According to German professor Yuliya Komska, the Max Kade program brings one prominent German writer or media figure to Dartmouth each Spring to teach a course in the department. Past recipients have included leading writers, such as Peter Schneider and Martin Walser.
"We've been consciously trying to invite people who are working in several areas of culture at the same time," Komska said. "[Dorn] is the perfect example."
In an interview with The Dartmouth, Dorn said that she "accepted almost immediately" upon receiving the invitation from department chair Irene Kacandes.
"I was very excited to come here," Dorn added.
This term, Dorn is teaching German 82, a seminar titled "Angry Young Women: The Contemporary German Novel." Taught in German, the course is comprised of upper-level students of German from all classes. The course focuses on female 20th-century German authors writing against the historical backdrop of the struggle for German emancipation during World War I, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the West German Federal Republic.
"We're crawling through history," Dorn said of the curriculum she chose for the class. "It's very simple. I took the novels I love the most."
Dorn has published five crime and thriller novels. Her most recent book, "Mdchenmrder. Ein Liebesroman," (2008), tells the story of a young girl who falls in love with her kidnapper as they travel through Europe. Dorn said she was inspired to write this novel when she read about the 1984 case of Christopher Wilder, who abducted a 16-year-old girl who ended up helping him kidnap other girls.
"It electrified me," Dorn said. "I immediately wanted to see what happened. Through writing a novel, I came to understand it by my own means."
Indeed, this sentiment is the motivation behind Dorn's interest in crime novels in general.
"In this genre, you deal all the time with this kind of erratic and very wrong, barbaric human behavior. I am interested in this kind of human behavior, and I guess that's how I ended up writing mystery novels," Dorn said.
Although Dorn was not always interested in becoming a mystery writer, her interest in literature and the media began early in life, she said.
"I was always a passionate reader. I always tortured my parents when we went for summer vacation because I had a small, blue suitcase, which I packed with books and brought with me everywhere," Dorn said.
As a teenager, Dorn became interested in opera.
"I always wanted to become an opera singer. That was my big dream in life," she said. "And then I realized that my voice is not the voice I wanted to have to sing the heavy German stuff like Richard Wagner."
According to Dorn, this disappointment fueled the beginning of her studies in philosophy.
"I got realistic, disappointed, and that's why I started studying philosophy," she said. "I had no concrete idea of what I wanted to do in life. But I always liked thinking and analyzing and having a clear view of things."
Dorn studied philosophy in Frankfurt and spent five years as a philosophy professor at the Free University of Berlin. In 1994, at age 23, she published her first novel, "Berliner Aufklrung," roughly translated as "Berlin Enlightenment" a moment that Dorn looks back on as her proudest artistic achievement.
"This moment [was] like no other in life," she said.
The novel centers on a mystery occurring in a university's philosophy department. For the novel, Dorn, who then still went by her birth name, Christiane Scherer, assumed the pseudonym Thea Dorn so her colleagues in academia would not recognize her name. She kept the name, which alludes to the German philosopher Theodor Adorno, and now goes by Scherer only for "bureaucratic purposes" such as taxes and insurance, she said.
"For all of the funny and juicy things in life, it's Thea Dorn," she added.
After publishing three books between 1994 and 1999, Dorn served as a dramaturge and playwright in Hannover, Germany, for six months. She also wrote two episodes for the famous German crime television series "Tatort," which has been running for over 30 years and attracts 10 percent of the German population every Sunday night, according to Dorn.
She has spent the last ten years writing freelance newspaper and magazine articles and screenplays in addition to her mystery novels, she said. She also works as a host for book review shows on German television networks. Dorn said that her role as a prominent media figure in Germany has given her insight into the changing role of public intellectuals in today's society.
"I like to get mixed up in public debates," she said. "It's important to get involved as a public intellectual. Although, over the last 10 to 15 years, there are lots of media people giving their opinions all the time, and not so many public intellectuals. TV faces and talking heads are flooding the bestselling lists, but it's harder and harder to make a living off of philosophical books."
According to Komska, the faculty members in the German department hope the Max Kade fellows will discuss these types of issues in German intellectual and cultural life with Dartmouth students.
"Most of us work on literature or media in a way that doesn't necessarily always invite us to ask questions about the everyday lives of people who are producing media," Komska said. "You can only gain insight about what it means to be a writer in Germany and what it takes to be a public figure from a first-hand experience."
During her stay at Dartmouth, Dorn is also conducting research on the two ancient virtues courage and humility by studying Greek myths and early Christian texts. In her spare time in Hanover, Dorn, an avid hiker, is taking advantage of the natural surroundings in the Upper Valley, she said.
"I'm enjoying this very much. In Berlin, I didn't have much contact with young people. Seeing how people who were born in the '80s and '90s think and read texts is a great opportunity," Dorn said of her experience so far.
According to Komska, it is this kind of exchange that the Max Kade program seeks to foster.
"Having somebody who brings in the freshest and the best is absolutely invaluable," she said. "It's great for us and our students."
