08/23/2026
A letter from our department chair Professor Johannes Türk:
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
My heart breaks as I share with you that our colleague and friend Susanne Even has left the world prematurely this Saturday, August 22, 2026.
Susanne has been a cornerstone of the Department of Germanic Studies for twenty years and an imposing presence in the field of language pedagogy in the United States and internationally. She obtained her PhD at the University College Cork in Cork, Ireland, in 2002. After holding positions as lecturer at Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she arrived in Bloomington in 2006, where she worked as Assistant Professor, was promoted to Clinical Associate Professor of German in 2013, and to Clinical Professor in 2021. Over the last two decades, she has shaped our language and pedagogy program and made it what it is today: one of the most innovative and successful language program in the United States. Frequent invitations to give workshops and lectures made her an inspiring presence at campuses ranging from Duke University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison to the University of Izmir in Turkey. Susanne – and with her the field she helped shape like few others: drama pedagogy – became a household name in the world of language pedagogy and in the field of German Studies. Susanne has also built an exceptional record of publications on a wide variety of pedagogical topics ranging from drama grammar to the teaching of the brother Grimm’s fairytales. She co-founded and was a co-editor of the journal “Scenario”, the peer-reviewed key journal of drama pedagogy. An important legacy of Susanne is her role as an ingenuous collaborator who published and presented with many of our graduate students and colleagues at Indiana University as well as at other universities such as Manfred Schewe at the University of Cork and her close friend Barbara Schmenk at the University of Toronto. Most recently, her reflection on pedagogy has increasingly emphasized imprevisibility as an indispensable dimension of language pedagogy.
Susanne faced her advancing multiple sclerosis with heroic bravery and fierce courage and recently had to overcome the death of her husband Michael, but had to resign herself to a cancer that was discovered only very recently. Her death at this point comes as a shock to all of us, but I find some consolation in her composure and in the relief she also felt to no longe have to continue to adjust to an increasingly difficult life. Although her expectation was not grounded in a religious afterlife, she was also looking forward to joining her beloved brother Herbert Even, a Green Party politician, who served as councilor in the city parliament in Herford and died in January 2024. Susanne’s main concern in the last weeks of her life were her graduate students, to whom she was committed like few other colleagues, and to her ICAN dog Oliver, a faithful companion and indispensable assistant of her last years. I remember vividly our drive to the BTAA chairs and directors meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, in February 2024 – the self-evident depth and familiarity of our conversation, Susanne’s irreverence, as well as the joy it gave her to let Oliver recognize me and run across a hall full of people in response to her saying my name.
Through desolation and sadness I hope we can discover in her voice a source of strength to carry her legacy forward.
Regards, Johannes
Johannes Türk
Chair, Department of Germanic Studies
Indiana University Bloomington
…
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
Dylan Thomas
…
Kann keine Trauer sein. Zu fern, zu weit,
zu unberührbar Bett und Tränen,
kein Nein, kein Ja,
Geburt und Körperschmerz und Glauben,
ein Wallen, namenlos, ein Huschen,
ein Überirdisches, im Schlaf sich regend,
bewegte Bett und Tränen –
schlafe ein!
Gottfried Benn
