Franz Futterknecht—University of Florida

Dr. Franz Futterknecht, Ph.D. 1975, ‘Habilitation’ 1983 at the University of Mannheim/Germany, has been Professor of German and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Florida since 1988. He started his academic career in Germany, studied in France and Italy and taught in Germany, Great Britain, and Canada, before he moved to the United States. He is a literary historian who has widely published on literary topics covering the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Since the advent of the Web and the availability of constantly improved teaching and learning software, he has developed a wide range of online language, culture, and literature courses. His technical expertise in using the Web as a learning environment and developing online courses has become his second field of expertise in addition to his literary scholarship.

In his language and culture courses he has used the web systematically as a learning environment, using websites, podcasts, videocasts, radio and television programs, etc. His courses are designed to increase the authentic language and cultural input, to the extent that they have been called “virtual immersion” courses. He draws on his own intercultural experiences and the many occasions when he has taken students abroad, to understand the crucial importance of cross-cultural knowledge on having a positive experience in a different culture.

He started his academic career as a special tutor for French students studying in Germany, and played a key role in establishing an exchange program between the University of Mannheim and the University of Waterloo, Canada, where he taught three times. He also initiated the exchange between the University of Mannheim and UF, directed the UF Summer Program several times and took German high-school teachers to Germany when he taught and directed the German Summer School in the southeast.

Due to his technical expertise as a course designer, as well as his expertise in intercultural issues, he has taught one-day to two-week-long workshops on teaching technology and course design. He presented his courses in Germany and at the China Institute of Higher Education in Beijing in 2006.