Rate My Professor Natasa Courtney

Natasa Masanovic-Courtney serves as Professor of German and Chair of the Department of Languages at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She obtained her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Purdue University in 2002, M.A. in English Language and Literature from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul in 1995, and B.A. in English Language and Literature from Boğaziçi University in 1992. Born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, in a multicultural household speaking Turkish and Greek as mother tongues, she attended Österreichisches Sankt Georgs Kolleg, achieving fluency in German alongside her studies in ancient Greek. Early in her career, she worked as a research assistant for the Western Languages and Cultures Department at Boğaziçi University. During her doctoral studies at Purdue, she served as a teaching assistant for German. After completing her Ph.D., she held the position of Visiting Assistant Professor of German at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. In 2003, she joined the University of Alaska Anchorage as German Program Coordinator, a role she continues to hold alongside German Tutor Coordinator and Faculty Advisor to German majors, minors, and the German Culture Club with its weekly conversation table “Kaffeeklatsch.” She has chaired the Department of Languages since 2011. Her teaching portfolio spans German language and literature from beginner to advanced levels, featuring specialized courses such as Franz Kafka, Modern Short Story, Hermann Hesse, German Drama, Turkish-German Literature, German Children's Literature, and Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales and Legends.