Berit C. R. Royer
Lecturer of German Studies
- POS 354
Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics
4980 Margaret Morrison St
Posner Hall 341
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Bio
Berit C. R. Royer is a scholar of German literature and language with interdisciplinary training in philosophy and music. She was born in Hamburg, Germany, a historic Hanseatic city, where she studied at the University of Hamburg and the Brahms Conservatory of Music. Her academic background includes German literature and linguistics, philosophy, music and classical voice.
After moving to San Francisco, California, in 1988, Dr. Royer continued her graduate studies in German literary and language studies in the United States. Her research specializes in women’s literature of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a focus that culminated in her doctorate from the University of California, Davis. She has published on the German writer Sophie Albrecht (1756–1840) and on Albrecht’s literary and intellectual contemporaries.
Dr. Royer has taught German as a foreign language at the university and college level since the late 1980s, with teaching experience in both Germany and the United States. Since January 2024, she has been based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she taught at Chatham University and Duquesne University.
Education
Ph.D., German Literature and Language, University of California, DavisM.A., German Literature and Language, San Francisco State
Areas of Interest
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Foreign language acquisition and pedagogy
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German literature of the late eighteenth century
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Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European philosophy
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European intellectual and cultural history
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Women’s literature
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Women’s and gender studies
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Music, with a focus on women composers
Courses Taught
- Elementary German
Selected Publications
Royer, B.C.R. “Beating the Odds: Sophie Albrecht (1756-1840), a Successful Woman Writer and Publisher in 18th Century Germany.“ In: Carme Font Paz and Nina Geerdink (eds.). Economic Imperatives for Women’s Writing in Early Modern Europe. Leiden/Boston: Brill, Rodopi 2018. DOI:
Royer, B.C.R. „Clara Wieck-Schumann (1819-1896): Mein Stern (1846)” [My Star]; Essay in: Norbert Schöbel (Ed.), Parole Parole, Fünfundfünfzig Beiträge zu ausgewählten Musikstücken, [Parole Parole, Fifty-five Contributions to Selected Pieces of Music]. Brussels: Bartleby & Co., 2001.
Royer, B.C.R. (Ed.). Vorwärts, vorwärts sehn' ich mich. Todes-Sehnsuchtsgedichte und der Tod der weiblich-kulturellen Rolle. [Forward, forward I long to go. Poems of Death Longing and the Death of the Female-Cultural Role. An anthology of Poetry by the 18th- Century Writer Sophie Albrecht with an Introduction by the Editor.] Brussels: Bartleby & Co., October 2001.
Royer, B.C.R. Sophie Albrecht (1757-1840) im Kreis der Schriftstellerinnen um 1800: eine literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Werk-Monographie. [Sophie Albrecht (1757–1840) among the Circle of Women Writers around 1800: A Literary and Cultural Studies Monograph on Her Work.] Diss. UC Davis, California: June 1999.
Royer, B.C.R. (Ed.). Bunte Kinder schwarzer Nacht. [Colorful Children of a Black Night.] An anthology of poetry by the 18th-century writer Sophie Albrecht. An introduction, “Begleittext" [Accompanying Text], by the editor B. Royer. Brussels: Bartleby & Co., 1997.