Biography
Lujun is currently a PhD student in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. She received her MA in German Language and Literature from California State University, Long Beach in 2013. Her MA exams focused on Goethe, Schiller and 20th-century German drama.
Lujun studied at the Universität Greifswald in Germany, with the Illinois-Greifswald graduate exchange. While participating in that program, she taught a course at Greifswald on the Grimms' fairy tales.
At Illinois, she has taught various levels of German language, and worked as a teaching assistant for courses on the Grimms' fairy tales and Viking mythology.
Research Interests
18th and 19th century German literature.
European fairy tales, world mythology and folklore.
Cultural memory.
German history and Romantic art.
Tolkien, popular culture.
Research Description
Lujun's dissertation focuses on the German fairy tales written and edited by Goethe, Ludwig Tieck, and the Brothers Grimm during the Age of Revolution. Theories of comparative world mythology, fairytale studies, and cultural memory are most notable methods applied to her current work.
Education
MA: California State University, Long Beach.
PhD candidate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Grants
Department Conference Travel Award, 2018.
Department Summer Fellowships, 2016-2021.
Awards and Honors
John A. Howard and James Marchand Award, 2015.
Ernst Alfred Philippson Graduate Research Travel Award, 2017.
Max Kade Fellowship, 2017.
Ruth E. Lorbe Excellence in Teaching Award, 2021.
SLCL Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2022.
Courses Taught
GER 101: Beginning German I
GER 102: Beginning German II
GER 251: Grimm's Fairy Tales in Context
GER 500: Readings in German Grads I
GER 501: Reading in German Grads II
SCAN 251: Viking Mythology.
Paper Presented:
“A Presentation of Goethe’s Das Märchen,” Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, April 2019
“Silent Screams in Great Noises: Sounds in Ludwig Tieck’s Der blonde Eckbert,” 21st Annual Conference of the German and Dutch Graduate Student Association of the University of Wisconsin, Madison November 2019
“Goethe’s Das Märchen: A Myth of Individuals, Community, and Internal Crisis,” Virtual EU Studies Conference, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, April 2021.
"The Apple, the Gods, and The Juniper Tree," European Languages and Transcultural Studies 2nd Annual Graduate Student Conference, UCLA, May 2022.