Ph.D. University of Arizona/Dr. Phil. Universität Leipzig, 2021 (Transcultural German Studies)

M.A. University of Oregon, 2013 (Germanic Languages and Literatures)

B.A., University of California, Irvine, 2011 (European Studies/German Studies)

Yannleon (Yann) Chen is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of German at St. Olaf College. They have previously taught courses on German language, culture, and literature at the University of Missouri, the University of Arkansas, the University of Arizona, and the University of Oregon. They have also taught English as a foreign language in secondary school as a US Teaching Assistant in Graz, Austria. Their current research is focused primarily on the propaganda texts and cultural mythos of the West German terrorist group Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction) and its intersections with Critical Security Studies (Wyn Jones; Busan; Huysman), Narrative (Benjamin), and Performance (Goffman). Other research and teaching interests include German film, music videos as teaching materials, Brechtian theater, and (former) East German punk culture.

Courses:

Beginning German (GER 111, 112)

Intermediate German (GER 231)

Germanic Fairy Tales (GER 247)

History and Memory (GER 251)

Contemporary Germany (GER 252)

German Leftist Terror (GER 247)

Selected Publications:

Chen, Yannleon. “Cynical Security in The Third Generation”. New German Critique, Special Issue Rainer Werner Fassbinder. (Forthcoming)

Chen, Yannleon. (2024) “Where are Punk Spaces? What are Punk Places? Heterotopias in Leipzig”. In Jim Donaghey, Will Bouisseau, and Caroline Kaltefleiter (Eds.), DIY or DIE!: Do-It-Yourself, Do-It-Together & Punk Anarchism (pp. 69-92). (The Anarchism and Punk Book Project, Vol. 2), Active Distribution Publishing.

Chen, Yannleon. (2022). Symbolic Competence and Race in “Gute Menschen”: Teaching about Racism in Germany Through a Hip-Hop Music Video, Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, 55(2), 191-205.