Rebecca Schaefer

Lecturer

Department of Modern Languages and Cultures

College of Liberal Arts

Program Coordinator, German

rscgla@rit.edu

585-475-2018

Office Hours

Mondays and Wednesdays 2:30-4:00 p.m. and by appointment

Office Location

EAS-3156

Rebecca Schaefer

Lecturer

Department of Modern Languages and Cultures

College of Liberal Arts

Program Coordinator, German

Education

BA/MA, University of Siegen (Germany); Ph.D., Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany).

Bio

Dr. Rebecca Schäfer is the Program Coordinator for German Studies at RIT. She received her Ph.D. from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany. Before joining RIT, she taught at Mainz and, from 2022 to 2025, at Binghamton University (SUNY). She teaches all levels of the German language curriculum as well as interdisciplinary, cross-listed outreach courses, i.e., on German film history or German literary and critical theory. Spanning German-speaking and transnational contexts, her research and publications often discuss sexuality, gender, age(ing), and especially temporality, such as her dissertation and ensuing monograph on alternative temporalities in contemporary film and visual culture, which was awarded the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Award. She is currently working on a series of articles: about German and acts of transnational language transfer in the music of Rosalía, Lady Gaga, and the broader global pop music scene; about conceptualizations of temporality and (non)futurity in the German-speaking climate discourse; and about the temporalities and heterotopian spaces of Techno and the nightclub. She is an alumna of the Harvard Institute for World Literature (IWL).

Beyond her academic career, she’s also worked in media and the cultural sector, including as a journalist covering the German Bundesliga, the UEFA Champions League, and the Olympics, and as a senior publicist for the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).

rscgla@rit.edu

585-475-2018

Areas of Expertise

German Language

German Cinema

German Culture & Civilization

Temporality Studies

Sexuality Studies

Film Studies & Visual Culture

Age(ing) Studies

Popular Culture.

Select Scholarship

Invited Keynote/Presentation

Schäfer, Rebecca. "‘Time No Longer Exists, It’s Wonderful:’ Queer Temporalities and Transnational, Heterotopian Spaces in the Films of Austrian Filmmaker Patric Chiha." 121st Annual Meeting of the Pacific Ancient & Modern Language Association (PAMLA). PAMLA. Palm Springs, CA. 7-10 Nov. 2024. Conference Presentation.

Schäfer, Rebecca. "Finding Futurity in Your Fifties: Queer Age Narratives in Contemporary Documentary Film." Symposium Rated Queer – Deconstructing Narratives of Age. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt. Frankfurt am Main, Germany. 4-5 Apr. 2023. Conference Presentation.

Schäfer, Rebecca. "‘Look at These Children Playing!’ Queer Temporalities and Narratives of Age(ing), the Transgender Body, and Perpetual Adolescents in J. Soloway's Transparent." 113th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Ancient & Modern Language Association (PAMLA). PAMLA. Portland, OR. 6-8 Nov. 2015. Conference Presentation.

Schäfer, Rebecca. "‘A Perfect Child Caught in a Freeze-Frame?’ (Non-)Aging, (Non-)Futurity, and the Transhuman, Posthuman, and Non-Human Child in Contemporary Science Fiction Film." 130th Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association (MLA). MLA. Vancouver, Canada. 8-11 Jan. 2015. Conference Presentation.

Schäfer, Rebecca. "‘And the Oscar Goes to…’: Celebrating Performances of Otherness and the ‘Excessive’ Celebrity Body in Hollywood Film Culture." Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association (ASA). ASA. Los Angeles, CA. 6-9 Nov. 2014. Conference Presentation.

Full Length Book

Schäfer, Rebecca. Time(s) of Lives: (Non-)Normative Temporalities, Age(ing), and Kinship Narratives in Contemporary U.S. American Culture. 1st ed. Heidelberg, Germany: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2021. Print.

Book Chapter

Schäfer, Rebecca. "Mother(hood) Monster? Lady Gaga, Family Discourse, and Alternative Modes of Kinship." Family and Kinship in the United States: Cultural Perspectives on Familial Belonging. Berlin, Germany: Peter Lang, 2016. 101-122. Print.

Currently Teaching

MLGR-201

Beginning German I

4 Credits

This is the first course in a two-course sequence. The sequence provides students without prior exposure to the language with a sound basis for learning German as it is used today in its spoken and written forms. The goal of the sequence is proficiency in communication skills with an emphasis on oral proficiency. The sequence also acquaints students with contemporary culture and life in the German-speaking countries. Students must take a placement exam if this is their first RIT class in German and they have some prior study of German.

MLGR-202

Beginning German II

4 Credits

This is the second course in a two-course sequence. The sequence provides students without prior exposure to the language with a sound basis for learning German as it is used today in its spoken and written forms. The goal of the sequence is proficiency in communication skills with an emphasis on oral proficiency. The sequence also acquaints students with contemporary culture and life in the German-speaking countries.

MLGR-310

German Conversation and Oral Practice

3 Credits

This course is designed to help students further develop two of the four basic language skills: listening and speaking. Students will expand on skills they have attained in previous language courses with particular emphasis on the advancement of their speaking proficiency in German. Through a task-based approach the course aims to assist students in learning to speak German with a greater degree of fluency and accuracy. Students will communicate solely in German throughout the course. Each class session will consist of communicative activities and practice. The learning of the German language will occur through the completion of communicative tasks in different formats and circumstances (e.g. interviews, situational sketches, oral projects). There will be little emphasis on grammar, but the emphasis on pronunciation and vocabulary will be significant. Authentic audiovisual materials will be an integral part of the course, as will the submission and review of spoken samples of German on the part of the student via MyCourses.

MLGR-401

Advanced German I

3 Credits

This is the first course of a two-course sequence at the advanced level. This sequence is designed to develop in-depth proficiency in the four language skills of speaking, understanding, reading, and writing. This sequence develops the ability to understand and communicate freely on a variety of familiar and unfamiliar topics by expanding the vocabulary base and by discussions, compositions, and oral reports based on cultural and literary texts and audio-visual materials. The sequence includes a rigorous study of advanced grammatical structures and usage. Students must take a placement exam if this is their first RIT class in German and they have prior study of German.

MLST-449

Special Topic Modern Lng

3 Credits

This upper-level course will focus on a specific theme or topic in modern languages, chosen by the instructor, announced in the subtitle, and developed in the syllabus. The topics of this course will vary, but the course number will remain the same, so be sure not to repeat the same topic.

WGST-449

Topics in Women’s and Gender Studies

3 Credits

This variable topic course examines one or more themes, figures, movements, critical questions or issues in the areas of women's and gender studies. The topic for the course is chosen by the instructor, announced in the course subtitle, and developed in the syllabus. Topics in WGST can be taken multiple times provided the topic(s) being studied has changed.