Dr. Ruth Kluger came to University of California-Irvine with a solid reputation as a scholar of German literature. I did my Master's there from 1975-1977, intending to stay for a PhD. The Kleist seminar she conducted was amazing, and thorough. She was unique in saying that her students cold argue with her, as long as we had some basis for doing so. That was a switch from the usual! I do not remember arguing with her, but discussions were lively.
She was unique in other ways. Born in Vienna, she survived Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, had had the tattoo on her forearm. A tireless champion for human rights, she stood out in conservative Orange County. When my career trajectory became shaky, she offered me the opportunity to write a dissertation under her on the Reformation pamphlets (she knew I was was an active Lutheran), and assured me funding for a year's research in Germany. Were she to ever leave UC-Irvine, she had enough clout to take a doctoral student with her.
Immediately I thought if only I had had this conversation a year earlier, which was impossible, actually. By then I had decided to attend seminary. She was genuinely happy for me,! Decades later as I was preparing to end my deployed in Germany, I saw a documentary about her in German television. The woman in it seemed familiar. The next day I e-mailed her, and she chatted a few times.
Today in my German III Honors class I posted some political links, including one for the Bundestag, and saw this wonderful news.
https://www.humanities.uci.edu/SOH/about/press_release_det.php?id=301
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