熊猫在线视频

Dr. Nancy Chamness has always loved both music and literature, even as a small child 鈥� two artistic genres that take place over a passage of time and involve patterns of sound and meaning. Her interest in German began in college when, after five years of French, she discovered the poetry of Rilke in translation. Upon discovering that Rilke was German, and then realizing that learning the language would enable her to read Bach cantatas and German lieder fluently, she pivoted to German during her sophomore year. An undergraduate study abroad program in Heidelberg, Germany, and Vienna, Austria, allowed her to learn both language and culture quickly, and as a grad student, through a Fulbright-Hays research fellowship she deepened her focus on the interrelationship of music and literature.

Dr. Chamness has taught German language, literature and cultures at all levels of the college curriculum. She currently teaches (in German) The Germanic World Today, which explores the modern culture of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein in the context of those countries鈥� history. She uses games in her classes and creates a classroom culture of cooperative group learning. She teaches each student to identify and then
develop their own learning style (visual, auditory, logical, analytical, kinetic and so on) to ensure maximum success in language learning. She especially enjoys teaching literature and cultural history, along with the foundations of grammar and style.

Her thinking is seated within the broader context of a Christian liberal arts education: a journey of exploration of self, faith and one鈥檚 place in the world. She enjoyed serving on several experimental curriculum committees and was part of the faculty team that designed the Encounter with Cultures course at 熊猫在线视频 in 1989.

After teaching German full-time and part-time at Hope for 20 years, Dr. Chamness stepped back from college teaching in 2009 to engage in a diverse mix of professional activities that included grant writing, museum program development, translation, editorial consulting, private tutoring of German in the business sector and teaching piano to young vocalists. She rejoined the Department of World Languages and Cultures on an intermittent, part-time basis in 2018.

Dr. Chamness integrated her love for German literature and for music in her doctoral dissertation on Busoni鈥檚 German opera Doktor Faust, which is based on an old German legend about a man seeking power, knowledge and redemption while torn between good and evil. She is a member of the Modern Languages Association, International Word and Music Society, and International and American Comparative Literature Associations.

AREAS OF Expertise

• German language teaching
• German literature
• Comparative literature
• Literature and the other arts (music, poetry, visual art)
• The interrelationship of music and literature in German opera and lieder

EDUCATION

• Ph.D., comparative literature, Indiana University, 1993
• M.A., Germanic languages and literatures, Indiana University, 1980
• B.A., English literature, Earlham College, 1978

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

• The Libretto as Literature: 鈥淒oktor Faust鈥� by Ferruccio Busoni, Peter Lang, 2001
• 鈥淐ultural Values in Literature: Conflict and Consensus,鈥� American Comparative Literature Association Bulletin, 1993
• 鈥淯sing Literature to Teach Culture,鈥� presentation at the Association of Departments and Programs in Comparative Literature conference, 1992
• 鈥淒iscovering Literature through Word Clustering: Techniques for the Foreign Language Classroom,鈥� Proceedings of the ACTFL Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and Literatures, 1990

OUTSIDE THE COLLEGE

A lifelong equestrian, Dr. Chamness rides and volunteers at the Renew Center for Therapeutic Riding five miles south of campus. She also enjoys her golden retriever and Maine coon cats, singing in the Holland Chorale, collecting children鈥檚 books in different languages and playing the oboe. The high point of her avocational oboe career was soloing in Mozart鈥檚 鈥淐oronation Mass鈥� at a small cathedral in Freiburg, Germany. Her recent projects have included learning woodcarving to make puppets and sewing a purple velvet and gold Renaissance costume for a Friesian horse.

Her husband, David, is a retired pediatrician who specialized in child development and neonatology. She enjoyed raising her son, Daniel, along with his cousins and friends. The doctors Chamness attend Grace Episcopal Church in Holland and are also involved with Quakers, particularly regarding conflict resolution and social justice.