Journal of Undergraduate Research

Lisa Jensen and Dr. Cindy Brewer, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages Thank you for awarding me the ORCA grant. I have used it to travel to Vienna, Austria with Professor Brewer to research the works of Anna Oehler. Anna Oehler was a mission author of children’s literature in the early 1900s. Her work is […]

Bess Hayes and Dr. Robert McFarland, Germanic and Slavic Languages In nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, it was ideologically inappropriate for women to walk unaccompanied through the city. Because of these gendered strictures, women’s narratives of city walks are extremely rare. Johanna M. Lankau’s Dresdner Spaziergänge (“Dresden Walks”) is one of these rare exceptions. Though […]

Jillian Fritz and Dr. Laura Catherine Smith, Germanic and Slavic Languages My project is part of a larger, college-wide study that is seeking to quantify the progress students make in acquiring the German language while on study abroad, specifically in the areas of vocabulary acquisition, pronunciation, writing composition, and language comprehension. My own research attempts […]

Alyona Viktorovna Friedman and Dr. Tony Brown, German and Slavic Languages Hypothesis As an international student, I have observed what I thought to be a trend among my fellow students from Russian-speaking countries. I noticed that those who had a definite plan to remain in the U.S. after graduation spoke less Russian than those who […]

Elizabeth Hassell and Professor Jennifer Brown, Russian How we got started Dr. Jennifer Bown and I wished to assess how gender affects the pragmatic competence of students learning Russian. By analyzing the differences between men and women’s ability to form appropriate requests in their second language, we hoped to assist other researchers in developing better language-teaching […]

Bess Hayes and Professor Rob McFarland, Germanic and Slavic Languages Before applying for this ORCA grant, I worked with Professor McFarland on a project about Johanna M. Lankau, a German author who wrote a hundred years ago about her walks throughout Dresden and the surrounding countryside. As an aspect of this research, I searched through […]

Mallorie Guerra and Dr. Michelle S. James, Germanic and Slavic Languages For a number of years, students within the German Department have been working with professors on The Sophie Digital Library and Resource Center project. This project, known affectionately within the German Department as “the Sophie project”, involves the transcription, translation, and web posting of […]

Margaret Ebeling Travel journalism was one of the most popular forms of literature in the early nineteenth century. Because it was so widely read, it affected many people and therefore had significant historical impact. In addition, it was one of the few literary genres that women were allowed to participate in. Elisa von der Recke […]

Ruth Dittli and Dr. Cindy Brewer, German and Slavic Languages In the era of imperialism Germany came late to the scene, but quickly attempted to catch up to its colonist neighbors and established colonies throughout the “heathen” lands such as China, India, and Africa. To generate interest and support for the colonist efforts a new […]

Kasia Cook and Dr. Cindy Brewer, Germanic and Slavic Languages In Tonga, a group of islands deep in the South Pacific Ocean, religion is an important element of life for all of the islanders. In addition to protestant missionaries from England who helped Tonga establish their constitution, Tongan culture was also deeply influenced by Catholicism. […]