Lauren Brooks

Bio

Dr. Brooks’ research focuses on decentering authority in German language pedagogy by empowering students through project-based learning and rethinking traditional methods of assessment. She has also written on Kafka and his absurdist treatment of authority across his corpus by analyzing his humor through the U.S. situation comedy Seinfeld, a topic she also enjoys incorporating into her teaching. Since 2010, she has taught a range of German language curriculum from novice to advanced, including writing-intensive, conversation, film and media, and literature and cultural studies courses. In her free time, she enjoys being outside, lifting heavy things, cats, and wine.

***Dr. Brooks is currently at the University of Münster in Germany for the 24-25 academic year. She received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award for her project titled “Teaching the Black German Diaspora: Bridging the Knowledge Gap of an Untaught History.” ***

Research Publications

Brooks, Lauren, “Franz Kafka and the Resistance: Authority and its Meaninglessness,” in Global Jewish Humor. Editors: Jenny Caplan and Jarrod Tanny, Wayne State University Press. 2024. Forthcoming.

Brooks, Lauren and Katherine Kerschen, “Life Beyond the Classroom: Project-based Learning in a Foreign Language Writing Course,” Die Unterrichtspraxis. Volume 55/1 (2022): 80-94. https://doi-org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/10.1111/tger.12196

Brooks, Lauren, “Kafka’s Seinfeldian Humor,” Comparative Literature: East & West. Volume 4/1 (2020): 1-14.

https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2020.1794437

Brooks, Lauren, “Project Based Curricula: Creating Screen Adaptations in the Introductory Course to German Literary Studies,” andererseits – Yearbook of Transatlantic German Studies 7/8 (2018/2019): 95-103.

Presentations

“How UDL and PBL can inform our course design,” at the American Council on the teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), November 18th, 2023, Chicago, IL.

“Empowering our Learners Through Problem-Based Learning,” Women in German (WiG), November 4th, 2023, Portland, OR.

“The Power of Feedback and How it Empowers our Students,” Foreign Language Association of North Carolina (FLANC), October 8, 2023, Winston Salem, NC.

“Addressing our Students’ Needs Now and Beyond,” NeMLA Conference on the Panel “Cross-pollination” and Collective Action: Diversity and Decolonization across MLL,” March 23, 2023, Niagara Falls, NY.

“No Disrespect: Kafka and the Soup Nazis,” No Respect: Jewish Humor around the World, UNC, February 29-March 2 2020, Wilmington, NC.

“Project-based Learning and Assessment in a Foreign Language Writing Course,” PSMLA, October 24-25, 2019, State College, PA.

“Adapting Story Content: Intermedia Projects across Platforms in the Language Classroom,” NECTFL, February 7-9, 2019, New York, NY.

“Project-Based Curriculum Design and Learning-Centered Feedback in the L2 Classroom,” ACTFL November 16-18, 2018, New Orleans, LA.

“Cultivating Environmental Literacy in the German as a Foreign Language Classroom,” ACTFL November 21-23, 2014, San Antonio, TX.

“Kafkaesque and Seinfeldian: Approaching Gravity through Levity,” GSA September 18-21, 2014, Kansas City, MO.

“The Impact of Language in School on Identity among the Old Order Amish in Pennsylvania,” Co-Presenter with Ines Martin: NeMLA April 3-6, 2014, Harrisburg, PA.