Rebeccah "Bess" Dawson Ditsch

Associate Professor of German Studies

Director, International Studies

Editor, Colloquia Germanica

Contact Information

bessdawson@uky.edu

1005 Patterson Office Tower

257-3387

Education

Ph.D. Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

M.A., Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

B.A., German, Davidson College

Research Interests

Sport in 20th and 21st century German literature
Pedagogy and Second Language Acquisition
National Identity
Critical Theory
German film
fairy tales
Sport Studies
international studies

Affiliations

German Studies
International Studies
Modern & Classical Languages Literatures & Cultures
Folklore & Mythology
Kentucky Institute for International Studies

KIIS Munich Website

Additional

Editor, Colloquia Germanica

Director, International Studies

Chair, Moran Scholarship Committee

Selected Publications

Selected Publications:

Book Review, Interrogating Integration. Sport, Celebrity, and Scandal in the Making of New Germany by Kate Zambon. Turkish German Studies / Türkisch-Deutsche Studien, 2025, (1): 122–124.

“Fairy Tales: New Ways of Reading, New Ways of Teaching,” Special Issue Editor and Introduction, Colloquia Germanica 58.3 (2025)

"Soccer in Early German Cinema. Die Elf Teufel and the Sins of Weimar Germany ," in Colloquia Germanica, Vol. 57, No. 2 (2024): 123-142.

“kanon kicken köpfen: Fascism’s Violent Victory in Ludwig Harig’s “Das Fußballspiel,” in Colloquia Germanica, Vol. 56, No. 1 (2023): 7-28.

Football Nation: The Playing Fields of German Politics, Society and History, eds. Rebeccah Dawson, Bastian Heinsohn, Oliver Knabe, and Alan McDougall. New York: Berghahn Books, 2022. (https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/DawsonFootball)

“Commodified, Corrupted and Capitalist: Combatting the Modern Athletic Machine in Melchior Vischer’s Football Players and Indians,” in Football Nation: The Playing Fields of German Politics, Society and History. Eds. Rebeccah Dawson, Bastian Heinsohn, Oliver Knabe and Alan McDougall. New York: Berghahn, 2022: 102-118.

“Soccer, Film, and the Third Reich: Hunters, Cowards, and Glory,” in Sport, Film and National Culture, ed. Seán Crosson. London: Routledge Publishing, 2021: 112-125.

“Das große Spiel,” Directory of World Cinema: Germany. Ed. Michelle Langford. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014: 62-63.

“Sport Film,” with Michelle Langford and Victoria Rizo Lenshyn. Directory of World Cinema: Germany. Ed. Michelle Langford. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014: 40-52.

“Quest for the Aryan Athlete: Riefenstahl and the Olympia-n Influence,” XIII Congress of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport and XII Congress of the Brazilian Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Gama Filho, 2014.

“‘Death is more heroic on the soccer field…’: The Cult of Athletics in Melchior Vischer’s Soccer Players and Indians,” in Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature XXVII:1, Fall 2009/Winter 2010: 1-21.