Julia K. Gruber joined TTU in 2008. She teaches beginning, intermediate, and advanced courses in the German program. The three things - besides teaching and researching - she likes the most about her job are hosting Centerstage events, taking students abroad on trips to Berlin and Vienna, and adapting the oldest and bloodiest children’s book of all times, Der Struwwelpeter, into an annual theater performance, starring students in her German 2020 class.

Gruber´s research has focused on Jewish child exiles and the Kindertransport, works by Austrian writer Eva Menasse, and the Austrian family novel. Gruber regularly presents at conferences, most recently on Austrian “fumorist” Stefanie Sargnagel and Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s toilet art. Her current research project focuses on so-called Backfisch (young girl) novels from the 1930s set in Africa, Eva Menasse’s short story collection Tiere für Fortgeschrittene, as well as non-violent political stunts performed by the Center for Political Beauty and German-Israeli comedian Shahak Shapira. A co-edited volume entitled All the Angry Women: Responding to Rage and Racism in German-Language Cultural Production and Activism is forthcoming.