Center for German and European Studies

• Expertise: German as a foreign language; climate activism; antisemitism on social media, Jewish-German dialogue; German women writers, German cinema, age of Goethe, German drama, fairy tales.

Sabine von Mering is Professor of German and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in the Department of German Russian, and Asian Languages and Literatures at Brandeis University where she teaches courses in German Language and Culture, European Perspectives on the Climate Crisis, and Antisemitism on Social Media. She is a member of the core faculty in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, a member of the program faculty in the Environmental Studies Program and an affiliate with the Minor in Creative Arts for Social Transformation (CAST). Her translation of Luisa Neubauer and Alexander Repenning’s call to action Beginning to End the Climate Crisis came out with Brandeis University Press in March 2023. She is currently co-editing the Routledge Handbook on Grassroots Climate Activism. Monika Hübscher and Sabine von Mering’s co-edited volume "Antisemitism on Social Media" (Routledge, 2022) was favorably reviewed here and mentioned in the 2023 White House Strategy Paper to Counter Antisemitms.  Her previous co-edited volumes are "Right-Wing Radicalism Today: Perspectives from Europe and the US" (Routledge, 2013), "Russian-Jewish Emigration after the Cold War: Perspectives from Germany, Israel, Canada, and the United States" (2006) and "International Green Politics" (2002). She is the 2022 recipient of the Volkmar and Margret Sander Prize which honors “individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the cultural, political, and academic relationship between the German-speaking world and the United States.” She is currently a 2023 Public Voices Fellow on the Climate Crisis with The OpEd Project, in partnership with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. As director of the Center for German and European Studies, she organizes lectures, conferences, and cultural events in the interest of promoting transatlantic dialogue. Professor von Mering is a local affiliate with the a local affiliate with the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

Alex is excited to return to Brandeis to support CGES as the temporary Events Manager while Sonja is on maternity leave. A former Undergraduate Departmental Representative (UDR) for the German Studies department, Alex graduated from Brandeis in 2014 with a Bachelor’s degree in German Studies and Linguistics. She lived in Stuttgart, Germany for 1 year prior to attending Brandeis, and she has returned to visit many times since. Alex holds a Master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of Vermont, and she runs a solo private practice providing speech-language therapy to children in both English and German.

Sonja joined Brandeis in early 2022 and is the events manager for the Center for German and European Studies. A native of Massachusetts, Sonja spent four years growing up in the Munich area, and then returned to Germany as a participant in the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange Program after graduating from WPI with a degree in industrial engineering. At the Center for German and European Studies, she oversees event planning, coordinates day-to-day operations and takes care of budget-related tasks.

Aeryn Rowe, undergraduate ’25, hails from the Boston area. He is majoring in Russian Studies for which he is a UDR, and minors in NEJS, Religious Studies, and Anthropology. In Summer 2022, he completed the Critical Languages Scholarship in Tbilisi, Georgia, and returned for Fall semester 2023 to study abroad there. His areas of interest are language, culture, and the historical context for the modern world. Since 2022, Aeryn has worked with the Center for German and European Studies, and started at the Brandeis Division of Humanities in 2024. 

Katherine Bulthuis is a marketing assistant for CGES, supporting event operations and designing
marketing materials in both print and online formats. With a passion for foreign language and
global citizenship, Katherine lived in Germany for one year with the Congress Bundestag Youth
Exchange (2021-2022) and has taught German and French for three years at Concordia
Language Villages. She is also the Undergraduate Departmental Representative for German
Studies at Brandeis University, where she is pursuing a major in Theater Arts with a minor in
German Studies.