In Memoriam: Professor Rose-Marie Oster and Professor Günter Pfister

It is with sadness that the Department of German Studies and the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures announce the passing of two beloved faculty members, Professor Emerita Rose-Marie Oster and Professor Emeritus Günter G. Pfister

Dr. Rose-Marie Oster died on July 14, 2022, at the age of 88. She came to the University of Maryland in 1980 as Dean for Graduate Studies and Research and as a Professor in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, after previously serving as a professor, Dean of the Graduate School, and Chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Professor Oster held a Ph.D. from the University of Kiel in Germany, and an M.A. degree from the University of Stockholm in Sweden. Her research focused on Swedish literature, especially Swedish women writers, and on Icelandic Sagas. She was a dedicated and passionate teacher of Swedish language, literature, and culture, Old Norse, and immensely popular courses on Viking Sagas, Viking Culture and Civilization, and Germanic Mythology. Dr. Oster was the winner of the Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars award as Faculty Mentor of the year in 2012 and The American Scandinavian Foundation Translation prize of 1997. She also served as a trustee of the Board of the American Scandinavian Foundation, a Vice Chair of the Board of the Washington School of Psychiatry, and President of the American Scandinavian Association of the National Capital region. She retired from the University in 2017.

Dr. Günter Pfister died on June 21, 2022, at the age of 84. He came to the University of Maryland in 1972 as a faculty member in Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, a department that he served for many years as Chair, including the year following his “official” retirement in 2006. He previously held a faculty position at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Professor Pfister earned a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and a B.A. from Bowling Green State University. Professor Pfister was an enthusiastic and devoted teacher and scholar of German language and culture pedagogy, and he transmitted this passion to the many graduate students and TAs he mentored. His book Second Language Acquisition Through Cultural Awareness (1981) provided groundbreaking innovative uses of cultural perspectives in language teaching. He collaborated with younger colleagues at area universities and former students on volumes such as Culture, Proficiency, and Control in FL Teaching (1987) and The Individual within Multi-Socio-Cultural-Realities: Culture Analysis as a Reading Strategy (2002). A people's man, Dr. Pfister was an avid participant in weekend soccer games at the University of Maryland where TAs, students and faculty came together for soccer followed by pizza and beer at local restaurants.