecturer in German in 1980 and retired as Professor of Modern German Studies in 2014. I am a member of the research project  “Inner and outer exile in fascist Germany and Spain: a comparative study”, funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

Professor David Hill

Emeritus Professor of German Studies

My main research interests lie in the literature, culture and society of Germany around the end of the eighteenth century.

Professor John Klapper

Professor John Klapper

Emeritus Professor in Modern Languages

My main research interests are writing under National Socialism, particularly the non-conformist writers of inner exile. I teach courses on German language, literature and history. I am also interested in all aspects of foreign language learning and teaching, instructed second language acquisition and pedagogical grammar. 

Professor Ronald Speirs

Emeritus Professor of German Studies

My research is on German literary and intellectual topics since the later nineteenth century, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht.

Professor Wilfried van der Will

Honorary Professor of Modern German Studies

Wide ranging research interests in 19th and 20th century German culture, philosophy and politics, especially from the end of the First World War to the present. Has published books and essays on German literature and society post-1945, on the worker-culture movement of the Weimar Republic, on culture in the Third Reich, on protest and democracy from the 1960s to the 1980s and on the reception of ...