Natalie Diebschlag joined King’s College London Language Centre in 2016. She completed a Magistra Artium in English Literature, English Linguistics, and History at Aachen University, Germany (2005), and was awarded a PhD in English Literature from the University of Leeds, UK (2011). She is currently completing an MSc in International Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law at the University of Edinburgh (2025). She speaks German and English.

Natalie has been teaching German at all levels across a variety of programmes offered by the King’s College London Language Centre for the past nine years. In addition to her teaching, she is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the German language and BSL assessed modules programme, the German language provision at London Business School, as well as overseeing the evening course portfolio in Swedish, Dutch, Hindi, Bengali, Panjabi, Gujarati, Modern Greek, and British Sign Language.

Her teaching approach combines intercultural awareness, linguistic precision, and reflective learning, encouraging students to develop both communicative competence and cultural understanding.

Research, Scholarly projects and Academic Awards

Natalie’s latest research explores innovative approaches to German language learning through historical narratives, texts, images, and places. The project engages students with the Jewish-Germanophone history of London through both physical and digital encounters, encouraging exploration of the city’s archives, museums, and heritage sites. The project emphasizes the interplay of images, objects, and spaces to help students understand how cultural memory and identity are preserved and experienced. Through institutions such as the Wiener Holocaust Library, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Museum of London, and the Freud Museum, as well as historically significant areas including Whitechapel and Spitalfields, students explore how language, memory, and place intersect in an immersive, hands-on way.

Her second research project examines the intercultural adaptability of research methods developed for Western contexts. She is currently reviewing quantitative and qualitative approaches to measuring attachment and grief, assessing their relevance and cultural sensitivity in contemporary India. By interrogating the assumptions embedded in established research tools, the project aims to develop more culturally responsive methodologies and contribute to broader efforts to decolonise social research practices.

Academic Publications:

Diebschlag, N. (2017) ‘Inventing London: Derrida’s legacies in Sally Potter’s Yes and Anthony Minghella’s Breaking and Entering*,* Derrida Today, 10(1), pp. 89–109.

Diebschlag, N. (2016) ‘Jazzing the Novel: the Derridean ethics of Michael Ondaatje’s Coming through Slaughter*,* Mosaic, 49(1), pp. 161–178.

Diebschlag, N. (2014) ‘The city of refuge: deconstructing cosmopolitanism in Anthony Minghella’s Breaking and Entering*,* Journal of Postcolonial Writing, December, pp. 48–58.

Diebschlag, N. (2010) ‘Spectral encounters: Divisadero and the ethics of reading’, Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings, 10(2), pp. 100–110.

Diebschlag, N. (2007) ‘Reading Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient in light of Roland Barthes’ “The Death of the Author”’, Visions of Canada – Visions du Canada, Canadian Studies in Europe, 6, pp. 189–206.