Gerlind Institute Team
- Dr. Marion Gerlind, director, teacher
- Leticia Andreas, teacher
- Jennifer Hilfer, teacher
- JB, technical director
- Robert Leonard Rope, educator
- Anatoly Volokh, lecturer, wine tasting seminar
Marion Gerlind, Ph.D.
Director and Founder of Gerlind Institute for
Cultural Studies
- Teacher
- Scholar
- Facilitator of Klönschnack and Filmnacht
 |
I am passionate about my mother tongue, German: its sound, complexity, and precision. Working with students makes me happy because I enjoy communicating and learning across languages, cultures, and differences. Coming from a metro city like Hamburg, I have always been curious to read and dialogue about meaningful experiences in life. For nearly 20 years I have taught German language, literature, and culture at college and community settings in Germany and the United States. After receiving my M.A. in German at San Francisco State University, I achieved a Ph.D. in German, with a Minor in Feminist Studies, at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
My dissertation interpreted the oral histories of Jewish Holocaust survivors from Germany and Poland, focusing on women who came from working-class and rural poor families whose voices were “off the record.” Integrating my scholarly and creative writing with teaching, I use language as a tool to express thoughts and emotions, to connect with others, and to contribute to healing in the world.
I am especially interested in German cultural studies of the 20th and 21st centuries, including the Weimar Republic, Third Reich, Holocaust, Eastern Europe and post-World War II literature. Of all these subjects, I am particularly interested in women’s and minority’s writing, oral history, popular culture, and film. However, I love teaching every period of German history and all levels of German language classes. I support students in meeting their educational goals, be it fluency in speaking, mastering grammar and writing, translating, passing exams…you name it! I am dedicated to making your studies fun and as easy as they can be while leading to your success!
web site: mgerlind.com
e-mail: marion@gerlindinstitute.org
- Teacher
Born in Dresden, I had to leave my native East Germany in 1975 as a young child with my parents, due to their “political differences” with the regime. It took me 32 years to emotionally return, realize, and rediscover my true roots to my homeland. In West Germany, I lived in Braunschweig and Wunstorf, finishing high school. Immediately after graduating, I attended high school for one year in Pennsylvania, USA, as part of an exchange program. Upon returning to Germany, I studied at a 2-year business college in Hannover, and received a certificate of "Economics Assistant of Foreign Languages and Correspondence." Subsequently, I worked in various corporate positions.
In 1991, I immigrated to the United States, majoring in Music and fulfilling general education requirements at Los Angeles City College. From 1998 to 2000 I attended the University of California at Los Angeles, and received my Bachelor's Degree in Ethnomusicology. At that point, I had achieved one of my biggest dreams: to study music! In 2005, I moved to Northern California and settled in the East Bay. Since January 2007 I have been teaching German on Saturdays at the German School of Fremont. I suddenly realized my love of my native tongue: its delicacies and intricacies, its poetic intelligence and grammatical challenges. Now I even spread “Germanisms” daily throughout my community and the internet, to make English speakers aware of the fact that German and English once were the same language and have much in common, while having developed such different structures over time. I also began to study Old German/English/Norse, and am continuingly amazed by their similarities and development. Being born in the state of Sachsen (Saxony), and tracing my family line back for hundreds of years there, where a strong accent presides, I began to buy books and research the internet of this, my true native, local accent, with much amusement and passion. Because of my East German background, I am especially interested in the history and culture of that area, and now spend a few days in Dresden every time I return for family visits.
To me, the Gerlind Institute provides an engaging, personal, and family-like atmosphere to study German on cultural and humanities levels, with much focus on current issues. I am happy to be part of German studies in such a supportive and academic environment.
- Teacher
I am from southern Germany and am currently a Graduate Assistant at Indiana State University (ISU) in Terre Haute, Indiana. At ISU, I teach German 101 & 102, and am also studying for the Master’s Degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. I received my B.A. in German, American Studies, Pedagogy, and Philosophy at the University of Mainz, Germany. I joined the Gerlind Institute for my internship in June 2009, and am now a teacher with the team.
For me, learning and teaching languages enables us to broaden our cultural and personal horizons or how Ingeborg Bachmann once put it: “Hätten wir das Wort, hätten wir die Sprache, wir bräuchten die Waffen nicht.” (If we had words, if we had language, we would not need weapons.) I am especially interested in diachronic and synchronic linguistics and the work of Christa Wolf. Besides languages, my passion is Women’s Studies.
Read Jennifer's Bericht here.
JB
Owner, DRAGA design and Pre-Paid Legal Services
- Web design
- Technical support
- Co-sponsor of Filmnacht
JB has been a computer guru for over 20 years, and a German student for nearly as long! She enjoys the comraderie of the Klönschnack and the great films screened during the Filmnacht series. She believes the Gerlind Institute provides quality instruction and cultural studies for German speakers in the Bay Area.
web site: barenose.com and Less Than a Cup of Coffee a Day.com
e-mail: jb@gerlindinstitute.org
- Educator
- Independent photo-journalist
Robert is busily finishing up his first photo-journalistic work focusing on stories from the former Yugoslavia: “Portraits of Humanity.” His upcoming project will specifically center on the Holocaust, as experienced in the former Yugoslavia and Albania. We plan to videotape the testimony of survivors as well as witnesses.
Read an article Robert recently had published on the genocide, The Dead Bear Witness.
- Lecturer, wine tasting seminars
Born in the Ukraine in 1964.
At the tender age of 13 I was introduced to a wonderful world of wine by my father, who let me have a sip of (what looked like) black tar in his glass. It was a black muscat of Massandra—the winery that was founded by the family of Russia's last Tsar Nicolas II in 1894. That experience put a permanent stamp on an impressionable teenager and the love for great fermented grape juice never left him since.
In 1989 I immigrated to the USA and have stayed in Bay Area ever since. My newfound country welcomed me with open arms and full glasses.
I live in Antioch, am married to a wonderful woman, have two kids and enjoy the diversity of three different professions: computers, wine sales, and massage therapy. For fun (besides wine tasting and playing with my son) I like to learn the piano and languages, “real” comedy (Marx Brothers etc.), foreign films, and gourmet cooking.
