William B. Fischer

I am recently retired from the Department of World Languages & Literatures at Portland State University, where I taught for more than thirty-five years. I began my professional life as a scholar of literature, but a few years after obtaining my PhD I shifted to language pedagogy. That was my area of professional specialization for many years, and I had the inclination, ability, resources, and freedom to define it broadly. I worked in assessment, teacher education, curriculum development, textbook production, and application of technology in language learning.

As I approached retirement, and because I had long maintained my interests in the humanities, and had pursued my amateur and semi-pro performance activities on the side, I found that my intellectual and emotional focuses were returning to the liberal arts. So my book "When God Sang German" is the result of my interests in language and music. It is also a product of my spiritual inclination, religious faith, and (bien entendue!) denominational identity. I enjoy the liturgy (text, music, ritual).

Over the years I maintained my youthful school band experience on trombone and baritone horn by playing euphonium in a semi-serious brass ensemble. In my earlier years I did like to sing, and did so passably. But it wasn't until my wife and I had children and were looking for a church that I discovered that, because of the brass experience and my early childhood piano lessons, I could easily sing bass harmony from the hymnal. From that it wasn't far to chorus roles in productions by Portland Opera and Portland State University Opera: two Aïdas, Turandot, Flying Dutchman, Falstaff, Street Scene. Music and my profession of German Studies blended poignantly when I sang in the "Defiant Requiem", a re-enactnment of Verdi's Requiem as sung by prisoners at Terezin / Theresienstadt, the Nazi's sham showcase concentration camp. For several years I taught practical German at opera workshops for young singers, and sang chorus in the associated productions at the Astoria Music Festival and Portland Summerfest Opera. Currently I sing in the Portland Bach Cantata Choir, to which I am donating all royalties from "When God Sang German".

I am also a woodworker and, generally, a tinkerer. Our home is filled with furniture I've made, and I've built tow cedar-strip canoes and a sailboat. For years I have been the family cook and grocery-shopper, partly because I enjoy it and partly because, as we had children, I believed that a mother who was nursing babies, and then caring for children and having her own profession, should not also have to cook. I taught our three daughters how to cook, so that they would not have to marry someone just because he could cook.

Academic CV

Teaching and Research

language pedagogy; technology in language instruction; teacher education; interaction of science, technology and humanities, popular culture

Education

1979 Ph.D., Yale University, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. Subject of dissertation: German science fiction; advisor: Peter Demetz

1969-70 Carnegie Teaching Fellow, Yale University

1965-69 B.A., Yale College. Double intensive major with Highest Honors in German and English. Magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, National Merit Scholar

1954-65 Public schools, Grants Pass, Oregon

Academic Employment

1978-2015 Department of Foreign Languages, Portland State University. Promotions to Assistant Professor, 1980; Associate Professor, 1983; Professor, 1987

1974-77 Instructor, Department of German, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia

1969-72 Carnegie Teaching Fellow and graduate assistant, Yale University

Publications (summary list)

“Literatur für Leser and Listeners: Herbert W. Franke’s ‘Papa Joe & Co.’” literatur für leser (Peter Lang), 29.4 (4/2006).

“Goethe, Schiller and Me: Reflections on Figuring out Literature While Teaching Others about It and Life Too in a Language They Don’t Talk Very Good Yet.” Teaching German in America: Past Progress and Future Promise. Cherry Hill, NJ: American Association of Teachers of German, 2002.

¿Cómo? Introductory Spanish for Proficiency (co-author), Simon and Schuster, 1995.

Wie, bitte? Introductory German for Proficiency (co-author). New York: John Wiley, 1989.

The Empire Strikes Out: Kurd Laßwitz, Hans Dominik, and the Development of German Science Fiction 1871-1945. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1984.