Languages, Literatures, & Cultures

Antonia Musolff is the German academic exchange lecturer (DAAD-Lektorin). She is teaching in this role at the University of Galway in Language and applied Language Teaching, Cultural Studies and Literary Studies since 2021.
Her research interests are Postmigration discourses in Germany and migration studies, GDR remembrance culture, Decolonization of the German studies curriculum and innovative foreign language didactics like performative foreign language didactics or podcasting.

Antonia is the departmental Erasmus coordinator for outgoing and incoming German students as well as the course director for German for Biotechnology and Science.
Courses that Antonia designed and teaches are 2nd year language acquisition. 2nd and 3rd year applied language acquisition for Biotechnology and Science, Postmigrant Podcasts, a course about (post-)migration discourses in Germany, Making invisibilities visible: GDR retold, a course about GDR history, minority groups in the GDR and the remembrance culture of it. Since 2022 she is also teaching the Current Affairs/Culture course for outgoing Erasmus students. Since 2023 she is the director of the German Play production Modul. She had her directional debut with "Tschick" by Wolfgang Herrndorf and Robert Koall which was performed to sold out audiences in March 2023. From 2021-2022 she has taught the co-taught introduction to German literature and her part was the introduction to drama.

In her role as the German academic exchange (DAAD) lecturer she has organized several cultural events for students and staff. These events included a book reading with novel author Renate Ahrens in 2022, a keynote speaker and another speaker for the German studies Association in Ireland (GSAI) conference in Galway in 2022: Sascha Stollhans (UK) and Oliveta Gentilin (Italy) and the facilitation of a round table to the topic of the conference "Clash of cultures? Bildungsvermittlung zwischen den Generationen im Zeichen der digitalen Revolution" with lecturers for German studies and students. In 2023/2024 Antonia organised a visit by spoken word poet Samuel Kramer to the University of Galway and a book reading and workshop for students with Fantasy novel author Judith Vogt as well as a theatre workshop with director and theatre pedagogue Eva Zitta.

In February 2023, she completed a one-year training course as a Social Justice Trainer at the Institute for Social Justice & Radical Diversity and the University of Potsdam with a University Diploma. She holds a Master in European Studies with English, History and German from the Freiburg University of Education, an additional diploma qualification as a German as a foreign language teacher and a Bachelor's degree in Cultural Studies with Sociology and Philosophy from the University of Leipzig. She has worked as a research assistant in Cultural Studies, History and Pedagogy at the University of Education in Freiburg from 2014-2016.

 As part of the #Thinklanguages programme, Antonia has participated in the yearly outreach activities for secondary school students at the university and at their schools, giving a theatre games workshop and informing about German studies since 2022. She also facilitated a bilingual workshop "Fantastic DNA for Pupils" on campus in March 2024. In preparation for this workshop students of Biotechnology and Science with German had already translated Cell explorer content into German under Antonias direction.  

 Antonia has been invited twice to present at the ENLIGHT Teaching and Learning conference. In 2023 for the conference topic Empowerment about her Postmigrants Podcasts seminar and in 2024 for the conference topic Innovation and Creativity about her Theatre module and performative foreign language didactics. She has also presented on the yearly DAAD conference in London on the topics "Discrimation of East Germany" (2023) and "Think Tank: Decolonization of the German curriculum" (2024).