Dr. George F. Peters

Department Chair

Dr. George F. Peters

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George Peters assumed the chairmanship of the Department of Theatre in January 2006. He is a Professor of German and former Chair of the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages at MSU. Peters received the Ph.D. from Stanford University and taught at the University of New Mexico for eighteen years before moving to Michigan State. While in New Mexico Peters co-founded and directed The German Summer School of New Mexico in Taos. He was also the founding president of the statewide association for foreign language teachers, New Mexico OLÉ. In 1988 he was recipient of the Burlington Northern Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching at the University of New Mexico. Peters served as editor of Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German for two terms and edited the 2002 AATG volume on Teaching German in America: Past Progress and Future Promise.

In 1994 he received the AATG’s National Outstanding Educator Award. In addition to works dealing with German language pedagogy and concerns of the profession, Peters has published books and articles on the poetry and reception of Heinrich Heine as well as literary translations. Currently he is researching the intersection of German, Jewish, and Russian cultures in Berlin. For his work promoting German language and culture in the United States Peters was awarded the Federal Republic of Germany’s Order of Merit, First Class.