CANDIDATES for open positions
term: 2025-2027
The Vice President accedes to the position of President after three years.
For Vice-President:
Sean Franzel, University of Missouri
Among my varied service responsibilities throughout my career, I have enjoyed my service for the GSNA the most. Thus far I have served as book review editor of the Goethe Yearbook (2016-2022) and thereby was a member of the executive committee. The best part of this work was the collaborative engagement with colleagues; I have valued the shared decision-making processes, the collegial, unbureaucratic atmosphere, and the ability to contribute to venues for productive scholarly exchange such as the Atkins conference, the Yearbook, and various GSNA sponsored events at other conferences. As VP of the Society, I would especially look forward to continuing these exchanges and collaborative endeavors. Preserving the GSNA as the primary home for scholars working on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, maintaining and broadening outreach to scholars in Europe, and supporting and expanding ongoing focus areas and research groups would all be activities that I would eagerly pursue. In my own scholarship, I have always valued collaborative exchange, something that is evidenced by the multiple co-edited volumes and journal special issues that I have been a part of (many/most of my co-editors are members of the GSNA!). I would be eager to continue various forms of collaborative work if I were to deepen my involvement with the Society and its members through serving as VP.
For Secretary-Treasurer:
William H. Carter, Iowa State University
William H. Carter is Associate Professor of German Studies in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Iowa State University. His research interests begin in the Goethezeit and include: the Faust tradition; intersections of literature, philosophy, and economic thought; Austrian studies; finance and society; and insurance. He has published articles in the Goethe Yearbook, Herder Jahrbuch/Yearbook, Colloquia Germanica, Monatshefte, German Studies Review, and The German Quarterly.
“I joined the Goethe Society in 2005. Throughout my professional career, Goethe Society members have welcomed me and provided me with extraordinary intellectual stimulation, steadfast encouragement, and genuine friendship. As Secretary-Treasurer, I upgraded our PayPal account so members do not have extra fees when paying dues online, introduced 3-year discounted memberships, created Lifetime and Lifetime Patron membership options, and engaged professionals to actively manage our investment account and do our taxes. I serve at the pleasure of the membership and would love to continue in my role as dues collector and check writer.”
For Director-at-Large:
Ellwood Wiggins, University of Washington
As a scholar and teacher, I have been very grateful to the Goethe Society of North America for its mentorship, inspiration, and community. The GSNA gave me encouragement and advice for my very first publication, and I greatly benefit from its reading groups and forums to this day. I would like to see these activities continue and expand. It would be great to set up some mechanism for early career mentorship, for instance, perhaps on the model of the dissertation workshop held on the last day of the Atkins conference.
Daniel DiMassa, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
I am an Associate Professor of German and International and Global Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Worcester, Massachusetts. I serve as Vice President of our university’s chapter of the AAUP and co-direct the university’s interdisciplinary Berlin Project Center. I earned my PhD in German Studies
from the University of Pennsylvania in 2014 after having completed degrees in German and religion at Yale University (MAR) and the University of Notre Dame (BA).
My work is anchored in the age of Goethe, and especially in the literature and culture of German Romanticism, but it has always been outward-looking—historically, geographically, and topically. In 2022, I published Dante in Deutschland: An Itinerary of Romantic Myth, in the GSNA’s series with Bucknell University Press. The book traces how the Romantics’ new mythology was often conceived as a new Divine Comedy, but that as Romanticism grew into a national patrimony, the Romantic preoccupation with Dante lent itself to fascist misappropriation. I’ve written on figures between the age of Goethe and today, having published articles in venues like German Quarterly and the Goethe Jahrbuch, Religion and Literature and Modern Language Quarterly, as well as in Public Seminar, where I wrote a cheeky piece on Steve Bannon as a Romantic:).
It is difficult to imagine my scholarly development without the guidance of the GSNA. In my first year of graduate school, Simon Richter piled a troupe of students and professors into a van and drove us from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh for the inaugural Atkins Conference. From that point, I’ve attended Atkins conferences, participated in the dissertation workshop, formed friendships in the society, and published in the GSNA’s series on New Studies in the Age of Goethe. Even then, as I neared tenure, I profited immensely from the thoughtful and generous guidance of former series editor, Karin Schutjer. At this point, I am eager to promote the welfare of the society and to support budding scholars. The GSNA does so much good that, apart from continuing to uphold its outstanding record of activity, I would want to explore with members of the board:
- Promoting Goethe studies among young people: Goethe, his peers, and his age have little to no currency among American undergraduates—even among those who study German (which, in turn, shapes the profile of graduate cohorts). I believe that it is in our interest to promote Goethe studies among undergraduate programs and that we might do so by organizing and hosting pedagogical resources on the site of the German Studies Collaboratory; by awarding at the Atkins Conference a prize for undergraduate pedagogy in Goethe studies; and by strategizing how we might most effectively introduce undergraduates in various curricular contexts to the field, e.g. through performances, translation workshops, new publication models, etc.
- Increasing GSNA visibility and engagement: In recent years, GSNA reading groups have helped to fill the space between the triennial conference, the society’s occasional publication of a new book, and the different Goethe panels at ASECS and the GSA. I believe there are additional opportunities to sustain discussion, amplify voices, and open our field to broader audiences. Specifically, I could envision a GSNA-organized podcast in which we feature new scholarship, new voices in the field, and current events in Goethe studies. There are many excellent models for us to consider, and at my home institution, there is a professional media lab with the tools for such a production.
- Generating revenue to support our ventures: Working with our board, I would want to explore whether we might be able to raise revenue that supplements what our annual dues provide. Additional income might help to support mentorship/advising opportunities between Atkins conferences; to enable attendance of the Atkins conference by more graduate and undergraduate students; to fund prizes in scholarship and pedagogy; to promote GSNA books in national periodicals, among other goals. Might we consider hawking some chic Goethe merch? Or crowdfunding special new ventures? It would be an honor and pleasure to serve this community as a Director-at-Large, and if I were voted onto the Board, I would be eager to collaborate on advancing the mission of the GSNA.