A 1993 PhD graduate of UW’s Department of Germanic and Slavic
Languages and Literatures (now Germanic and Slavic Studies),
Jean M. Snook returned to campus in October on the occasion of
the 50th anniversary of our Faculty to receive the
distinguished Arts Alumni Award. Dr. Snook is now a long-serving
professor of German at Memorial University, St. John’s, Nfld.
and was honoured for her teaching, scholarship and national
service in the profession. A highly active researcher and
translator, Dr. Snook has written, edited, and translated books
on and by Heinrich Heine, expressionist poetry, Else
Laske-Schüler, Luise Rinser, and Evelyn Grill, in addition to
many scholarly articles on literary topics, dozens of entries in
literary encyclopaedias, and nigh to a hundred scientific works
associated with forensics and allied subjects. On the occasion
of receiving this distinction she was also ‘welcomed home’ by
the department and invited to read from her most recent
translations of two Austrian novels,
Kahn and Engelmann
(Biblioasis, 2009) by the late, celebrated Canadian Germanist
Hans Eichner, and The Distant Sound (Champaign and London: Dalkey, 2010) by Gert
Jonke. The forty colleagues, students, and members of the
community present, including some of Dr. Snook’s former
professors at Waterloo (Manfred Kuxdorf, Wilbur Maust, Manfred
Richter) first heard current UW German professor Barbara Schmenk
read excerpts from the original German texts, followed by
Snook’s translations, delivered with flair. Libations, a lively
reception, and a book-signing opportunity followed.
|
|