All current members of the German Studies Association are strongly encouraged to vote in each year’s election. Information and ballots are sent out annually to GSA members via email and posted to the GSA website. Results of the elections will be posted here.
GSA Online Elections, 29 April–29 May 2024
Elections for GSA offices will take place online between Monday, April 29 and Wednesday, May 29 (ballot closes at 23:00 EDT).
The voting procedure will be simple: Current GSA members receive email instructions with a link to the ballot on April 29, and use their GSA log-in credentials to vote.
If you are a current GSA member and do not receive an email, please make sure that GSA is in your contacts list and check your spam folder if not. If you have become a member on or after April 29, or if you encounter technical problems, please contact GSA Operations Director Dr. Jennifer L. Jenkins (operations@thegsa.org). If you have problems remembering your log-in ID or email, please contact our partners at Johns Hopkins UP (JRNLCIRC@jh.edu).
You will be electing four new members of the Board, whose terms will begin on 1 January 2025.
Biographies of all the candidates are below.
BOARD POSITIONS
Vice President (2 years)
Ela Gezen (University of Massachusetts)
Ela Gezen (Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2012) is Associate Professor of German at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research and teaching focus on 20th and 21st century German literature and culture, with emphases on literatures of migration, theater, minority discourses, transnationalism, and cultural theory. She is the author of Brecht, Turkish Theater, and Turkish-German Literature (2018) and is currently working on her second book, Cultures in Migration: Turkish Artistic Practices and Cultural-Political Interventions in West Berlin. Besides her editorial work, she has published articles on music, theater, and literature, focusing on the intersection between aesthetics and politics in both Turkish and German contexts. She has attended every GSA conference since her very first in 2008, and in addition to presenting papers, has collaborated with colleagues on organizing seminars, panels, and roundtables. Within the GSA she has served on the Program and Arts Night Committees, the Vision and Advocacy Working Group, the Executive Board, and is currently chairing the newly implemented Mentoring Award and Initiatives Committee. Together with colleagues, she plans to continue advocacy work, facilitate cross-committee and multi-organizational cooperation, and support existing committees in their efforts in making the GSA a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive professional organization.
Todd Herzog (University of Cincinnati)
Todd Herzog (PhD University of Chicago, 2001) is Professor of German and Film Studies and Director of the Niehoff Center for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cincinnati. He has published six books and over forty articles on topics ranging from the modernist crime story to the history of German-Jewish travel writing on North America. He co-edited the Journal of Austrian Studies from 2011-2021.
A lifetime member of the GSA, Todd co-chaired the Law and Legal Cultures Network (2013-2023) and served on the Executive Board (2020-2022). He has co-chaired the initial stages of the GSA’s Strategic Plan, from the first draft of a mission statement to the current membership survey that will guide the plan.
In the coming years, the GSA will focus on the strategic plan. The key tasks should be: (1) finding creative and sustainable ways to connect GSA members beyond the annual conference and (2) promoting a sense of belonging among members with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, disciplines, and career paths. If elected, Todd would work to elevate the importance of teaching and learning within the GSA, showcasing these endeavors alongside scholarship and the arts and highlighting the important work of GSA members in this area.
Germanistik (3 years)
Vance Byrd (University of Pennsylvania)
I am a Presidential Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania, where I hold a secondary appointment in History of Art. I teach and publish on literature in German since the late eighteenth century, visual culture, history of the book and periodicals, environmental studies, and commemorative culture. My research has been supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation, Fulbright, the NEH, the National Humanities Center, and the Getty Research Institute.
I have been an active member of the GSA. I have given papers, organized panels, as well as convened and participated in seminars, roundtables, and plenary sessions at our annual meetings. I served on the GSA-DAAD Book Prize Committee, Program Committee, and I was the Program Director in 2021. I currently represent the Association on the Advisory Committee of the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies. I always try to be practical and transparent when problems need to be solved. It would be an honor to support the GSA in its advocacy role for the study of language and the humanities on our campuses, as well as in its function for professional development, mentorship, and intellectual exchange at our conferences.
Brett Sterling (University of Arkansas)
I am an Associate Professor of German at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. My research interests include German-language comics, diversity and representation in German-speaking Europe, and the works of Hermann Broch. My first book, Hermann Broch and Mass Hysteria: Theory and Representation in the Age of Extremes, analyzed how Broch used literature and theory as distinct but complementary means of conceiving and countering the mass hysteria of National Socialism. The book received the Radomír Luža prize in 2023. My current book project will present the first comprehensive history of German-language comics written in English. Since joining the GSA in 2014, I have worked consistently to promote the study of comics within German Studies by developing numerous panel series, as well as co-founding and co-organizing the GSA Comics Studies Network in 2017. As co-organizer, I have collaborated with colleagues in networks including Black Diaspora Studies, Queer and Trans Studies, and Asian German Studies. If elected, I would bring this interdisciplinary spirit to the GSA Board. I am especially eager to work for greater inclusivity and accessibility within the GSA. Further, I hope to work with colleagues to develop strategies for sustaining German Studies for the long term.
History/Social Science (3 years)
Heather Morrison (SUNY, New Paltz)
As an associate professor of history at SUNY New Paltz, I write about Vienna’s intellectual circles in the 1780s. My past publications focused on freemasonry and publication practices in that decade of enlightenment activism. I am now working on a book about a botanical expedition sent around the world to gather plants, animals, and minerals for the Habsburg imperial collections. I have been supported by the Botstiber Institute for Austrian American History, a Richard Plaschka fellowship from the Austrian government, and a Fulbright. In serving the field, I have been on the GSA’s program committee and otherwise worked to promote Habsburg and Austrian studies through a long stint editing the HABSBURG H-net list. With my research focusing on pre-1800 global exchange and race, a background at an underfunded mid-sized state university, and connections with a range of centers and programs supporting the Austrian side of German Studies, I feel I can support and help expand the GSA’s goals of representation and serving member needs. On the board, I would focus on building community and mentoring through the association, communicating the value of knowledge work in German Studies, and supporting our strong interdisciplinary networks and increasing their visibility.
Eva Giloi (Rutgers University, Newark)
Eva Giloi is Associate Professor in the History Department at Rutgers University, Newark. She received her PhD from Princeton in 2000. Her dissertation "'Ich Kaufe Mir den Kaiser': Royal Relics and the Culture of Display in 19th-Century Prussia" received the Fritz Stern Prize (German Historical Institute, Washington D.C.). Her publications include Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture in Germany, 1750-1950, Constructing Charisma: Celebrity, Fame, and Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe, and Staging Authority: Performance and Power in the Long Nineteenth Century. She was Alexander-von-Humboldt Senior Research Fellow in 2012-2013 at the Center for the History of Emotions, Max-Planck-Institute für Bildungsforschung, and Martin L. and Sarah F. Leibowitz Member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 2019-2020. She has written on material culture, visual culture, museums, monarchy, fame as a social code, charisma in the urban space, photography, copyright, consumer culture, and trademark law, most recently “Looking at Monarchy Askance: Royal Brand Names and Trademark Law in the German Empire” in Central European History. From 2016-2021, she served as Board Member on the German Studies Review Editorial Board and is currently the Central European History representative and Board Member of the Friends of the German Historical Institute.
Graduate Student Representative (2 years)
Charlie Johnson (University of Illinois, Chicago)
Charlie Johnson received their MA from the University of Illinois in Chicago in 2021 and is currently a PhD student, TA, and Head TA in the department of Germanic Studies at UIC. As a TA, Charlie is committed to practicing inclusivity in the classroom with an emphasis on gender-inclusive language. While interested in inclusive pedagogy, Charlie’s dissertation “Trans/Figurations” investigates ruptures in binaries and gender identity in German literature from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century and the ways in which gender is entangled with the concept of "Bildung." In 2019 they received the Max Kade Fellowship and have earned Max Kade travel grants for attending conferences and studying abroad. They have also received the Astrida Orle Tantillo Bridges award, a competitive, merit-based internal scholarship that has been used to carry out various projects relating to their research. They have also won Robert Kauf awards for excellence in teaching and research. Charlie recently presented a paper at ACTFL on the topic of gender-inclusive language and one titled “Gender Ambivalence in Musil’s Törleß” at the Austrian Studies Association conference. They are working on a forthcoming publication on gender-inclusive language with Unterrichtspraxis. Charlie is a member of the German Studies Association, the Austrian Studies Association, AATG, and ACTFL.
Lorna McCarron (Georgetown University)
I am a PhD candidate in the Georgetown University German Department. In my dissertation I explore the depiction of marginalized bodies in twenty-first-century German-language literature, drawing on material feminist approaches while also engaging critically with concepts of race and disability. I have had the pleasure of sharing my work on these topics at GSA conferences over the past three years—presenting on panels in 2021 and 2023 and participating in a seminar on Medical Humanities in 2022—where I benefited greatly from meeting like-minded scholars. If elected for the role of GSA graduate student representative, I would advocate for the scheduling of more professionalization events for junior scholars at the annual conference. In addition to the existing graduate student reception and Emerging Scholars Workshop, events such as CV clinics or the implementation of mentorship programs would create spaces for graduate students to develop their resumes, learn more about different job opportunities, and expand their networks beyond their institutions. Given that conferences can be difficult to navigate, particularly for groups that have been underrepresented in academia, I hope that such programming would make opportunities for professionalization at the GSA more accessible and foster greater graduate student engagement at the conference.