Provided by: Appalachian State University’s Department of Languages, Literature and Cultures
BOONE, N.C. — Appalachian State University’s Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, the AppELS English Language Institute, and High Country Humanities, in collaboration with the Watauga County Public Library, is pleased to present “International Story Time,” a series of storytelling events by Appalachian State University faculty members and students during the Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 semesters, sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for Student Success.
Parents, pre-K children, and elementary school students are all invited to these free public events, where faculty and students from the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures will read children’s stories from different cultures. Event leaders will also teach participants a few fun vocabulary words in another language.
Saturday, December 6, 2025, 10 am – 11 am, Watauga County Public Library Children’s Story Corner, “Wake Up, Santa Claus by Marcus Pfister” with Dr. Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand and Mr. Jack Hellenbrand
Dr. Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand, professor of German and global studies, will read Lieber Nikolaus wach auf! / Wake Up, Santa Claus by Marcus Pfister. Dr. Sterling-Hellenbrand specializes in German language and culture, medieval German literature, fairy tales, Arthurian legends, and “Mittelalterrezeption”/medievalism. She has authored the books Medieval Literature on Display: Heritage and Culture in Modern Germany and Topographies of Gender in Middle High German Arthurian Romance. Dr. Sterling-Hellenbrand is also a Fulbright Scholar.
Mr. Jack Hellenbrand, ESL Teacher at Watauga County Public Schools, will join Dr. Sterling-Hellenbrand in reading Lieber Nikolaus wach auf! / Wake Up, Santa Claus by Marcus Pfister.
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Thursday, January 15, 2025, 3:30-4:30 pm, Watauga County Public Library Community Room, Mulan, Traditional Chinese Story with Dr. Wendy Xie
Dr. Wendy Xie, professor of Chinese, will read Mulan. Dr. Xie specializes in Chinese language at all levels, Twentieth-Century Chinese Poetry, Fiction, and Drama, Chinese Popular Culture, Gender Performance in Chinese Theater and Film, and Melodramatic Imagination and Emotional Intimacy. She has co-authored Japanese Idols go to China: Cultural Adaptation and Nationalism with Xiaofei Tu and J-Pop Goes to China: AKB48, SNH48 and Nationalism, a book manuscript under contract with Lexington Books.
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Thursday, February 19, 2025, 3:30-4:30 pm, Watauga County Public Library Community Room, Puss in Boots by Charles Perrault with Dr. Darci L. Gardner
Dr. Darci L. Gardner, professor of French and director of High Country Humanities, will read Puss in Boots by Charles Perrault. Dr. Gardner’s research focuses on 19th and 20th century France, literature and the visual arts, cognitive approaches to literature, and aesthetics. She has published articles on Marcel Proust, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Marie Krysinska in journals such as Philosophy and Literature, French Studies, and Poetics Today, and she is the coeditor of Volume 2 of the complete works of Marie Krysinska.
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Thrusday, March 19, 2025, 3:30-4:30 pm, Watauga County Public Library Community Room, La jugada del día: Historia basada en la vida de Juan Manuel Sánchez Sánchez, a Baseball Story by Ariadna Sánchez with Dr. Paul Worley
Dr. Paul Worley, chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and professor of Spanish, will read La jugada del día: Historia basada en la vida de Juan Manuel Sánchez Sánchez, a Baseball Story by Ariadna Sánchez. Dr. Worley specializes in Spanish, Latin American Literatures and Cultures, and Global Indigenous Literatures. He authored Telling and Being Told: Storytelling and Cultural Control in Contemporary Yucatec Maya Literatures and translated selected works by Indigenous authors such as Hubert Matiúwàa (Mè’phàà), Celerina Sánchez, Manuel Tzoc (K’iche’), and Ruperta Bautista (Tsotsil). Dr. Worley co-wrote with Rita M. Palacios, Unwriting Maya Literature: Ts’íib as Recorded Knowledge, and co-translated Miguel Rocha Vivas’s Word Mingas. Dr. Worley is also a Fulbright Scholar.
The series is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Donna Bonner, by email at bonnerdm@appstate.edu or visit https://hchumanities.appstate.edu/.
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