Rate My Professor Jolanda Taylor

Jolanda Vanderwal Taylor is Professor of Dutch and German in the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+ at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she serves as Department Chair and Dutch Program Coordinator. She earned her Ph.D. in Germanic Studies focusing on German and Dutch Literature from Cornell University in 1987, an M.A. in Germanic Studies with a minor in Germanic Linguistics from Cornell University in 1984, and a B.A. in German and Philosophy with honors from Wheaton College in 1980. Since joining UW-Madison, she has taught German and Dutch, building the Dutch program from its inception. Her current teaching emphasizes Dutch language across five semesters, literature, and culture courses that satisfy foreign language requirements and carry literature or humanities credits. She has also been instrumental in promoting study abroad opportunities and the value of liberal arts education on campus.

Her research specializations include Dutch-language literature and culture, (im)migration, trauma and memory, travel, the family, and contemporary fiction, with a recent focus on trans-generational memory of the Holocaust and Occupation, the family in Dutch literature and culture, and issues surrounding migration and newcomers. Key publications comprise the monograph A Family Occupation: Children of the War and the Memory of World War II in Dutch Literature of the 1980s (Amsterdam University Press, 2009), "W.F. Hermans and Wittgenstein: De tranen der acacia's as mediation" (Neophilologus, 1994), "Liberal Education and Institutional Identity: The University of Wisconsin-Madison Experience" (Liberal Education, 2010), a chapter on Hella S. Haasse in Women Writing in Dutch (1994), and "The Occupied Mind: Remembering and Forgetting" (1990). Taylor served as Faculty Director of the Wisconsin International Scholars Program for 21 years, fostering cross-disciplinary global perspectives among undergraduates through mentorship, language study, and study abroad. She has held prominent roles such as Chair of the L&S Curriculum Committee, inaugural Chair of the University Curriculum Committee, and co-chair of the University International Travel Committee. In 1989-1990, she received the Fulbright U.S. Scholar award for research at the University of Utrecht.