The department of world languages and cultures is excited to say a huge “Willkommen” to Dr. Rebecca Stewart-Gray, who will be joining the department as visiting assistant professor of German starting in Fall 2023.
Stewart-Gray started her German-learning journey in high school while preparing a piece by Johannes Brahms for a singing audition. She found learning the language fun, and German was her favorite class. She continued into college and graduated from Texas Christian University with a bachelor’s degree in German and a minor in music.
While working on her undergraduate degree, Stewart-Gray attended an immersive German summer school that was incredibly valuable in helping her improve her German language skills. She went on to complete her master's degree in German Studies at California State University, Long Beach. Stewart-Gray then completed her doctoral degree in Germanic languages and literatures with a secondary field in music history at Harvard.
Stewart-Gray has a special interest in researching and teaching the works of suppressed and underrepresented artists. She is affiliated with the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices, which works on recovering, promoting, and performing music by suppressed composers and in particular those whose trajectories were catastrophically interrupted by Nazi policies. She is excited about opportunities for collaboration between Recovered Voices and groups on Concordia’s campus. She is also enthusiastic about co-curricular and extracurricular programming and is ready to help combine her interests and students’ interests in events and learning experiences in the coming year.
Stewart-Gray got her first taste of teaching while completing her master’s degree. Since then, she found teaching and advising to be extremely rewarding and impactful work. She enjoys all that comes with studying a language and culture, including access and insight into different perspectives on the world and opportunities to connect with people through their native language. Moreover, the unique setting of the language class fosters meaningful communicative experiences with other learners. As a teacher, she finds that she can be a facilitator who helps students find deeper personal and social meaning through language and culture. She enjoys getting involved in students’ research interests and also involving students in her own research. Stewart-Gray says she is excited to be able to continue this work at Concordia.