More than Beer and Lederhosen: Living in Germany in Memorable Times
Dr. Gail Finney - More than Beer and Lederhosen: Living in Germany in Memorable Times • Saturday, September 25, 2021
Photo courtesy: Dr. Gail Finney
Dr. Finney’s sojourns in West Germany have coincided with historic moments in the country’s history. Her job as a nurses’ aide in 1970 fell in the wake of the Economic Miracle and the contracting of Gastarbeiter*innen. She arrived in Tübingen to take up a dissertation fellowship in October 1977, days before members of the far-left militant Baader-Meinhof Group were found dead in their cells at Stammheim Prison. Holding a Humboldt Research Fellowship in Berlin, 1989-1990, coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and its aftermath.
Dr. Finney grew up in Houston and received an A.B. summa cum laude in German from Princeton in 1973 and a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley in 1980. She taught at Harvard from 1980-1988 as an Assistant and Associate Professor of German and at UC Davis from 1988-2020 as a Professor of Comparative Literature and German. She has written or edited eight books and numerous articles in the fields of 19th- and 20th-century German and comparative literature and trauma studies.
If you would like to view our archive video of the presentation, contact Dr. Marion Gerlind for access.