The Illustrious Dr. Jander

Here at NYU in Berlin, the majority of us are lucky enough to have Dr. Jander as a professor (pronounced “Yonder”). Behind his wildly gesturing hands, excited facial twitches and his German accent, Professor Jander’s class is undoubtedly my favorite. On the first day of class, he gave us a brief history of his family and where he grew up. He was from a small town in southern Germany and has lived in Berlin for a good number of years by now. When he’s not teaching, he also conducts private tours of Berlin. He is a true Pandora’s box of knowledge about German history, Berlin history, and miscellaneous facts about the city in general.

The man, the legend. For this blog, I had planned to write about Tuncay and Riesa, the son-and-father duo who run the drink market down the street. I mentioned Tuncay in an earlier post, however, and also realized what a big impact Prof. Jander has had on my experience here. I can’t emphasize enough how having him has impacted the way I see Germany and my understanding of German history.
As a half-Jewish American student, I never learned much about Germany’s role in the world aside from World War II, and even discussing this was almost taboo. Through Jander, we approached this delicate time in German history starting from the early 1800’s. He shared details about his family involvement in politics at the time, and about his political activism in the 70’s (how I wish I could have seen him with his long hair!).

Academic knowledge aside, he also carries a host of delightful idiosyncrasies. Something that’s common in English-speaking Germans is for them to mix up “v” and “w” sounds. The letter “w” is in fact pronounced “v” and the “w” sound doesn’t exist, so often the sounds get substituted for each other in their English. This means that when Jander is telling our class that we are going to visit a Stasi prison for class next week, we are actually “wisiting”. A phrase he uses that I feel he may have retained from his university days in the 70’s is “Anyone have any questions? Comments? Protests?”. Thus far, no one has protested in his class.

The best part about these classes is the following “office hours” session. Almost every week after class, we go to a bar 5 minutes away, order a drink, and just talk about whatever may come to mind. Sometimes we talk about class, sometimes about German history; last time we had “hours”, we talked about the aforementioned visit to the Stasi prison. I can hardly wait until next Tuesday at 6:30 PM because I know that as the class begins to wrap up, we’ll make plans to grab a beer and talk for hours. To me, he is the great gem of NYU in Berlin.