Graduate Faculty
ON LEAVE
January 1 - December 31, 2025
Bożena Karwowska
emailbozena@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5956
location_onBuchanan Tower 920
Department Program
Slavic StudiesDepartment Program
Slavic Studies
Caroline Rieger
Caroline Rieger
Associate Professor
emailcarolin@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5156
location_onBuchanan Tower 923
Department Program
German StudiesCuriosity might have killed the cat, but it made Caroline Rieger a researcher and teacher. Born and raised in Luxembourg – a trilingual country – Caroline was curious about anything and everything related to languages from a very early age. This inquisitive fascination was a fruitful companion t...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
David Gramling
David Gramling (they+) is author, editor, or translator of eight books in print: Literature in Late Monolingualism (Bloomsbury 2024); The Invention of Multilingualism (Cambridge University Press, 2021); The Invention of Monolingualism (Bloomsbury 2016, American Association for Applied Linguist...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
ON LEAVE
July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2025
Ervin Malakaj
Ervin Malakaj
ON LEAVE
July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2025
Associate Professor
emailervin.malakaj@ubc.ca
Department Program
German StudiesDr. Malakaj specializes in late-18th- to 21st-century German media and cultural history. His research focuses on 19th-century literary cultures, film studies, queer studies, and humanities as well as language learning advocacy.
Dr. Malakaj’s first book, Anders als die Andern (McGill-Queen’s...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Gaby Pailer
Gaby Pailer
Professor
emailpailer@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 4042
location_onBuchanan Tower 907
Department Program
German StudiesGaby Pailer joined UBC as Associate Professor of German Literature in 2001 leaving a grant-tenure position of Assistant Professor equivalent at the University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany. She was promoted to Professor in 2010, served as Head of the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern Europea...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Geoffrey Winthrop-Young
Geoffrey Winthrop-Young
Professor
emailwinthrop@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5155
location_onBuchanan Tower 919
After graduating from UBC in 1991, Geoffrey Winthrop-Young taught at the Universities of Manitoba and Waterloo before returning to UBC in 1995, where he teaches in the German and Nordic sections of CENES.
1999/2000: Visiting Fellow, Institute for German Cultural Studies, Cornell University
F...Read more
Ilinca Iuraşcu
Ilinca Iuraşcu
she/her
Associate Professor | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Modern European Studies
emailiurascu@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 6489
location_onBuchanan Tower 926
Department Program
German StudiesAffiliated Faculty, Bachelor of Media Studies.
Ilinca Iuraşcu holds graduate degrees in Gender Studies from the Central European University and Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. After completing her PhD at UPenn, she joined the Graduiertenkolleg Mediale Historiographien at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, where she had the chance to work on two of her favourite subjects: letters and early cinema....Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Katherine Bowers
Katherine Bowers
Associate Professor | CENES Department Head | Director, Centre for European Studies
phone604 822 6431
location_onBuchanan Tower 917B
Department Program
Slavic StudiesKatherine Bowers is an expert in Russian literature and culture. Her research interests include genre, narrative, environmental humanities, imagined geography, and digital humanities. At UBC Dr Bowers directs the Centre for European Studies (2021-22, 2024-present) and the Jean Monnet Center for Cr...Read more
Department Program
Slavic Studies
Kyle Frackman
Kyle Frackman is a 2023 recipient of the Killam Teaching Prize and a 2024 recipient of the Killam Accelerator Research Fellowship. Before joining the faculty at UBC in July 2012, Dr. Kyle Frackman (he/him) taught at institutions in the United States: the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Smith College, and Amherst College. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Dr. Frackman attended Hamline University, graduating with a major in German Studies. For 2001–2002, Dr. Frackman was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Hamburg, Germany....Read more
ON LEAVE
January 1 - December 31, 2025
Markus Hallensleben
Markus Hallensleben
ON LEAVE
January 1 - December 31, 2025
Associate Professor
emailmhallen@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5140
location_onBuchanan Tower 922
Department Program
German StudiesAssociate Faculty Member, UBC Centre for Migration Studies | Affiliated Faculty, Center for European Studies and Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice
Although I was granted Canadian citizenship, I consider myself an uninvited visitor to the traditional territories and unced...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Thomas Kemple
Thomas Kemple
Professor | CENES Associate Head | Director of Graduate Studies
emailkemple@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 827 2307
location_onBuchanan Tower 603
Department Program
German StudiesThomas Kemple is Professor of Classical Social Science and European Sociology in Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies (CENES). His recent books include Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave, 2014), Simmel (Polity, 2020), and Marx’s Wager: Das Kapit...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Tim Frandy
Tim Frandy
Assistant Professor of Nordic Studies | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Nordic
emailtim.frandy@ubc.ca
phone604 822 2169
location_onBuchanan Tower 901
Department Program
Nordic StudiesTim Frandy is a Sámi- and Finnish-American born and raised on Anishinaabe Aki in northernmost Wisconsin on the south shore of Gitchi-Gami, Lake Superior, amidst the region’s thousands of lakes and deep forests of pine, birch, maple, and balsam. Growing up in close relation with the woods and wate...Read more
Department Program
Nordic StudiesFull-time Faculty
Adelheid O'Brien
Adelheid O'Brien
Lecturer
emailaob25r@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5457
location_onBuchanan Tower 908
Department Program
German StudiesAdelheid O’Brien is a 12-month lecturer in the department. She teaches in the German Language Program and is the coordinator of the German Reading Program. Her areas of specialization include second language acquisition and pedagogy, intercultural language learning and teaching, reading comprehens...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Ann-Kathrine Havemose
Ann-Kathrine Havemose is the lecturer of Danish and Scandinavian studies. She is a native Danish speaker, and has an MA in comparative literature and general linguistics from Aarhus University, Denmark, while also having studied Celtic Civilization and Irish folklore at University College Cork, Irel...Read more
Department Program
Nordic Studies
Biz Nijdam
Biz Nijdam
Assistant Professor of Teaching | Director of Undergraduate Studies, German
emailbiz.nijdam@ubc.ca
phone604 827 6394
location_onBuchanan Tower 927
Department Program
German StudiesElizabeth "Biz" Nijdam is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where she lives, works, and learns on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of Musqueam, Squamis...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
ON LEAVE
January 1 - December 31, 2025
Bożena Karwowska
emailbozena@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5956
location_onBuchanan Tower 920
Department Program
Slavic StudiesDepartment Program
Slavic Studies
Caroline Rieger
Caroline Rieger
Associate Professor
emailcarolin@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5156
location_onBuchanan Tower 923
Department Program
German StudiesCuriosity might have killed the cat, but it made Caroline Rieger a researcher and teacher. Born and raised in Luxembourg – a trilingual country – Caroline was curious about anything and everything related to languages from a very early age. This inquisitive fascination was a fruitful companion t...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Daniela Hempen
Daniela Hempen
Lecturer
emailhempen@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5133
location_onBuchanan Tower 904
Department Program
German StudiesDaniela Hempen received an M.A. in German and Scandinavian languages and literatures from Eberhard-Karls Universität in Tübingen, Germany, in 1991. In September of that same year, Daniela relocated to Vancouver, Canada, to pursue doctoral studies in the Department of Germanic Studies at the Univer...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Dariya McEwen
Dariya McEwen
Lecturer of Russian | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Russian
emaildariyap@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 6604
location_onBuchanan Tower 902
Department Program
Slavic StudiesDariya (Dasha) McEwen has been with CENES since 2005, and teaches Russian language, culture and literature courses.
Dasha has Masters degrees in Russian Language and Literature (LSU, Ukraine) and Liberal Studies (SFU, Canada). Her current PhD project’s interests include the symbolic role of ...Read more
Department Program
Slavic Studies
David Gramling
David Gramling (they+) is author, editor, or translator of eight books in print: Literature in Late Monolingualism (Bloomsbury 2024); The Invention of Multilingualism (Cambridge University Press, 2021); The Invention of Monolingualism (Bloomsbury 2016, American Association for Applied Linguist...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
ON LEAVE
July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2025
Ervin Malakaj
Ervin Malakaj
ON LEAVE
July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2025
Associate Professor
emailervin.malakaj@ubc.ca
Department Program
German StudiesDr. Malakaj specializes in late-18th- to 21st-century German media and cultural history. His research focuses on 19th-century literary cultures, film studies, queer studies, and humanities as well as language learning advocacy.
Dr. Malakaj’s first book, Anders als die Andern (McGill-Queen’s...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Florian Gassner
Florian Gassner
Associate Professor of Teaching
phone604 822 5165
location_onBuchanan Tower 918
Department Program
German StudiesFlorian is a Fellow of the New Europe College in Bucharest and he has represented the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at the Donetsk National University. He has also taught at Mount Allison University, and he joined the University of Kassel as a guest professor in 2016/17. His areas of speci...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Gaby Pailer
Gaby Pailer
Professor
emailpailer@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 4042
location_onBuchanan Tower 907
Department Program
German StudiesGaby Pailer joined UBC as Associate Professor of German Literature in 2001 leaving a grant-tenure position of Assistant Professor equivalent at the University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany. She was promoted to Professor in 2010, served as Head of the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern Europea...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Geoffrey Winthrop-Young
Geoffrey Winthrop-Young
Professor
emailwinthrop@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5155
location_onBuchanan Tower 919
After graduating from UBC in 1991, Geoffrey Winthrop-Young taught at the Universities of Manitoba and Waterloo before returning to UBC in 1995, where he teaches in the German and Nordic sections of CENES.
1999/2000: Visiting Fellow, Institute for German Cultural Studies, Cornell University
F...Read more
Ilinca Iuraşcu
Ilinca Iuraşcu
she/her
Associate Professor | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Modern European Studies
emailiurascu@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 6489
location_onBuchanan Tower 926
Department Program
German StudiesAffiliated Faculty, Bachelor of Media Studies.
Ilinca Iuraşcu holds graduate degrees in Gender Studies from the Central European University and Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. After completing her PhD at UPenn, she joined the Graduiertenkolleg Mediale Historiographien at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, where she had the chance to work on two of her favourite subjects: letters and early cinema....Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Jason Lieblang
Jason Lieblang
Associate Professor of Teaching | Director of First-Year and Interdisciplinary Programs for Arts
phone604 822 5154
location_onBuchanan Tower 906
Department Program
German StudiesDr. Jason Lieblang holds a PhD in Germanic Languages and Literatures from the University of Toronto and teaches across the German Studies undergraduate curriculum in CENES. His interests include curriculum design; emerging technologies in foreign language learning; translation; teaching with and abo...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Katherine Bowers
Katherine Bowers
Associate Professor | CENES Department Head | Director, Centre for European Studies
phone604 822 6431
location_onBuchanan Tower 917B
Department Program
Slavic StudiesKatherine Bowers is an expert in Russian literature and culture. Her research interests include genre, narrative, environmental humanities, imagined geography, and digital humanities. At UBC Dr Bowers directs the Centre for European Studies (2021-22, 2024-present) and the Jean Monnet Center for Cr...Read more
Department Program
Slavic Studies
Kyle Frackman
Kyle Frackman is a 2023 recipient of the Killam Teaching Prize and a 2024 recipient of the Killam Accelerator Research Fellowship. Before joining the faculty at UBC in July 2012, Dr. Kyle Frackman (he/him) taught at institutions in the United States: the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Smith College, and Amherst College. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Dr. Frackman attended Hamline University, graduating with a major in German Studies. For 2001–2002, Dr. Frackman was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Hamburg, Germany....Read more
Lena Karlström
Lena Karlström
Swedish Lecturer
phone604 822 5119
location_onBuchanan Tower 921
Department Program
Nordic StudiesLena Karlström came to the department in 1993, leaving Stockholm where she combined teaching with freelance travel journalism. She teaches the Swedish language courses and Scandinavian literature courses, for example Scandinavian Crime Fiction (SCAN 336), Scandinavian Cinema (SCAN 337) and Scandina...Read more
Department Program
Nordic Studies
ON LEAVE
January 1 - December 31, 2025
Markus Hallensleben
Markus Hallensleben
ON LEAVE
January 1 - December 31, 2025
Associate Professor
emailmhallen@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5140
location_onBuchanan Tower 922
Department Program
German StudiesAssociate Faculty Member, UBC Centre for Migration Studies | Affiliated Faculty, Center for European Studies and Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice
Although I was granted Canadian citizenship, I consider myself an uninvited visitor to the traditional territories and unced...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Olena Morozova
Olena Morozova
Assistant Professor of Ukrainian Studies | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Slavic
phone604 827 3546
location_onBuchanan Tower 605
Department Program
Slavic StudiesDr Morozova's current research is aimed at improving the understanding of how language is used in macro-social contexts, in particular, discourses of the war waged by Russia against Ukraine; how the gap between the cognitive and linguistic aspects can be narrowed so as to put language into a more useful dialogue with linguistic cultural practices, such as language teaching....Read more
Department Program
Slavic Studies
Thomas Kemple
Thomas Kemple
Professor | CENES Associate Head | Director of Graduate Studies
emailkemple@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 827 2307
location_onBuchanan Tower 603
Department Program
German StudiesThomas Kemple is Professor of Classical Social Science and European Sociology in Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies (CENES). His recent books include Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave, 2014), Simmel (Polity, 2020), and Marx’s Wager: Das Kapit...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Tim Frandy
Tim Frandy
Assistant Professor of Nordic Studies | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Nordic
emailtim.frandy@ubc.ca
phone604 822 2169
location_onBuchanan Tower 901
Department Program
Nordic StudiesTim Frandy is a Sámi- and Finnish-American born and raised on Anishinaabe Aki in northernmost Wisconsin on the south shore of Gitchi-Gami, Lake Superior, amidst the region’s thousands of lakes and deep forests of pine, birch, maple, and balsam. Growing up in close relation with the woods and wate...Read more
Department Program
Nordic Studies
Uma Kumar
Uma Kumar
Lecturer
emailuma.kumar@ubc.ca
phone604 822 6329
location_onBuchanan Tower 928
Department Program
German StudiesUma Kumar moved to Vancouver from India in 2003 and has been teaching with CENES since 2007. She holds a PhD in German Studies, a Master's in German Studies and a Master's in English Literature from the University of Bombay, India. Uma spent six years at the University of Vienna, doing research on A...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Veta Chitnev
Veta Chitnev
Lecturer of Russian
emailvchitnev@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 827 5541
location_onBuchanan Tower 903
Department Program
Slavic StudiesDr. Veta Chitnev has been teaching with CENES since 2008.
She teaches Russian language and culture courses and coordinates all sections of Russian language courses. Veta is also responsible for student placement tests and Russian proficiency examinations.
Her areas of specialization are teachi...Read more
Department Program
Slavic StudiesSessional Lecturers
Igor Maslennikov
Igor Maslennikov
Sessional Lecturer (CS)
emailigmas123@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 5457
location_onBuchanan Tower 908
Department Program
German StudiesIgor Maslennikov studied at the Minsk State Linguistic University, Belarus and at the Karl-Marx University in Leipzig, Germany. He also completed an internship program of the Carl Duisberg Society in Cologne, Germany.
Since 2006 Igor has been an instructor within CENES and with UBC Continuing Stu...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Sara Pashan
Sara Pashan
Sessional Lecturer (CS)
emailsara.pashan@ubc.ca
phone604 827 6341
location_onBuchanan Tower 1001
Department Program
German StudiesSara Pashan has studied German and Psychology at the University of British Columbia and did a semester abroad at the Freie Universität Berlin during her time as a Graduate Student here in CENES. Sara is also a certified English language instructor and completed her CELTA (Certificate in Teaching En...Read more
Department Program
German StudiesAdvisors
Biz Nijdam
Biz Nijdam
Assistant Professor of Teaching | Director of Undergraduate Studies, German
emailbiz.nijdam@ubc.ca
phone604 827 6394
location_onBuchanan Tower 927
Department Program
German StudiesElizabeth "Biz" Nijdam is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where she lives, works, and learns on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of Musqueam, Squamis...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Dariya McEwen
Dariya McEwen
Lecturer of Russian | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Russian
emaildariyap@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 6604
location_onBuchanan Tower 902
Department Program
Slavic StudiesDariya (Dasha) McEwen has been with CENES since 2005, and teaches Russian language, culture and literature courses.
Dasha has Masters degrees in Russian Language and Literature (LSU, Ukraine) and Liberal Studies (SFU, Canada). Her current PhD project’s interests include the symbolic role of ...Read more
Department Program
Slavic Studies
Ilinca Iuraşcu
Ilinca Iuraşcu
she/her
Associate Professor | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Modern European Studies
emailiurascu@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 822 6489
location_onBuchanan Tower 926
Department Program
German StudiesAffiliated Faculty, Bachelor of Media Studies.
Ilinca Iuraşcu holds graduate degrees in Gender Studies from the Central European University and Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. After completing her PhD at UPenn, she joined the Graduiertenkolleg Mediale Historiographien at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, where she had the chance to work on two of her favourite subjects: letters and early cinema....Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Olena Morozova
Olena Morozova
Assistant Professor of Ukrainian Studies | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Slavic
phone604 827 3546
location_onBuchanan Tower 605
Department Program
Slavic StudiesDr Morozova's current research is aimed at improving the understanding of how language is used in macro-social contexts, in particular, discourses of the war waged by Russia against Ukraine; how the gap between the cognitive and linguistic aspects can be narrowed so as to put language into a more useful dialogue with linguistic cultural practices, such as language teaching....Read more
Department Program
Slavic Studies
Thomas Kemple
Thomas Kemple
Professor | CENES Associate Head | Director of Graduate Studies
emailkemple@mail.ubc.ca
phone604 827 2307
location_onBuchanan Tower 603
Department Program
German StudiesThomas Kemple is Professor of Classical Social Science and European Sociology in Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies (CENES). His recent books include Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave, 2014), Simmel (Polity, 2020), and Marx’s Wager: Das Kapit...Read more
Department Program
German Studies
Tim Frandy
Tim Frandy
Assistant Professor of Nordic Studies | Director of Undergraduate Studies, Nordic
emailtim.frandy@ubc.ca
phone604 822 2169
location_onBuchanan Tower 901
Department Program
Nordic StudiesTim Frandy is a Sámi- and Finnish-American born and raised on Anishinaabe Aki in northernmost Wisconsin on the south shore of Gitchi-Gami, Lake Superior, amidst the region’s thousands of lakes and deep forests of pine, birch, maple, and balsam. Growing up in close relation with the woods and wate...Read more
Department Program
Nordic Studies