Max S.

I'm a Harvard PhD candidate in Germanic Languages & Literatures with a Master's from Harvard and a First-Class undergraduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Tübingen. I bring a rare transatlantic perspective to every session, blending the rigour of the German intellectual tradition with Ivy League critical thinking.

Lecturer at Harvard, NYU Berlin and Bard College Berlin; First-Year Academic Advisor at Harvard; private tutoring since 2016 across German, philosophy, literature and the humanities. The students have ranged from beginners to postgraduates. The questions have mostly stayed the same.

Language is learned by using it; ideas are sharpened by defending them. My sessions are structured around conversation — in the target language from the start, or around a text we're both genuinely trying to understand. I'm less interested in delivering interpretations than in testing them: a good tutorial feels more like a seminar than a lecture, and an argument that survives questioning is worth considerably more than one that hasn't been tried. Students tend to leave with stronger opinions, better reasons for holding them, and the rhetorical wherewithal to say so clearly. Or at least improved German skills...