I grew up in Homburg (Saarland) in Germany and came to the US as a teenager, ended up going to college and on to graduate school at Brown University were I completed an MA and a Ph.D. in German Studies. I joined the faculty at Western Washington University in 2003 and have been teaching there ever since at all levels of the undergraduate curriculum. I have also taught at three of the German summer immersion programs in the United States, the Deutsche Sommerschule am Pazifik (Portland State University, OR), the Deutsche Sommerschule am Atlantik (University of Rhode Island), and the Middlebury Language Schools (Middlebury College, VT). My research has been dedicated to various aspects of 20th and 21st-century German popular culture, including film, sports, and popular fictions, and I am interested in integrating culture in language teaching in dynamic and interactive ways.
I am excited to join the GEM network and to make a contribution to supporting the community of German educators in the US. I look forward to working with other GEMs and teachers from around the country, exchanging ideas, discovering new pedagogical approaches and tools, and developing new and compelling materials.
In 2024, Cornelius received the Goethe-Institut / AATG Certificate of Merit.
