M.A., Germanic Studies, Indiana University, 2017
B.A., German Studies, Minors: Philosophy, Linguistics, Covenant College, 2015
- bswakopf@indiana.edu
Education
Fields of interest
18th- through 20th-century literature, philosophy as literature, history of linguistics, pragmatism, theology, aesthetics, polyglottery, Goethe.
About Ben
I completed my B.A. in German Studies at Covenant College in 2015, minoring in both Philosophy and Linguistics, before moving on to Indiana University, where two years later I completed my M.A. in Germanic Linguistics & Philology. Right now I’m working on a PhD in the same department, different track: Modern German Literature & Culture. I have an curious—though not exclusive—predilection for German writers whose names begin with H (Hamann, Herder, Humboldt, Heine, Hesse, etc.), and some things that make me happy are: reviewing language flashcards daily, pineapple pizza, detailed maps, multilingual puns, Chaim Potok novels, the Portuguese plural ending “-ões,” Lord Huron, and being overcome with love for something I once despised. In my dissertation I go after the question of how one sets oneself up to experience the “real,” which I believe Goethe addresses quite delightfully in his works from about the 1790s onward.
The College of Arts