我感觉就像卢瑟. Martin Luther lived with his students. 在名副其实的路德豪斯, 他们一起吃饭, and the ideas generated in the classroom reappeared over conversation at the dinner table.

今天早上, three students stopped by my table—in our shared eating space at the Colleg in Wittenberg, 德国—to talk to me about their papers. Another mentioned that he had sent me a new first page while walking in to get his food, 还没睡醒. Most of them are comparing Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus with Johann von Wolfgang Goethe’s Faust, and wondering who made the better bargain with Mephistopheles, nominally a representative of the underworld in the text, but more truly a representative of Faust’s inner longings. Nearly all these students think Goethe’s Faust made the better deal, and largely because what this Faust wanted in exchange was self-knowledge and the power to always grow and learn. 相比之下, Marlowe’s Faustus wants external power, a power that he quickly finds we cannot control, as this power relies on the whims of others, and can disappear as quickly as it is given. What is exciting to me is that the students—at first rightfully a little overwhelmed by the difficulty of this material, particularly Goethe’s nearly 400-page philosophical poem—are deeply engaging with it as they write their papers, and although it is not stated explicitly there, making connections to their own lives.

Of course, all of this feels even more meaningful because it is happening in Wittenberg. 德国. This is where the real Faust supposedly lived. The marker for his house is just down the street from the Leucorea, where our class is held. The Leucorea is what remains of THE Wittenberg University, the historic one our institution is named after and where Luther taught, and where both Marlowe’s and Goethe’s Faust teach before embarking on a new journey of 理解 (or as my students are arguing, lack thereof in the case of Marlowe’s Faustus.)

My students are also taking a risk. They have chosen to take their studies to a new place at a challenging time, and to make their learning not something contained to the classroom, but something that happens 24/7. 步行去上课, 订购午餐, booking a train to a hiking trail in Saxony, 瑞士, 安排飞往布达佩斯的航班, biking through town and along the trails that border the river Elbe, 所有这些(以及更多)!) is a learning experience, sometimes a complicated one. 事实上, we even had an extended lesson on German table manners, 发现了海博体育app官方版下载自己, despite all those rules and having to hold our forks in our left hands, enjoying the warmth of good conversation over a delicious four course meal.

The students on our study abroad program “Wittenberg in Wittenberg” have chosen Goethe’s deal. To make learning an intrinsic part of everything they do. The growth in these students is al读y apparent. And I, as their aging professor, have made the best deal of all: feeling like Luther at 8 a.m. on a Thursday morning while engaging ideas at the breakfast table and learning alongside my students.

-辛西娅·理查兹博士.D.
韦勒英语讲座主席
2022 Director, 德国威滕贝格的维特, Program