Iris Guske
Iris Guske
Iris originally trained as a translator and interpreter (English, Spanish, Economics) and has been working as a college lecturer for undergraduate Translation/Interpreting Studies since the late 80s.
After publishing a series of distance-learning coursebooks for English from beginner's to undergraduate level for a Swiss publishing house, she was promoted to the post of Deputy Head of the "Fachakademie für Fremdsprachenberufe" in Kempten, Germany, in the late 90s.
Around the same time, Iris enrolled for a distance-learning course of postgraduate studies at Sheffield Hallam University and was awarded an M.A. in Communication Studies with distinction in 2000. Throughout the course she had specialised in “Intercultural Communication” and “Developmental Psychology”, and wanted to combine those interests with her love of Jewish literature for her doctoral work.
Invited by Professor Edward Timms to attend a Discussion Forum on the “Kindertransport” in July 2001, she got “hooked” immediately and has been working on her D.Phil dissertation, “Personal Memories and Narrative Strategies of Kindertransport Children”, since then. Iris greatly enjoys the close collaboration with a number of former Kinder on the one hand, and on the other the academic, yet also very personal approach at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies.
In the meantime, one of the articles that has resulted from the collaborative research efforts with a former German-Jewish refugee, Vernon Saunders, has found its way into a forthcoming book: “Zwischen Anpassung und Abschottung” in Wolfgang Benz, Claudia Curio, Andrea Hammel (eds) "Kindertransporte 1938/9", Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag.
Contact: Iris.Guske@t-online.de