Browse Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education

BioKaren Ruoff Kramer has been Director of the University’s Bing Overseas Stzdies Program in Berlin since 1980. She studied at Stanford (B.A. in English literature, Ph.D. in German Studies) and at the Freie Universität Berlin (Magister in Philosophy, Comparative Literature and American Studies). She teaches German theater, film, and literature at the Berlin Center and has been Lecturer in SLE and in German Studies at Stanford/CA. Her books include The Politics of Discourse: Third Thoughts on New Subjectivity (NY/Bern: NYU Ottendorfer Series), Aktualisierung Brechts (Argument Sonderband 50, ed. with W.F. Haug/Klaus Pierwoß) and a novel, Academia: Exzellenz hat ihren Preis (Hamburg: Ariadne/Argument). In addition to articles on film, theater, comparative cultural studies, she has published poetry, and essays on comparative culture. She sits on the Boards of the German Fulbright Commission, the Will Foundation, is a Fellow of the Institut für Kritische Theorie, and is founding member of the AASAP (Assoziation Amerikanischer Study Abroad Programme in Deutschland). She was awarded the German Federal Medal of Honor (Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande) in 2002 for her contributions to relations between Germany and the United States and between Germans East and West. She plays the cello and dances with horses (though not at the same time).