Lamb-Faffelberger, Margarete 1954-

PERSONAL: Born September 6, 1954, in Amstetten, Austria; daughter of Othmar (a veterinarian) and Margarete (a musician; maiden name, Edelmann) Faffelberger; children: Thomas Lamb, Christina Lamb, Nikolas Lamb. Education: Wien-Strebersdorf (teachers' college), graduated, 1977; Baden bei Wien (teachers' college), graduated, 1979; University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, M.A., 1981; Rice University, M.A. and Ph.D., both 1991. Hobbies and other interests: Alpine skiing.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Secondary teacher of English as a second language and German in Ybbs, Austria, 1977-79; German School, Houston, TX, teacher, 1986-88; Goethe Institute, Houston, teacher of German, 1988-92; Lafayette College, Easton, PA, associate professor of German, 1992-, Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Lecturer, 2000, director of summer-study-abroad program in Bonn, Germany, 1998. University of the Witwatersrand, visiting professor, 1998; visiting lecturer at Syracuse University and University of New Brunswick, 2001, and National University of Ireland in Dublin, Maynooth, and Galway, 2003; workshop presenter and conference organizer. Allegheny-Lafayette-Ursinus Consortium, codirector, 2000-, member of national German Collaborative, 2001-.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association of America, American Association of Teachers of German (member of executive board of Central Pennsylvania chapter, 1993-97; chapter president, 2000-), German Studies Association, American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages, Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association (founding member).

AWARDS, HONORS: Fulbright scholar, 1979-80; Distinguished Mentoring and Teaching Award, Delta Upsilon, 2003; grants from Committee on Advanced Studies and Research, Committee on Integrating Technology into the Classroom, German Film Institute, Andrew W. Mellon Foreign-Language Proficiency Project, and German Academic Exchange Service.

WRITINGS:

SUBHEAD

Valie Export und Elfriede Jelinek im Spiegel der Presse. Zur Rezeption der feministischen Avantgarde Österreichs, Peter Lang Publishing (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor and author of introduction) Out from the Shadows: A Collection of Articles on Austrian Literature and Film by Women since 1945, Ariadne Press (Riverside, CA), 1997.

(Editor and author of introduction) Literature, Film, and the Culture Industry in Modern Austria, Peter Lang Publishing (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor and author of introduction, with Linda DeMerrit) Post-war Austrian Theater: Text and Performance, Ariadne Press (Riverside, CA), 2002.

(Editor and author of introduction, with Pamela S. Saur) Visions and Visionaries in Contemporary Austrian Literature and Film, Peter Lang Publishing (New York, NY), 2004.

Editor of "Austrian Culture" series, Peter Lang Publishing (New York, NY), 2001-. Contributor to books, including Elfriede Jelinek: Framed by Language, edited by Jorun Jones and Katherine Ahrens, Ariadne Press (Riverside, CA), 1994; "I Am Too Many People": Peter Turrini, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, edited by Jutta Landa, Ariadne Press, 1998; and Modern Austrian Literature: Interpretations and Insights, edited by Paul Dvorak, Ariadne Press, 2001. Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including German Studies Review, Modern Austrian Literature, Austrian Culture Forum, and German Quarterly.

WORK IN PROGRESS: European Integration and the Quest for Cultural Identity in the Euregion Neisse-Nisa-Nysa (tentative title).

SIDELIGHTS: Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger told CA: "Writing and publishing interpretations and analyses of cultural activities in general, and of literature and film specifically, are central to my profession. My greatest motivation for writing is always the previous finished product. I enjoy seeing my ideas and thoughts in print, even though I am never completely satisfied with my texts. That is motivation enough to work even harder the next time.

"I am mostly influenced by people who want to make significant contributions to their community, no matter what field they are in or what work they do. Moreover, I am in awe of people who are incredibly well read and immensely productive.

"Regarding my writing process: I must read a lot on the subject before I can begin to write. Once I am sitting at the computer I write and rewrite almost each sentence until I find it acceptable. Thus, I do not produce rough drafts. I also make use of the thesaurus quite a bit.

"I am Austrian-born and came to the United States to perfect my English. While at the university I was hired as a teaching assistant to teach German and quickly realized that I loved to work at an institution of higher learning. Once I began to conduct research it was rather natural for me to study the cultural life in Austria and its influence on U.S. theater and film. More recently I began to study identity formation within the context of European Union expansion. That topic has taken me to eastern Germany, the Czech Republic, and southern Poland: regions that once were part of Austria's Habsburg empire."