GDR Studies; literature and film in post-unification Germany; language-in-education policy, pedagogy and practice; new language-learning environmentsIf you are interested in collaborative projects and/or postgraduate supervision in any of the above areas, please contact me at [email protected].                       

My teaching interests are wide-ranging and research-informed. Within German Studies, I teach language, literature and culture across a range of modules, with a particular interest in GDR Studies, 20th and; 21st century literature and applied language studies (grammar in context, translation and interpreting). At postgraduate level within Teacher Education, I am centrally involved in the teaching of language pedagogy (particularly target-language teaching, learner autonomy and syllabus and; planning for the language classroom) for students on the Professional Masters in Education (Languages).                      

Jean Conacher is Associate Professor in German within the School of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics and an active member of the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the University of Limerick.  Her research interests include GDR Studies, literature and film in post-unification Germany, and language-in-education policy, pedagogy and practice. She welcomes enquiries from potential postgraduate students in any of these areas. Recent supervisions include Clive Earls's doctoral study of English-medium degree programmes in Germany (PhD awarded 2013) which was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2016. She is currently co-supervising 8 doctoral students, including 5 students on the International Structured PhD (ISPhD) programme. Her publications include Perceptions and Perspectives: Exploring Connections between Ireland and the GDR (ed. with Gisela Holfter and Deirdre Byrnes, 2019), German Reunification and the Legacy of GDR Literature and Culture (ed. with Deirdre Byrnes and Gisela Holfter, 2018), and Intercultural Contact, Language Learning and Migration (ed. with Barbara Geraghty, Bloomsbury, 2014). A monograph entitled Transformation and Education in the Literature of the GDR was published by Camden House in January 2020.