Karen Gallagher

Instructor of German
gallaghe@chapman.edu

Karen Gallagher has joined the Department of Languages as an Instructor of German. She received her Ph.D. in German in September 2007 from the University of California, Irvine. She has conducted research in the Humanities, English as a Second Language, and Business Communication. Dr. Gallagher spent many years as a a Fulbright scholar and teaching in Vienna. Her most recent research deals with Austro-Hungarian writer Marie Herzfeld (1855-1940). Herzfeld's essays and mentoring helped to launch the careers of several famous authors, including Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Ricarda Huch, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Knut Hamsun. Her life exemplified the complex and often contradictory roles typical of the few women in her position during the first part of the 20th Century. Dr. Gallagher's most important current project is a series of events to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall; this series, called "Freedom Without Walls," is sponsored by the German Embassy.