Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures

Language(s) Taught

German

Teaching/Research

Teaching areas include German language and culture, medieval German literature, fairy tales, Arthurian legends, "Mittelalterrezeption"/medievalism.

Degrees/Certifications

PhD, German, The Pennsylvania State University
MA, German, University of Wisconsin-Madison
BA, English, University of Rochester

Academic Achievement

I received a Fulbright Grant to teach and do research as Fulbright Visiting Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Graz (Austria) in spring 2020 and again in 2023.  In 2016, I was honored to receive the Appalachian Global Leadership Award  and the award for Outstanding Faculty Advisor in the College of Arts and Sciences for 2014.  Complete CV available below.

Personal Bio 

When I'm not in the office, you might find me: playing the violin with the Appalachian Symphony Orchestra, Nordic walking, trying out interesting recipes, watching German police procedurals (like Tatort), reading JRR Tolkien, swinging on the porch, or planning the next trip to... well, Germany, Austria or the UK. And, until I get there, Iceland is on my bucket list!

Publications

Current Project

Recontextualising Medieval Heritage and Identity in Contemporary Austria (fall 2023 out for review with ARC Humanities Press)

Grants

2010-2012 Award of UISFL Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages grant from US Department of Education: Making Local to Global Connections: Strengthening Foreign Languages across the Curriculum at Appalachian State University. Co-principal investigator with Dr. Beverly Moser, Associate Professor of German. $300,000

2014-2016 Award of UISFL Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages grant from US Department of Education: "From the South to the Global South." Co-principal investigator with Dr. Beverly Moser.

Publications in Print

Monographs:

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. Medieval Literature on Display: Heritage and Culture in Modern Germany . London: Bloomsbury, 2020.

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance. New York: Garland, 2001

Public-Facing Scholarship

Hellenbrand, Ryan and Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand, “(Dis)Placement of German Heritage in New Ulm, MN”, https://edgeeffects.net/hermann-the-german/
Edge Effects is a digital magazine about environmental issues produced by graduate students at the Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE), a research center within the  Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison,

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. “Leaving Siegfried Behind:  Reimagining Monuments in Austria and  the American South.”  Botstiber Institute for Austrian American Studies   (January 2021) The blog can be found here: https://botstiberbiaas.org/resources/blog/

Selected Articles

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. "'Adventure? What is that?' Arthurian Ethics in/and the Games  We Play." In Ethics in Arthurian Literature, eds. Evelyn Meyer (Saint Louis University) and Melissa Ridley Elmes (Lindenwood University). Boydell and Brewer, 2023, 296-324

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra, “sî jehent er lebe noch hiute: Courtly Play and Places of Imagination in Thirteenth-Century German Mural Cycles,” In Courtly Pastimes, eds. Gloria Allaire and Julie Human. London: Routledge, 2023, 76-91.

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. “Minding the Gaps: Topology and Gender in the Remediation of Medieval German Arthurian Romance.” In The World of Arthur, eds. Victoria Coldham- Fussell, Miriam Edlich- Muth, and Renée Ward. London: Routledge, 2022, 348-362.

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. “Leaving Siegfried Behind: Nibelung Monuments in the Cultural Infrastructure of Contemporary Austria.”  Invited contribution for Volume 31 of   Contemporary Austrian Studies “The Austrian Second Republic” eds Marc Landry II (University of New Orleans) and Eva Pfanzelter (University of Innsbruck).  University of New Orleans Press, 2022, 105-124.

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra and Olga Trokhimenko, “Medievalism, Fakelore, and the  Commodification of Story-Telling in the Afterlives of Harry Potter” The Year’s Work in       Medievalism, volume 35.36 (2020-21) https://ywim.net/

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. “wan bî den liuten ist sô guot. Courtly Literature and Configuring  Community at the Haus zur Kunkel in Fourteenth-Century Konstanz.” Encomia vol. 43 (2019-  2021) 159-177.

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra, “Sites of Imagination and Memory: Museal Remediation of Grimms’ Märchen for the Twenty-first Century.” German Quarterly Special Issue German Fairy Tales and Folklore in a Global Context, Vol. 94.2 (Spring 2021) 229-239.

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. "Past Present, Future Present? Visualizing Arthurian Romance and the Beholder's Share in a World that Refuses to End." In: The End-Times in Medieval German Literature Eds. Ernst Ralk Hintz and Scott E. Pincikowski (Camden House 2019): 144-168.

Meyer, Evelyn and Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand.  sine mugens nicht erdenken: wand ez kan vor in      wenken rechte alsam ein schellec hase: Women’s German Medieval-Arthurian Scholarship. Journal of the International Arthurian Society (JIAS) 7.1 (2019): 61-90.

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. “Siegfried, Dornröschen und Luke Skywalker: Die Inszenierung eines  deutschen Mittelalters für ein globales Publikum im Wormser Nibelungenmuseum.”   Abhandlungen zum Rahmenthema ,Die Auslandsgermanisten und ihr Mittelalter‘. Ed. Nathaniel Busch, et al. Jahrbuch für internationale Germanistik, Vol. L/2 (2018): 195-208.

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. “From Bystander to Upstander: Reading the Nibelungenlied to Resist Rape Culture.” In Teaching Rape in the Medieval Literature Classroom:         Approaches to Difficult Texts. Ed. Alison Gulley. Leeds UK: ARC Humanities Press, 2018, 63-77.

Hellenbrand, Jack and Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand. “Welcoming the Stranger: Global Learning, International Education, and the Pedagogy of Gastfreundschaft.” karlsruher pädagogische beiträge (kpb). Pädagogische Hochschule Karlsruhe. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft und Fachdidaktik. (78/2011) 95-110.

Sterling-Hellenbrand, Alexandra. “Performing Medieval Literature and/as History: The Museum of Wolframs-Eschenbach.” In Defining Neo Medievalisms (II). Studies in Medievalism XX. Ed. Karl Fugelso. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2011, 147-170.