German Studies

Past Events

  •  Location: Andrews HouseRoom: 110

    Under Analysis: On the History of Truth and the Subject of Science
    Presented by Joan Copjec and Kristina Mendicino

    December 12th 8:30am - 5:30pm Faculty Club, 1 Bannister St
    December 13th 8:30am - 5:30pm Faculty Club, 1 Bannister st
    December 14th 8:30am - 3:30pm Andrews House, 13 Brown Street, Room 110

    “Under Analysis: On the History of Truth and the Subject of Science” is an international conference concerning the thinking that will have been made possible through Martin Heidegger’s and Jacques Lacan’s radical interrogations of truth and critical expositions of the modern subject of science. Both thinkers, each in a different way, fundamentally challenge the supposition underlying much discourse in and beyond the sciences that ‘truth’ signifies the correspondence between a propositional judgment and a state of affairs, as judged by a cognizing consciousness. Upon this rare occasion for scholars of Heidegger and experts in Lacanian psychoanalysis to enter into dialogue, participants in the conference will pursue the ways in which engaging with these pathbreaking writers might open new inroads into their respective oeuvres, while preparing us better to question the shape that the world has taken in our current epoch of “post-truth” politics and unprecedented technological developments.

    Featuring Presentations by:
    Elizabeth Berman (Brown University)
    Kian Braulik (Brown University)
    Henrique Carvalho-Pereira (Brown University)
    Lorenzo Chiesa (Newcastle University)
    Ioannis Dimopulos (Brown University)
    Ana Furtado (Brown University)
    Kirsten Hyldgaard (Aarhus University)
    David Farrell Krell (Brown University/ DePaul University, emer.)
    Serena Lückhoff (Brown University)
    Kristina Mendicino (Brown University)
    Michele Moghrabi (Brown University)
    Ian Alexander Moore (Loyola Marymount University)
    Oleksii Shebanov (Brown University)
    Melanie Unger (Brown University)
    Dominik Zechner (Rutgers University)

    Register here

    Generously supported by the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, the Department of German Studies, and The Charles K Colver Lectureships & Publications Fund and The Federal Republic of Germany through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
  •  Location: Faculty Club

    Under Analysis: On the History of Truth and the Subject of Science
    Presented by Joan Copjec and Kristina Mendicino

    December 12th 8:30am - 5:30pm Faculty Club, 1 Bannister St
    December 13th 8:30am - 5:30pm Faculty Club, 1 Bannister st
    December 14th 8:30am - 3:30pm Andrews House, 13 Brown Street, Room 110

    “Under Analysis: On the History of Truth and the Subject of Science” is an international conference concerning the thinking that will have been made possible through Martin Heidegger’s and Jacques Lacan’s radical interrogations of truth and critical expositions of the modern subject of science. Both thinkers, each in a different way, fundamentally challenge the supposition underlying much discourse in and beyond the sciences that ‘truth’ signifies the correspondence between a propositional judgment and a state of affairs, as judged by a cognizing consciousness. Upon this rare occasion for scholars of Heidegger and experts in Lacanian psychoanalysis to enter into dialogue, participants in the conference will pursue the ways in which engaging with these pathbreaking writers might open new inroads into their respective oeuvres, while preparing us better to question the shape that the world has taken in our current epoch of “post-truth” politics and unprecedented technological developments.

    Featuring Presentations by:
    Elizabeth Berman (Brown University)
    Kian Braulik (Brown University)
    Henrique Carvalho-Pereira (Brown University)
    Lorenzo Chiesa (Newcastle University)
    Ioannis Dimopulos (Brown University)
    Ana Furtado (Brown University)
    Kirsten Hyldgaard (Aarhus University)
    David Farrell Krell (Brown University/ DePaul University, emer.)
    Serena Lückhoff (Brown University)
    Kristina Mendicino (Brown University)
    Michele Moghrabi (Brown University)
    Ian Alexander Moore (Loyola Marymount University)
    Oleksii Shebanov (Brown University)
    Melanie Unger (Brown University)
    Dominik Zechner (Rutgers University)

    Register here

    Generously supported by the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, the Department of German Studies, and The Charles K Colver Lectureships & Publications Fund and The Federal Republic of Germany through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
  •  Location: Faculty Club

    Under Analysis: On the History of Truth and the Subject of Science
    Presented by Joan Copjec and Kristina Mendicino

    December 12th 8:30am - 5:30pm  Faculty Club, 1 Bannister St
    December 13th 8:30am - 5:30pm  Faculty Club, 1 Bannister st
    December 14th 8:30am - 3:30pm  Andrews House, 13 Brown Street, Room 110

    “Under Analysis: On the History of Truth and the Subject of Science” is an international conference concerning the thinking that will have been made possible through Martin Heidegger’s and Jacques Lacan’s radical interrogations of truth and critical expositions of the modern subject of science. Both thinkers, each in a different way, fundamentally challenge the supposition underlying much discourse in and beyond the sciences that ‘truth’ signifies the correspondence between a propositional judgment and a state of affairs, as judged by a cognizing consciousness. Upon this rare occasion for scholars of Heidegger and experts in Lacanian psychoanalysis to enter into dialogue, participants in the conference will pursue the ways in which engaging with these pathbreaking writers might open new inroads into their respective oeuvres, while preparing us better to question the shape that the world has taken in our current epoch of “post-truth” politics and unprecedented technological developments.

    Featuring Presentations by:
    Elizabeth Berman (Brown University)
    Kian Braulik (Brown University)
    Henrique Carvalho-Pereira (Brown University)
    Lorenzo Chiesa (Newcastle University)
    Ioannis Dimopulos (Brown University)
    Ana Furtado (Brown University)
    Kirsten Hyldgaard (Aarhus University)
    David Farrell Krell (Brown University/ DePaul University, emer.)
    Serena Lückhoff (Brown University)
    Kristina Mendicino (Brown University)
    Michele Moghrabi (Brown University)
    Ian Alexander Moore (Loyola Marymount University)
    Oleksii Shebanov (Brown University)
    Melanie Unger (Brown University)
    Dominik Zechner (Rutgers University)

    Register here

    Generously supported by the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, the Department of German Studies, and The Charles K Colver Lectureships & Publications Fund and The Federal Republic of Germany through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
  •  Location: Alumnae HallRoom: Crystal Room

    Come experience Germany in the US at the Brown German Club and DUG’s First Annual Weihnachtsmarkt. This December tradition takes place in towns and city centers across Germany. Artists sell their beautiful goods while visitors can enjoy warm apple cider and hot chocolate, pretzels, Linzer hearts and strudel. 

    We are actively looking for student art vendors. Please learn more here.

    Sponsored by Brown’s Department of German Studies along with the German Embassy Washington DC as part of Germany on Campus 2024. @germanyinusa

    Department of German Studies
  •  Location: Andrews HouseRoom: 110

    The Brauer Lecture Series is a 3-day lecture series with this year’s guest, David Farrell Krell, distinguished philosopher, writer, and critic. Krell is the author of over a dozen books in the areas of German, French, and Ancient Greek thought. He is currently Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at
    Brown University and Professor of Philosophy (Emeritus) at DePaul University. Krell is especially well-known for his books on Heidegger, Nietzsche, Derrida, German Idealism and Romanticism, and architecture, as well as his literary writings, including Son of Spirit, a novel about Hegel. As part of his intellectual formation, Krell also had the opportunity to study with Martin Heidegger himself.

    12/3/24 6:30pm Lecture #1: Heidegger’s Das Ding
    12/4/24 5:30pm Lecture #2: Do That Other Thing: Lacan’s Ethics of Psychoanalysis
    12/5/24 6:30pm Lecture #3: A Postcard Is the Thing: Derrida’s Sendings

    All lectures to be held at Andrews House, Room 110, 13 Brown Street

  •  Location: Andrews HouseRoom: 110

    The Brauer Lecture Series is a 3-day lecture series with this year’s guest, David Farrell Krell, distinguished philosopher, writer, and critic. Krell is the author of over a dozen books in the areas of German, French, and Ancient Greek thought. He is currently Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at
    Brown University and Professor of Philosophy (Emeritus) at DePaul University. Krell is especially well-known for his books on Heidegger, Nietzsche, Derrida, German Idealism and Romanticism, and architecture, as well as his literary writings, including Son of Spirit, a novel about Hegel. As part of his intellectual formation, Krell also had the opportunity to study with Martin Heidegger himself.

    12/3/24 6:30pm Lecture #1: Heidegger’s Das Ding
    12/4/24 5:30pm Lecture #2: Do That Other Thing: Lacan’s Ethics of Psychoanalysis
    12/5/24 6:30pm Lecture #3: A Postcard Is the Thing: Derrida’s Sendings

    All lectures to be held at Andrews House, Room 110, 13 Brown Street

  •  Location: Andrews HouseRoom: 110

    The Brauer Lecture Series is a 3-day lecture series with this year’s guest, David Farrell Krell, distinguished philosopher, writer, and critic. Krell is the author of over a dozen books in the areas of German, French, and Ancient Greek thought. He is currently Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at
    Brown University and Professor of Philosophy (Emeritus) at DePaul University. Krell is especially well-known for his books on Heidegger, Nietzsche, Derrida, German Idealism and Romanticism, and architecture, as well as his literary writings, including Son of Spirit, a novel about Hegel. As part of his intellectual formation, Krell also had the opportunity to study with Martin Heidegger himself.

    12/3/24 6:30pm  Lecture #1: Heidegger’s Das Ding
    12/4/24 5:30pm  Lecture #2: Do That Other Thing: Lacan’s Ethics of Psychoanalysis 
    12/5/24 6:30pm  Lecture #3: A Postcard Is the Thing: Derrida’s Sendings   

    All lectures to be held at Andrews House, Room 110, 13 Brown Street

  •  Location: 190 HopeRoom: 203

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture with

    Visiting Assistant Professor, Christian Obst

    Ugliness, Loquaciousness: ekphrasis, Fetishism, and the Poetry of Tuvia Ruebner

    Thursday, November 21st
    6pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 203
    Free and open to the public.

    Christian Obst studied Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and Sociology at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, and German Studies at Brown University, where he received his PhD in 2022. His research engages with issues such as the question “What is the Human?,” as well as the relationship between humans and nature, ‘creatureliness’ and the ontological status of artificial objects (particularly within the context of the physis/techne dichotomy), alternatives to anthropocentrism (in- and outside of the humanities), and the often paradoxical significance of the ‘visual’ in Western thought.

  •  Location: Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, 111 Thayer StreetRoom: Joukowsky Forum (155)

    Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook ’99 reflects on the origins of the governance and economic crisis raising new questions about the viability of “the German model.” With external pressures from the U.S. and China challenging the European way of doing business – both economically and politically - how might the EU advance on redefining its own economic model and preserving the strength of integration in a de-globalizing world under increasing strains of kinetic and hybrid conflict? How must the relationship between the EU and its largest trading partner, the United States, change to adapt to shifting pressures in a world of chaos, in light of political radicalization, accelerating armed conflict and economic strain on a trading system that depends on functional international law and predictability to survive?

    Audience Q & A to follow.

    Lunch served.

    ABOUT THE SPEAKER

    Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook ’99 is a German-American economic and political analyst and strategist, former Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations and currently Executive Vice President at the Bertelsmann Stiftung, based in Berlin, Germany. For over a decade she directed three research initiatives at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, including the Future of Diplomacy Project and the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, both of which she co-founded with the current U.S. Ambassador to Beijing, R. Nicholas Burns. She is a Watson Policy Mentor for the 2024-25 academic year.

    In previous roles she served on the Management Board of the European Policy Centre (Brussels) and as a strategy consultant at Roland Berger in Shanghai, Beijing, Hamburg, and Paris. She started her career as a broadcast journalist for CNN-International in Atlanta and London. She is an Eisenhower and Truman Project Fellow and serves on several non-profit advisory boards in Europe. Cathryn’s research work focuses on transatlantic relations including foreign, security and trade policies, on digital and tech policy and on the role of urban actors in international affairs. She is a frequent commentator on foreign policy in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times and across television and radio in the U.S. and Europe. She is a graduate of Brown University (BA with dual concentration in IR and French Civilization), the London School of Economics (MSc European Studies), and the Harvard Kennedy School (MPA), and retains academic affiliations in Europe and the United States.

    Watch on YouTube
  •  Location: 190 HopeRoom: 203

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present

    A Book Presentation: Origin of Theory History of an Obsession (Husserl, Freud, Benjamin)

    with Visiting Post-Doctoral Fellow, Philippe P. Haensler

    FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15th
    5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102
    Free and open to the public


    Philippe P. Haensler is a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) postdoctoral fellow at the Department of German Studies at Brown University, where he is conducting a project on the relationship between literary translation and the question of forgiveness. He received his PhD at the University of Zurich with a dissertation in Comparative Literature. The resulting book (= the book presented) was published in Open Access with diaphanes in 2024.

  •  Location: Metcalf Research BuildingRoom: Freidman Auditorium

    Film Screening: Migrant and Post-Migrant Realities
    (Both films in German with English subtitles)

    November 14th, 6:00pm
    Friedman Auditorium, Metcalf Research Building, 190 Thayer St.

    Angst Essen Seele Auf (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Dir.1974; 93 min.)

    Emmi, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with much younger Ali. Their relationship soon develops into romance, and Emmi’s family and neighbors criticize their marriage, due to its spontaneity, the couple’s ages, and their racial and cultural differences. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.

    Film Screening sponsored by The Embassy of the German Republic and hosted by the German Studies Department and German Club.
    Pizza will be provided.

  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: The Underground

    For over 10 years, Brown’s German Studies Department has hosted QUIZABEND * TRIVIA for all to have FUN, increase your KNOWLEDGE and win PRIZES!

    Please join the Brown German Club on FRIDAY, November 8, at 6:30PM in the Underground in the Campus Center.

    Come with a team or join one of the teams at the event. All are welcome!

    Questions in English.

    Sponsored by the German Embassy Washington DC as part of Germany on Campus 2024

    Explore the undergraduate program in German Studies
  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present
    Eckart Goebel, Tübingen University

    Danse Macabre: Reading a Chapter of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain

    Monday, October 28th, 6pm

    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public.

    Eckart Goebel studied Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and German at the Free University of Eckart Goebel studied Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and German at FU Berlin,and at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford. In 1995, he received his PhD in Comparative Literature at the FU for his study on Konstellation und Existenz. Kritik der Geschichte um 1930: Studien zu Heidegger, Benjamin, Jahnn und Musil (Tübingen 1996). In 2001, he received his habilitation in Comparative Literature for his book Der engagierte Solitär. Die Gewinnung des Begriffs Einsamkeit aus der Phänomenologie der Liebe im Frühwerk Jean-Paul Sartres (Berlin 2001). From 1995 to 2005, he worked as an Assistant Professor for Eberhard Lämmert at Berlin’s Zentrum für Literaturforschung. In 2005, Goebel was hired as a Professor for German by NYU. 2013/14 he spent as a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. In 2015, he accepted a position as Professor for Comparative Literature and German at Tübingen University. Besides European and North American literary history, Eckart Goebel’s areas of academic interest include the Goethe Age, the history of ideas, Thomas Mann, anthropology, and psychoanalysis

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: First floor
    German Studies Open House and Concentration Fair
    Friday, October 25th
    3:30pm
    190 Hope Street, 1st floor

     

    We in the Department of German Studies invite students, families, and friends to join us for our Departmental Open House on Friday, October 25th, at 3:30pm. Please come to hear from our faculty and concentrators about the many opportunities that students of German Studies enjoy. We will address, among others, the ways in which our language curriculum has prepared undergraduates to study and work in Germany in a diverse array of sectors, while unfolding how our upper-level seminars on special topics in literature, intellectual history, and critical thought afford students a strong basis for testing the limits of idioms and concepts in and beyond the German-speaking world. We will also share information about research assistantships that have allowed students to work more closely with our faculty on new book projects and curricular design, as well as the international learning experiences that we facilitate and the impactful career trajectories that our students have pursued beyond Brown.
    Kaffee und Kuchen will, of course, be amply provided for all who join us on this festive occasion. We are eager to welcome you into our intellectually and culturally vibrant community.

  •  Location: Metcalf Research BuildingRoom: Freidman Auditorium

    Film Screenings: Migrant and Post-Migrant Realities
    (Both films in German with English subtitles)


    October 17th, 6:00pm
    Friedman Auditorium, Metcalf Research Building, 190 Thayer St.

    Das Lehrerzimmer (Ilker Çatak, Dir.2023; 98 min.)

    When a series of thefts occur at the school and one of her students is suspected, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter on her own. Carla tries to mediate between outraged parents, opinionated colleagues and aggressive students, but is relentlessly confronted with the structures of the school system. The more desperately she tries to do everything right, the more the young teacher threatens to break.Emmi, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with much younger Ali. Their relationship soon develops into romance, and Emmi’s family and neighbors criticize their marriage, due to its spontaneity, the couple’s ages, and their racial and cultural differences. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.

    November 14th, 6:00pm
    Friedman Auditorium, Metcalf Research Building, 190 Thayer St.

    Angst Essen Seele Auf (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Dir.1974; 93 min.)

    Emmi, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with much younger Ali. Their relationship soon develops into romance, and Emmi’s family and neighbors criticize their marriage, due to its spontaneity, the couple’s ages, and their racial and cultural differences. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.

    Film Screenings sponsored by The Embassy of the German Republic and hosted by the German Studies Department and German Club.
    Pizza will be provided for both screenings.

  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: Petteruti Lounge, 2nd Floor

    Please join alumni of Brown’s German Studies Department as they share their post-graduate success living and working in Germany and in the United States. Alumni have worked in the field of international and US policy, diplomacy, climate mitigation and law.

    Petteruti Lounge or via Zoom https://brown.zoom.us/j/91601922944

    Olivia Howe, ’22, Environmental Studies and German Studies
    Erik Brown, ’23, IAPA and German Studies
    Simon Engler, ’14, History and German Studies

    Erik Brown: Class of 2023, International & Public Affairs; German Studies

    Erik is a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow in the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. At Carnegie, Erik provides research assistance on a wide range of topics relevant to U.S.-EU relations, including strategic approaches to critical and emerging technologies, critical infrastructure protection, and other economic security themes. From September 2023-July 2024, Erik was a Fulbright Research Fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin, where he explored how the upcoming 2024 U.S. elections are impacting German and European foreign policy. Erik graduated from Brown University in 2023 with degrees in International & Public Affairs and German Studies. His honor’s thesis, which investigated the evolution of the German Green Party’s position toward NATO, was awarded the Mark and Betty Garrison Prize for the Watson Institute’s best thesis in international relations, foreign policy analysis, or diplomatic history.

    Olivia Howe: 2022, Environmental Studies, German Studies with honors

    After four years diving into the German Studies opportunities at Brown, I received a Fulbright to research environmental inequality in Freiburg im Breisgau, where I have stayed since 2022 for my job promoting climate mitigation and energy efficiency at the regional level. I am so excited to constantly be learning more German on both everyday and business settings while also starting to study Russian and Turkish. Feel free to ask me about the Fulbright, German at Brown, moving to Germany, and anything else!

    Simon Engler: 2014, German Studies and History

    Simon Engler graduated from Brown with an A.B. in German Studies and History in 2014. At Brown, Simon was a managing editor of The Indy and was a member of the Brown Writing Fellows program. After college, Simon worked for several years as an editor at Foreign Affairs, in research on public administration reforms in low- and middle-income countries at Princeton University, and for the climate science organization Climate Central. Simon then enrolled at Yale Law School, where he focused on climate and environmental law and policy. After receiving a JD in 2023, Simon worked in Berlin for the German Federal Foreign Office, where he was part of a team focusing on international climate finance. Simon moved back to the United States in September 2024.

    If you require any accommodations to attend this event, please email wendy_perelman@brown.edu. This event is sponsored by German Studies and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Washington @GermanyinUSA

    German Studies Department
  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture by

    Dimitris Vardoulakis (Professor of Philosophy, Western Sydney University, Australia)

    “The Destruction of Metaphysics? On the Opposition Between Epicureanism and Stoicism”

    Wednesday, October 2nd    6pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public.

    From logical positivism to fundamental ontology, philosophy in the first third of the 20th century joined the chorus of various modernisms calling for doing away with the past, here specifically the doing away with Judeo-Christian metaphysics. The difficulty with any move that determines a position in opposition to another is that the other position needs to be presupposed. Many philosophers admit such a presupposition entails a metaphysical reversal concluding that we cannot simply get out of metaphysics. I will argue that there is a hitherto unnoticed affinity between certain strands of modern philosophy—especially in the wake of Heidegger—that posit an action without effects and hence irreducible to a metaphysics of presence and the Stoic way of constructing the relation between being and acting. Besides offering a different way to grasp a series of concepts such
    as the event, poetry and difference from an alternative historical perspective, this has the potential to find a way around the metaphysical reversal that has haunted philosophy for a century.

    Dimitris Vardoulakis was the inaugural chair of Philosophy at Western Sydney University. Some of his books include Freedom from the Free Will: On Kafka’s Laughter (2016); Stasis Before the State: Nine Theses on Agonistic Democracy (2018); Spinoza, the Epicurean: Authority and Utility in Materialism (2020); The Ruse of Techne: Heidegger’s Magical Materialism (2024); and The Agonistic Condition (2025). He is the co-editor of the book series “Incitements” (Edinburgh University Press) and the new journal Philosophy, Politics and Critique. He is currently serving as the chair of the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy (ASCP) and Vice President of the Council of the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS).

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    Poetry Reading, Lecture and Workshop with Christian Filips

    Lecture/Poetry Reading: Die Aussicht hat Zukunft/The Prospest Has Future
    Tuesday, 9/24 6:30pm
    Andrews House, 13 Brown Street, Room 110

    Lecture: Diachrones Denken/Diachronic Thinking
    Wednesday, 9/25 5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Workshop: Queering Translation
    Friday, 9/27 4:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 103

    Christian Filips, who was born in 1981 in Osthofen, and who lives in Berlin today, is among the most innovative and experimental poets, translators, and editors writing today in German. His experience and interest reach beyond the field of literature and poetry in the strict sense, extending to theater and musical performances, as well as political activities: He also works as an editor, stage director, and program manager of the Berlin Sing-Academy (Sing-Akademie zu Berlin). In the Spring of 2023 he was the curator of Poetica, a Festival for
    World Literature in Cologne (among the invited artists were Patti Smith, Kim de l’Horizon, Logan February, and Lionel Fogarty). In 2016 he initiated and still directs a continuous workshop for writers and poets with a migratory
    background arriving in Berlin, bringing them into contact through conversations, translation projects, and publications with other writers and poets in Berlin, including those who were not just German-speaking. As a poet he has published (between 2001 and 2023) six collections of poetry. He is the translator of works by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Laura Riding, Paul Bogaert, Christian Prigent, Attila József, Àgnes Nemes Nagy, among others. Among the many prizes he received are the Rimbaud-Preis des österreichischen Rundfunks (2001), and the Erlanger Literaturpreis für Poesie als

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: Room 102

    Book Give-Away at the German Studies Department. Please stop in on Friday from 3-4pm and browse our large collection of books that we are offering to the public!  From art history, to travel, to literature and language learning, you will find something! The event takes place at the same time as our weekly Kaffeestunde. There you can converse with speakers of German in German or in English and learn more about the department, study abroad, internships, the concentration and the certificate. We hope to see you there!

    German Studies @ Brown
  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    Poetry Reading, Lecture and Workshop with Christian Filips

    Lecture/Poetry Reading:  Die Aussicht hat Zukunft/The Prospest Has Future
    Tuesday, 9/24     6:30pm
    Andrews House, 13 Brown Street, Room 110

    Lecture: Diachrones Denken/Diachronic Thinking
    Wednesday, 9/25    5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Workshop:  Queering Translation
    Friday, 9/27  4:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 103

    Christian Filips, who was born in 1981 in Osthofen, and who lives in Berlin today, is among the most innovative and experimental poets, translators, and editors writing today in German. His experience and interest reach beyond the field of literature and poetry in the strict sense, extending to theater and musical performances, as well as political activities: He also works as an editor, stage director, and program manager of the Berlin Sing-Academy (Sing-Akademie zu Berlin). In the Spring of 2023 he was the curator of Poetica, a Festival for
    World Literature in Cologne (among the invited artists were Patti Smith, Kim de l’Horizon, Logan February, and Lionel Fogarty). In 2016 he initiated and still directs a continuous workshop for writers and poets with a migratory
    background arriving in Berlin, bringing them into contact through conversations, translation projects, and publications with other writers and poets in Berlin, including those who were not just German-speaking. As a poet he has published (between 2001 and 2023) six collections of poetry. He is the translator of works by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Laura Riding, Paul Bogaert, Christian Prigent, Attila József, Àgnes Nemes Nagy, among others.  Among the many prizes he received are the Rimbaud-Preis des österreichischen Rundfunks (2001), and the Erlanger Literaturpreis für Poesie als

  •  Location: Andrews House, 13 Brown Street Room 110Room: 13 Brown Street, Room 110

    Poetry Reading, Lecture and Workshop with Christian Filips

    Lecture/Poetry Reading: Die Aussicht hat Zukunft/The Prospect Has Future
    Tuesday, 9/24 6:30pm
    Andrews House, 13 Brown Street, Room 110

    Lecture: Diachrones Denken/Diachronic Thinking
    Wednesday, 9/25 5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Workshop: Queering Translation
    Friday, 9/27 4:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 103

    Christian Filips, who was born in 1981 in Osthofen, and who lives in Berlin today, is among the most innovative and experimental poets, translators, and editors writing today in German. His experience and interest reach beyond the field of literature and poetry in the strict sense, extending to theater and musical performances, as well as political activities: He also works as an editor, stage director, and program manager of the Berlin Sing-Academy (Sing-Akademie zu Berlin). In the Spring of 2023 he was the curator of Poetica, a Festival for
    World Literature in Cologne (among the invited artists were Patti Smith, Kim de l’Horizon, Logan February, and Lionel Fogarty). In 2016 he initiated and still directs a continuous workshop for writers and poets with a migratory
    background arriving in Berlin, bringing them into contact through conversations, translation projects, and publications with other writers and poets in Berlin, including those who were not just German-speaking. As a poet he has published (between 2001 and 2023) six collections of poetry. He is the translator of works by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Laura Riding, Paul Bogaert, Christian Prigent, Attila József, Àgnes Nemes Nagy, among others. Among the many prizes he received are the Rimbaud-Preis des österreichischen Rundfunks (2001), and the Erlanger Literaturpreis für Poesie als

  •  Location: Grant Recital Hall

    DARIUS MILHAUD: ALL THE MUSICS OF THE WORLD commemorates the 50th anniversary of composer Darius Milhaud’s death. Sponsored by the Scheuer Fund for Judaic Studies, Ruth and Joseph Moskow Endowment in Judaic Studies. Cosponsors include Brown’s Department of Music and German Studies as well as the Rhode Island School of Design, the Neuer Musikverein Berlin, and the Thomas Mann House, Los Angeles. The theme of the event will be Milhaud’s Jewish identity in dialogue with questions of modernism, antisemitism, racism, and gender. The focus will be the opera Esther de Carpentras, based on a 17th-century stage play about the biblical heroine. The event will open with a round table discussion of Milhaud’s music, life, and identity, followed by a video animation interpreting Esther de Carpentras. It will conclude with a chamber music concert including excerpts of the opera and other compositions.

    Co-sponsored by the Department of German Studies.

    Schedule:
    3:30-4:15 - Panel Discussion
    4:15-4:30 - Video Animation
    5:00-6:00 - Concert 

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture and workshop with Christian Metz.

    Christian is professor of German literature at the RWTH Aachen University. He received his PhD at the Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, with a dissertation entitled Die Narratologie der Liebe. His habilitation – Kitzel. Studien zur Kultur eines menschlichen Reizes [Tickling. Studies on the Culture of a Human Sensation] – was published with S. Fischer Verlag in 2020.

    Sept 18th 5:30pm
     Lecture:,Augenmaß’. A German kind of Decision-making in Aesthetics and Politics

    Sept 19th 6:30pm
    Workshop: Poetisch denken. Deutschsprachige Gegenwartslyrik

    Both events will take place in room 102 of the German Studies Department,
    190 Hope Street.

    Free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture and workshop with Christian Metz.

    Christian is professor of German literature at the RWTH Aachen University. He received his PhD at the Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, with a dissertation entitled Die Narratologie der Liebe. His habilitation – Kitzel. Studien zur Kultur eines menschlichen Reizes [Tickling. Studies on the Culture of a Human Sensation] – was published with S. Fischer Verlag in 2020.

    Sept 18th 6pm  
     Lecture: ,Augenmaß’. A German kind of Decision-making in Aesthetics and Politics

    Sept 19th  6:30pm
    Workshop: Poetisch denken. Deutschsprachige Gegenwartslyrik

    Both events will take place in room 102 of the German Studies Department,
    190 Hope Street.

    Free and open to the public.

  •  Location: RI Hall 108

    The German Studies Department, in conjunction with the German Club, DUG and the German Embassy, Washington DC is pleased to present:

    Mo Asumang, German TV moderator, filmmaker, actress and writer.

    Meet the director:
    Tuesday, September 17th, 4:00pm
    RI Hall 108
    Learn strategies to dialogue with people who think differently than you.

    As a lecturer, Mo Asumang has dedicated herself to topics of racism and integration, and her fim Die Arier is a documentary about her decision to uncover the meaning of the word “Aryan,” after receiving death threats from white nationalists. In the film, she meets with various racist and white supremacist groups, as well as academics, intellectuals, and a Holocaust survivor, seeking to understand how the word “Aryan” motivates people to express violence and hatred toward others.

    Mo Asumang
  •  Location: Friedman HallRoom: 190 Thayer Street

    A Brief Synopsis of Die Arier:

    After receiving death threats from the White Aryan Rebels, Mo Asumang sets out to discover the history and meaning of the word “Aryan.” she discusses her project with academics, intellectuals, a Holocaust survivor as well as racists and white supremacists, seeking to understand how “Aryan” motivates people to express violence and hatred to others.

  •  Location: Faculty ClubRoom: Landscape Room

    The Department of German Studies presents
    “Crises of Verse: On the Critical Interventions of Poetry”

    An international symposium organized by Kristina Mendicino and Marc Redfield.  Three days of lectures and workshops on the contribution of twentieth-century German poetry to our understanding of language, history, and crisis.

    Thursday - Saturday
    April 25th - April 27th
    Faculty Club, 1 Bannister Street, Landscape Room
    Thurs, 4/25 8:30am-5:30pm
    Fri, 4/26 8:30am-5:30pm
    Sat, 4/27 8:30am-3pm

    Featuring:
    Cecilia Barron (Brown University)
    Kylee Bolinger (Brown University
    Kian Braulik (Brown University)
    Samuele Capanna (Brown University)
    Henrique Carvalho Pereira (Brown University)
    Sneha Chowdhury (Brown University)
    Felix Christen (University of Heidelberg)
    Ioannis Dimopulos (Brown University)
    Lucia Kan-Sperling (Brown University)
    Serena Luckhoff (Brown University)
    Kristina Mendicino (Brown University)
    Michele Moghrabi (Brown University)
    Ian Alexander Moore (Loyola Marymount University)
    Soenke Parpart (Brown University)
    Rochelle Tobias (Johns Hopkins University)
    Gabriel Toth (Brown University)
    Dominik Zechner (Rutgers University)

    With Public Seminars on April 25th and April 26th, 3:30pm–5:30pm.

    To register, please use QR code on poster, link on this page, or email wendy_perelman@brown.edu

    Co-Sponsored by The Cogut Institute for the Humanities, The CV Starr Foundation Lectureship Fund, The Department of German Studies, The Marshall Woods Lectureship Foundation of Fine Arts, The Max Kade Foundation and The Walter DeGruyter Foundation

    Learn More
  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture with

    Barbara Vinken, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich

    Fashion Queers

    Tuesday, April 9th, 6:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102
    Free and open to the public

     

    Barbara Vinken, Dr. phil. habil. (Konstanz / Jena), Ph.D. (Yale), Professor for French and Comparative Literature at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (Germany). Before professorships at the universities of Hamburg and Zurich. Visiting professorships at HU and FU Berlin, EHESS Paris, NYU New York, Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago, and others. Research Fellowships at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, IFK Wien, and Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society of the University of Chicago

     

    Most recent books: Eleganz. Über eine Haltung, die unser Miteinander bereichert (2023). Diva. Eine etwas andere Opernverführerin (2023); Civil War and the Collapse of the Social Bond. The Roman Tradition at the Heart of the Modern (2022), Ver-kleiden. Was wir tun, wenn wir uns anziehen (2022), Krieg als Opfer?: Franz Marc illustriert Gustave Flauberts ‚Legende des Heiligen Julian‘ (2021); Bel Ami (2020); Die Blumen der Mode: Klassische und neue Texte zur Philosophie der Mode (2016), Flaubert: Durchkreuzte Moderne (2009, Flaubert Postsecular. Modernity Crossed Out, 2015), Angezogen: Das Geheimnis der Mode (2013), Bestien: Kleist und die Deutschen (2011).

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present

    The Brauer Lecture Series with
    Peter Fenves (Northwestern University)

    Monday, April 1st 5:30pm
    RI Hall 108
    Another Program for the Coming Philosophy: Benjamin, ‘Kinds of Knowing,’ and the Promotion of Epistemic Diversity

    Tuesday, April 2nd 6:30pm
    RI Hall 108
    Certain Problems with this Other Program: its Pragmatics, the Paradox, and its—Abandoned?—Theory of Truth

    Wednesday, April 3rd 10am
    190 Hope Street, 103
    Discussion: ‘As on the First Day’: Nine Notes on Heidegger’s ‘First Elaboration’ of his Ursprung des Kunstwerkes
    Please register for handout for this event by writing to wendy_perelman@brown.edu

    All events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: Rhode Island HallRoom: 108

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present

    The Brauer Lecture Series with
    Peter Fenves (Northwestern University)

    Monday, April 1st 5:30pm
    RI Hall 108
    Another Program for the Coming Philosophy: Benjamin, ‘Kinds of Knowing,’ and the Promotion of Epistemic Diversity

    Tuesday, April 2nd 6:30pm
    RI Hall 108
    Certain Problems with this Other Program: its Pragmatics, the Paradox, and its—Abandoned?—Theory of Truth

    Wednesday, April 3rd 10am
    190 Hope Street, 103
    Discussion: ‘As on the First Day’: Nine Notes on Heidegger’s ‘First Elaboration’ of his Ursprung des Kunstwerkes
    Please register for handout for this event by writing to wendy_perelman@brown.edu

    All events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: Rhode Island HallRoom: 108

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present

    The Brauer Lecture Series with
    Peter Fenves (Northwestern University)

    Monday, April 1st    5:30pm
    RI Hall 108
    Another Program for the Coming Philosophy: Benjamin, ‘Kinds of Knowing,’ and the Promotion of Epistemic Diversity

    Tuesday, April 2nd     6:30pm
    RI Hall 108
    Certain Problems with this Other Program: its Pragmatics, the Paradox, and its—Abandoned?—Theory of Truth

    Wednesday, April 3rd    10am
    190 Hope Street, 103
    Discussion: ‘As on the First Day’: Nine Notes on Heidegger’s ‘First Elaboration’ of his Ursprung des Kunstwerkes
    Please register for handout for this event by writing to wendy_perelman@brown.edu

    All events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture with

    Visiting Research Fellow, Theresa Mayer, DFG-Research Training Group „Ästhetische Praxis“, Stiftungsuniversität Hildesheim

    Audacity of Poetical Practice/Dreistigkeit Poetischer Praxis

    Wednesday, March 20th, 5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the pulbic

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present a lecture and workshop with
    CHRISTIANE FREY (Johns Hopkins University)

    Monday, March 4th, 5:30pm
    “Cosmos, Climate, Covenant: Making Peace with Kant”
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Tuesday, March 5th, 10:30am
    A discussion of Kant’s “Zum ewigen Frieden”
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    (a light lunch will be served following the workshop. Please email wendy_perelman@brown.edu by March 1st to RSVP for the lunch and note any dietary restrictions)

    Free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present a lecture and workshop with
    CHRISTIANE FREY (Johns Hopkins University)

    Monday, March 4th, 5:30pm
    “Cosmos, Climate, Covenant:  Making Peace with Kant”
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Tuesday, March 5th, 10:30am
    A discussion of Kant’s “Zum ewigen Frieden”
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    (a light lunch will be served following the workshop.  Please email wendy_perelman@brown.edu by March 1st to RSVP for the lunch and note any dietary restrictions)

    Free and open to the public.

     

     

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present

    A book talk with Stephanie Galasso (Rutgers), Brown Alum

    Genre and Raciality Between Schiller and Hölderlin

    Lecture: Thursday, February 22nd, 6:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Workshop: Friday, February 23rd, 5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present

    A book talk with Stephanie Galasso (Rutgers), Brown Alum

    Genre and Raciality Between Schiller and Hölderlin

    Lecture:  Thursday, February 22nd, 6:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Workshop:  Friday, February 23rd, 5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    Please join us for a lecture by Prof. Arata Takeda (URI): “The Change of Fortune in Tragedy: Aristotle’s Theory, Its Paradox, and Its Solutions.” The event will be followed by a catered reception.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    Please join us for “Solidarities of Grief: Poetry, Form, and Post-National Socialist Memory,” a lecture by Simone Stirner (Vanderbilt University).

    This lecture is sponsored by the Department of German Studies and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. It will be followed with a dinner.

    Location: 190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Date and Time: November 30, 2023 (5:00pm)

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present a lecture with Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor Daniel Weidner (Professor for Comparative Literature at the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg)

    Imagined Publics, Invisible Churches, and the Politics of Enlightenment;
    Postsecular Perspectives on 18th Century German Literature

     

    Monday, November 27th
    5:30pm
    190 Hope Strett, Room 102

    Free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present a lecture with
    Annie Pfeifer, Assistant Professor of Germanic Languages
    Columbia University

    “Veiling and Unveiling:  Annemarie Schwarzenbach’s Travels in the Persianate World.”

    Annie Pfeifer’s research and teaching interests focus on 19th and 20th century German literature and culture, literary and political theory, the Frankfurt School, aesthetics, visual and material culture, and most recently, the intersection of modernism and fascism. Her first monograph To the Collector Belong the Spoils: Modernism and the Art of Appropriation was published by Cornell University Press in 2023. She has published articles in The New German Critique, The German Quarterly, German Life and Letters, and the peer-reviewed volumes Que(e)rying Consent and Iran and the West. Together with Reto Sorg, the Director of the Robert Walser Center in Switzerland, she edited “Walk I absolutely Must,” a collection of essays on Robert Walser and the culture of walking, published by Wilhelm Fink in 2019. She is also the editor of a new series on Walser at the Wilhelm Fink Press. Her writing has appeared in the Op-Ed section of The New York Times and The Huffington Post. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the DAAD Postdoctoral Fellowship, Neubauer Faculty Fellowship, and the Harry S. Truman Scholarship.

    As an undergraduate, Annie Pfeifer studied literature and history at Columbia University. Before returning to Columbia, she taught at Tufts University and the University of Bern (Switzerland). She received her Ph.D. from Yale in 2015.

    Wednesday, November 15th, 5:30pm
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Reception to follow.
    Open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture series with
    Pajari Räsänen, Workers’ Academy, Kauniainen, Finland

    October 31st, 6:30pm
    Chance Encounters –– with the Insistently Instantaneous (in Paul Celan’s Poetry)

    November 1st, 5:30pm
    Bearing Witness –– One Language to Another: Paul Celan

    November 3rd, 4pm
    A Workshop on Paul Celan’s Poetry

    All events will be held at the German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public.

    Petri Pajari Räsänen (b. 1968) is the author of Encounters with Paul Celan’s Poetry: The Other’s Time (Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2021. His doctoral dissertation was titled Counter-figures. An Essay in Anti-Metaphoric Resistance: Paul Celan’s Poetry at the Limits of Figurality (University of Helsinki, 2007, available online). He currently teaches comparative literature at the Workers’ Academy, Kauniainen, Finland.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture series with
    Pajari Räsänen, Workers’ Academy, Kauniainen, Finland

    October 31st, 6:30pm
    Chance Encounters –– with the Insistently Instantaneous (in Paul Celan’s Poetry)

    November 1st, 5:30pm
    Bearing Witness –– One Language to Another: Paul Celan

    November 3rd, 4pm
    A Workshop on Paul Celan’s Poetry

    All events will be held at the German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public.

    Petri Pajari Räsänen (b. 1968) is the author of Encounters with Paul Celan’s Poetry: The Other’s Time (Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2021. His doctoral dissertation was titled Counter-figures. An Essay in Anti-Metaphoric Resistance: Paul Celan’s Poetry at the Limits of Figurality (University of Helsinki, 2007, available online). He currently teaches comparative literature at the Workers’ Academy, Kauniainen, Finland.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture series with
    Pajari Räsänen, Workers’ Academy, Kauniainen, Finland

    October 31st, 6:30pm
    Chance Encounters –– with the Insistently Instantaneous (in Paul Celan’s Poetry)

    November 1st, 5:30pm
    Bearing Witness –– One Language to Another: Paul Celan

    November 3rd, 4pm
    A Workshop on Paul Celan’s Poetry

    All events will be held at the German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public.

    Petri Pajari Räsänen (b. 1968) is the author of Encounters with Paul Celan’s Poetry: The Other’s Time (Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2021. His doctoral dissertation was titled Counter-figures. An Essay in Anti-Metaphoric Resistance: Paul Celan’s Poetry at the Limits of Figurality (University of Helsinki, 2007, available online). He currently teaches comparative literature at the Workers’ Academy, Kauniainen, Finland.

  •  Location: Faunce House, Petteruti LoungeRoom: 201

     

    “The Afterness of Living On: Toward a Poetics and Politics of Survival,” a symposium organized by the Department of German Studies

    20–21 October, 2023

    Faunce House, Petteruti Lounge (Room 201), 75 Waterman St. 

     

    Friday, October 20

     

    8:30–9:00am

    Light breakfast

    9:00–9:15am

    Welcome and introductory remarks: by Gerhard Richter and Daniel Weidner

    9:15–11:15am

    Session 1 – Wakes and After

    Klaus Mladek (Dartmouth), “In the Wake of the Plague: Eros, Mourning, and Civil War”

    Dominik Zechner (Rutgers), “Life Sentences” 

    Coffee break

    11:30am–12:30pm

    Session 2 - Surviving Survival

    A discussion focused on Gerhard Richter’s new book, Das Überleben überleben (Surviving Survival) (Vienna, 2023) with Kristina Mendicino and Dominik Zechner, in conversation with the author. 

    Lunch break

    2:00–5:15pm

    Session 3 - Animalities and Ecologies of Survival 

    3. Nitzan Lebovic (Lehigh U.), “The Time of Survival: Linear and Circular Narratives in the Age of the Anthropocene”

    Nicole Sütterlin (Harvard), “Surviving with Microbes: On the Poetics and Politics of Symbiosis in Precarious Ecologies”

    Coffee break

    Natalie Lozinski-Veach (Arizona State), “Thinking after the End: Animals between Adorno and Derrida”

     

    Saturday, October 21

     

    9:30–10:00am

    Light breakfast

    10:00am–12:00pm

    Session 4 – Returns, Histories

    Kristina Mendicino (Brown), “Returning Lost: On the Speech of the Departed in Luke, Rilke, and Gide”

    Gerhard Richter (Brown), “Of Which There Is History: The Thought of Survival”

    Lunch break

    1:00–3:00pm

    Session 5 – Reading Afterlives

    Daniel Weidner (Halle / Brown), “Nachgeschichte, Belatedness, and the Inversion of Understanding: Some Remarks on Historical Method in Freud, Benjamin, and Blumenberg”

    Kirk Wetters (Yale), “The Afterlife of the Academic Conference” 

  •  Location: Building for Environmental Research and Teaching (BERT)Room: 130

    The Department of German Studies in conjunction with the Goethe Institute and The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany is pleased to present

    A Bilingual (English/German) Reading with Birgit Weyhe

    Tuesday, October 10th
    4pm
    BERT 130
    85 Waterman Street
    Free and open to the public. 
    Dinner to follow at the German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street

    Birgit Weyhe was born in 1969, in Munich. She spent her childhood in East Africa before she moved back to Germany to study in Konstanz and Hamburg. In 1997, she achieved a Master’s Degree in German Literature and History.
    In 2002, she started to study illustration at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. Earning her Diploma in 2008, she now works as a comic book artist. Her Graphic Novels have been nominated for various prizes in Germany, France and Japan. In 2015 her book „Madgermanes“ won the comic book prize of the Berthold-Leibinger-Stiftung and in 2016 she achieved the Max-und Moritz-Price for the best German Comic. In 2022, she was honoured as the best German-language comic artist at the International Comic Salon Erlangen and was the first comic artist ever to receive the prestigious Hamburg Lessing Grant.
    Her work has been exhibited in numerous european countries and her comics have been published in a wide range of international magazines and anthologies.
    The Goethe Institut has made it possible for Birgit Weyhe to give numerous lectures about her work and have arranged various international workshops. As well, she has spent time in Sao Paolo and Helsinki as part of an “Artist Exchange Programme”. Since 2012, Birgit Weyhe has taught as a guest professor at different universities in Germany and USA.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    The Departments of Literary Arts and German Studies is pleased to present three events with Uljana Wolf.

    Uljana Wolf will present from her literary work in a bi-lingual presentation. Born 1979 in East-Berlin, Wolf is a German poet, translator, essayist, teacher and curator. She published four books of poetry, the essay collection Etymological Gossip (kookbooks 2021) and numerous translations of poets such as Don Mee Choi, Valzhyna Mort, Christian Hawkey, Eugene Ostashevsky, Erín Moure, Cole Swensen, Matthea Harvey, Yoko Ono, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki and others.

    In her own work (which has been translated into more than 12 languages) Wolf explores the poetics of translation as an ever-shifting space between languages. She teaches seminars on poetry and translation for example at the Pratt Institute Berlin Program and the Institut für Sprachkunst in Vienna.

    Wolf has received numerous awards such as the Adalbert-von-Chamisso-Prize 2016, the Villa Massimo Rome Prize 2017, the Kunstpreis Berlin 2019, the 2022 Prize of the Leipzig Bookfair for Etymological Gossip and – as translator – the Münster Prize for International Poetry 2019 and 2021.

    Several publications are forthcoming: Her new book of poems, muttertask, will come out with kookbooks in October 2023; Wolfs debut collection – which in 2006 won the prestigious Peter-Huchel-Preis – will be published as kochanie today i bought bread, translated by Greg Nissan, with World Poetry Books.

    Reading: A bi-lingual presenation of Uljana’s literary work
    9/26 5:30pm McCormack Family Theater, Room 132

    Lecture: Rotten Brot / Written Bread. Translinguale Poetik und Übersetzung
    9/27 5:30pm German Studies Dept, 190 Hope, Room 103

    Workshop: 9/29 4pm German Studies Dept, 190 Hope, Room 103

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    The Departments of Literary Arts and German Studies is pleased to present three events with Uljana Wolf.

    Uljana Wolf will present from her literary work in a bi-lingual presentation. Born 1979 in East-Berlin, Wolf is a German poet, translator, essayist, teacher and curator. She published four books of poetry, the essay collection Etymological Gossip (kookbooks 2021) and numerous translations of poets such as Don Mee Choi, Valzhyna Mort, Christian Hawkey, Eugene Ostashevsky, Erín Moure, Cole Swensen, Matthea Harvey, Yoko Ono, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki and others.

    In her own work (which has been translated into more than 12 languages) Wolf explores the poetics of translation as an ever-shifting space between languages. She teaches seminars on poetry and translation for example at the Pratt Institute Berlin Program and the Institut für Sprachkunst in Vienna.

    Wolf has received numerous awards such as the Adalbert-von-Chamisso-Prize 2016, the Villa Massimo Rome Prize 2017, the Kunstpreis Berlin 2019, the 2022 Prize of the Leipzig Bookfair for Etymological Gossip and – as translator – the Münster Prize for International Poetry 2019 and 2021.

    Several publications are forthcoming: Her new book of poems, muttertask, will come out with kookbooks in October 2023; Wolfs debut collection – which in 2006 won the prestigious Peter-Huchel-Preis – will be published as kochanie today i bought bread, translated by Greg Nissan, with World Poetry Books.

    Reading: A bi-lingual presenation of Uljana’s literary work
    9/26 5:30pm McCormack Family Theater, Room 132

    Lecture: Rotten Brot / Written Bread. Translinguale Poetik und Übersetzung
    9/27 5:30pm German Studies Dept, 190 Hope, Room 103

    Workshop: 9/29 4pm German Studies Dept, 190 Hope, Room 103

  •  Location: McCormack Family TheaterRoom: 132

    The Departments of Literary Arts and German Studies are pleased to present three events with Uljana Wolf.

    Uljana Wolf will present from her literary work in a bi-lingual presentation. Born 1979 in East-Berlin, Wolf is a German poet, translator, essayist, teacher and curator. She published four books of poetry, the essay collection Etymological Gossip (kookbooks 2021) and numerous translations of poets such as Don Mee Choi, Valzhyna Mort, Christian Hawkey, Eugene Ostashevsky, Erín Moure, Cole Swensen, Matthea Harvey, Yoko Ono, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki and others.

    In her own work (which has been translated into more than 12 languages) Wolf explores the poetics of translation as an ever-shifting space between languages. She teaches seminars on poetry and translation for example at the Pratt Institute Berlin Program and the Institut für Sprachkunst in Vienna.

    Wolf has received numerous awards such as the Adalbert-von-Chamisso-Prize 2016, the Villa Massimo Rome Prize 2017, the Kunstpreis Berlin 2019, the 2022 Prize of the Leipzig Bookfair for Etymological Gossip and – as translator – the Münster Prize for International Poetry 2019 and 2021.

    Several publications are forthcoming: Her new book of poems, muttertask, will come out with kookbooks in October 2023; Wolfs debut collection – which in 2006 won the prestigious Peter-Huchel-Preis – will be published as kochanie today i bought bread, translated by Greg Nissan, with World Poetry Books.

    Reading:  A bi-lingual presenation of Uljana’s literary work
    9/26 5:30pm McCormack Family Theater, Room 132 

    Lecture:  Rotten Brot / Written Bread. Translinguale Poetik und Übersetzung
    9/27 5:30pm  German Studies Dept, 190 Hope, Room 103

    Workshop:  9/29  4pm    German Studies Dept, 190 Hope, Room 103

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present
    Andrea Borsari, Professor of Aesthetics, Università di Bologna

    Lecture:  The An Aesthetic and Social Morphology? Georg Simmel and His Legacy

    Thursday, September 21st
    5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102
    Reception to follow

  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: Petteruti Lounge

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a public seminar and
    conversation with
    Prof. David Farrell Krell

    “Translating Heidegger”
    May 6th
    4pm
    Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center/Petteruti Lounge

    From Krell’s forthcoming book, Three Encounters: Heidegger,
    Arendt, Derrida (Indiana UP, June 2023)


    In 1974, thirty-year-old philosopher and translator David Farrell Krell
    began corresponding and meeting with Martin Heidegger and Hannah
    Arendt. Years later, he would meet Jacques Derrida and, through
    many letters and visits, come to know him well. Drawing on
    unpublished correspondence and Krell’s warmly told personal
    recollections, Three Encounters presents an intimate and highly
    insightful look at the lives and ideas of three noted philosophers at the
    peak of their careers. Three Encounters demonstrates the intertwining
    of thought and lived experience.


    For a copy of the chapter “Translating Heidegger,” please email the
    German Department at wendy_perelman@brown.edu

  •  Location: Alumnae HallRoom: Crystal Room

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present

    Thinking Unrest, Reading Time:German Idealism and the Traces of History

    (Registration is required.  See below)

    May 4th 8:30am - 6:30pm
    May 5th 8:30am - 5:30pm
    May 6th 8:30am - 2:30pm

    Alumnae Hall
    194 Meeting Street
    Crystal Room, 2nd floor

    Featuring lectures by:
    JM NIMOCKS, Brown University
    ANGELICA NUZZO, CUNY Graduate Center
    SÖNKE PARPART, Brown University
    TILOTTAMA RAJAN, University of Western Ontario
    GERHARD RICHTER, Brown University
    FRANK RUDA, University of Dundee
    ARMIN SCHNEIDER, Brown University
    AMIR ADEM, Brown University
    KYLEE BOLINGER, Brown University
    CURTIS BROWNE, Brown University
    DAVID FARRELL KRELL, Prof. Emer., De Paul University
    KRISTINA MENDICINO, Brown University
    JAN MIESZKOWSKI, Reed College
    JORDAN MULKEY, Brown University

    With Afternoon Seminar Sessions:
    May 4th: Hölderlin (facilitated by Kristina Mendicino, Jan Mieszkowski and Dominik Zechner)
    May 5th: Schelling (facilitated by David Farrell Krell)

    To register for this conference and receive seminar readings, please sign up here.

    This symposium was made possible by the the Faculty Lectureship Fund, The Cogut Center for the Humanities, and The Federal Republic of Germany through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

  •  Location: Watson Institute for International and Public AffairsRoom: Joukowsky Forum

    About the Event
    The talk will reflect on the role that opposition to anti-Semitism has played in shaping critical theory after the Holocaust, in authors such as Adorno, Horkheimer, Jean-Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt, Alain Badiou, and, most recently, Jean-Luc Nancy. My basic argument is that post-Holocaust critical theory diagnosed the fundamental evil of anti-Semitic thought not as thinking against Jews, but as thinking of Jews. In other words, what anti-anti-Semitic thought has been denounced as anti-Semitic is the figure of “the Jew” in thought. The talk will suggest that, paradoxically, the opposition to anti-Semitism generates in post-Holocaust philosophy a rejection of Jewish thought, which in some respects is more radical than previous historical forms of anti-Judaism. At work in this rejection, so will be the claim, is a problematic understanding of the relations between politics and thought—a troubling contemporary political epistemology.

    About the Speaker
    Elad Lapidot is Professor and Chair for Jewish Studies at the University of Lille, France. Holding a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Paris Sorbonne university, he has taught philosophy, Jewish thought and Talmud at the University of Bern, Switzerland, as well as the Humboldt Universität and Freie Univeristät in Berlin. His work reflects on the relation between knowledge and politics, especially in modern and contemporary cultures. Among his publications: “Jews Out of the Question. A Critique of Anti-Anti-Semitism” (Albany: SUNY Press, 2020), Hebrew translation with introduction and commentary (with R. Bar) of Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes, Vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Resling Publishing, 2020); “Heidegger and Jewish Thought. Difficult Others, edited with M. Brumlik” (London/New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018); and “Etre sans mot dire: La logiqe de ‘Sein und Zeit’” (Bucarest: Zeta Books, 2010).

    Co-Sponsored by the Center for Middle East Studies, Department of German Studies, Department of Religious Studies, French and Francophone Studies

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies and Literary Arts are pleased to present a reading, lecture and workshop by

    Poet Dagmara Kraus
    Dagmara Kraus (*1981) was born in Poland and raised there and in Germany. Her poetry and translations appear widely, including the poetry collections “kummerang” (Kookbooks, Berlin, 2012 / “gloomerang”, New York, Argos Books 2014) and “kleine grammaturgie” (Urs Engeler/roughbooks, Solothurn, 2013). She currently lives between rural France and Berlin and has recently discovered radio art.

    Tuesday, April 4th - Reading
    5:30PM
    McCormack Family Theater, 70 Brown Street
    This literary reading will be bilingual (the work will be presented in both German and English). This event is made possible by Literary Arts and German Studies.

    Wednesday, April 5th - Lecture
    Marianne Fritz‘ “Affe Gottes“ 
    5:30pm
    German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street, 102

    Friday, April 7th - Workshop
    5:30pm
    German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street, 102

    All events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies and Literary Arts are pleased to present a reading, lecture and workshop by

    Poet Dagmara Kraus
    Dagmara Kraus (*1981) was born in Poland and raised there and in Germany. Her poetry and translations appear widely, including the poetry collections “kummerang” (Kookbooks, Berlin, 2012 / “gloomerang”, New York, Argos Books 2014) and “kleine grammaturgie” (Urs Engeler/roughbooks, Solothurn, 2013). She currently lives between rural France and Berlin and has recently discovered radio art.

    Tuesday, April 4th - Reading
    5:30PM
    McCormack Family Theater, 70 Brown Street
    This literary reading will be bilingual (the work will be presented in both German and English). This event is made possible by Literary Arts and German Studies.

    Wednesday, April 5th - Lecture
    Marianne Fritz‘ “Affe Gottes“ 
    5:30pm
    German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street, 102

    Friday, April 7th - Workshop
    5:30pm
    German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street, 102

    All events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 70 Brown StreetRoom: 70 Brown

    The Department of German Studies and Literary Arts are pleased to present a reading, lecture and workshop by

    Poet Dagmara Kraus
    Dagmara Kraus (*1981) was born in Poland and raised there and in Germany. Her poetry and translations appear widely, including the poetry collections “kummerang” (Kookbooks, Berlin, 2012 / “gloomerang”, New York, Argos Books 2014) and “kleine grammaturgie” (Urs Engeler/roughbooks, Solothurn, 2013). She currently lives between rural France and Berlin and has recently discovered radio art.

    Tuesday, April 4th  - Reading
    5:30PM
    McCormack Family Theater, 70 Brown Street
    This literary reading will be bilingual (the work will be presented in both German and English). This event is made possible by Literary Arts and German Studies.

    Wednesday, April 5th - Lecture
    Marianne Fritz‘ “Affe Gottes“ 
    5:30pm
    German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street, 102

    Friday, April 7th - Workshop
    5:30pm
    German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street, 102

    All events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: Pembroke HallRoom: 202

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present a lecture with

    Alexander García Düttmann
    Universität der Künste Berlin

    War, Enemy, and Death Drive

    Tuesday, March 21st
    7:30pm

    Pembroke Hall, 172 Meeting Street, Room 202

    Free and open to the public.  Reception to follow.

  •  Location: Pembroke HallRoom: 202

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present the
    2023 Brauer Lectures Series with
    Prof. Judith Kasper (Goethe University, Frankfurt)

    “Gleaning Leftovers, or Reading and Translating at the Edge”

    Who or what are the gleaners in myth, in history, in philology, and psychoanalysis? The gleaners begin to gather once the harvest has been completed and the field is empty. The gleaners glean in the void. What is it that makes their gathering different, enabling them to find what is still left in the field? What is the (economic, epistemological, and ontological) status of the leftovers that they glean? In which space do the gleanders glean these leftovers? What temporality of gathering does the gesture of gleaning open up? And to what extent does the figure of the gleaner inform us of another way of reading philologically that goes beyond merely interpreting the whole and appropriating meaning?

    There will be four lectures in this series:
    Monday, March 6th  6:30pm
    Tuesday, March 7th 6:30pm
    Wednesday, March 8th 6:30pm
    Thursday, March 9th, 6:30pm

    All lectures will be held in Pembroke Hall 202 172 Meeting Street

    Free and open to the public

  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: petteruti

    “Negation”

    Graduate Student Conference in the Department of German Studies
    With a lecture by Paul North, Professor of German, Yale University, on Saturday, February 18th, 11:00 on the topic: “The Meaning of Negation in a Moral Universe.”

    What “no” does, is not nothing. This proposition implies that we have understood what it is to say no, that its effects are predictable, and that it is involved with “doing,” with “being,” and with “things.” It also asks us to answer the question: what is “not-no,” and what is “yes”? Negation is not only not-positing, but, depending on the thinker, it is the engine of history, the enigma of the will, the guarantor or violator of being, the weapon of oppression, the foothold of theology, the urgent task of language.

    Please join us for a series of presentations on negation’s faces in literature (J Austen, C Lispector, F Kafka, A Lorde), philosophy (Hegel, Plato, F Schelling), theology (Eckhart, John of the Cross, S Weil), and critical theory (W Benjamin, C West, V Sigusch). See the full schedule below.

    All are invited to attend. All proceedings & papers in English.

    Friday 17 February:

    – 9:30 Introductory remarks

    – 9:40 Armin Schneider (Brown), Counter-Thrust, Gegenstoß

    – 10:05 Florian Endres (Princeton), The Rhythm of Stumbling: Hegel’s Speculative Sentence

    break

    – 11:25 Allonzo Murriel Perez (Northwestern), Picturing the Philosopher: Negation and Non-Being in the Prologues of Sophist and Theaetetus

    break

    – 1:15 Jasmin S. Meier (Brown), “Negation” in Art, Linguistics, Philosophy, Audre Lorde, Volkmar Sigusch’s Critical Theory of Sexualities, and Kafka’s Wunsch, Indianer zu werden. Four Fragments in View of Its [“Negation’s”] Discourses

    – 1:40 Elizabeth Berman (Brown), The Cynicism of Repair: Between the Ends of Knowledge and the Mystical Ethics of Negation

    break

    – 3:00 Seth Thomas (Cornell), Critical Violence – The Negation of Judgement in Kafka’s In der Strafkolonie.

    – 3:25 Arne Sander (NYU), «Über die schönen stillen Wege vielen Striche.» Kafka’s double negatives.

    dispersal.

     

    Saturday 18 February:

    ­– 9:00 Introductory remarks

    – 9:10 Ethan Lussky (Brown), Gleichnis, wan

    – 9:35 Simon Horn (Brown), Nicht, Nacht

    break

    – 11:00 Paul North, The Meaning of Negation in a Moral Universe

    break

    – 2:00 Anna Kostner (Münster), “A charming, perfectly spherical zero.” The atopos Jakob von Gunten

    – 2:25 Britton Edelen (Duke), Knowing Nothingness: Fragmentography and Narrative Advocation in Persuasion

    break

    3:45 Lexi Turner (Cornell), “Sapped of Strength, Left to Wither and Fade Away”: A Treatise on Black Metal Decreativity

    – 4:10 Xita Rubert (Princeton), [Impersonality, Clarice Lispector]

    dispersal

    We are grateful for the generous support of the departments of Classics, Comparative Literature, French & Francophone Studies, History, Hispanic Studies, and the Center for Language Studies.

    Conference organized by Simon Horn, Ethan Lussky, & Jasmin S. Meier.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present a reading with
    Judith Keller

    Die Fragwürdigen / The Questionable Ones

    Judith Keller studied German language and literature in Zurich as well as literary writing at the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel and the German Literature Institute in Leipzig. She also studied German as a foreign language in Berlin and Bogotá and was editor of the literary magazine Edit. In 2014, she received the New German Fiction Award for her short story “Wo ist das letzte Haus?” (“The Last House”) which was subsequently translated into English by Katy Derbyshire and published through Readux Books. Judith Keller’s book Die Fragwürdigen (The Questionable Ones), published in 2017 by Der gesunde Menschenversand, won an award from both the City of Zurich and the Canton of Zurich. Die Fragwürdigen was also performed as a theater production and featured as an audio play for Swiss radio. In 2021, Judith Keller’s experimental novel Oder? (Or?) was published by Der gesunde Menschenversand and in 2022, the book Das ramponierte Vertrauen (The Battered Trust), which features photos by Nicole Zachmann and text by Judith Keller, was published by Vexer Verlag. The Questionable Ones will be published, in English translation by Tess Lewis, by Seagull Books in 2023. Later next year, Verlag Luchterhand will publish a new novel by Judith Keller.

    Tuesday, November 29th
    1:00pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 103
    Reception to follow

     

     

     

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present a lecture with

    Assistant Professor, Dominik Zechner
    Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

    Bones of Contention: On Bodies Broken and Unbroken (in Bachmann and Beyond)

    Can one break a leg while reading? Can language itself get injured in a textual encounter? Odd questions arise when one considers the last lines of Ingeborg Bachmann’s story “Das dreißigste Jahr.” They read: “Ich sage dir: Steh auf und geh! Es ist dir kein Knochen gebrochen. ” Who is being addressed here? Is it the protagonist who just barely survived a car accident? Is it us, as readers, who emerged from this textual experience unscathed? Or is the story’s language addressing itself at this final juncture, as though literature would need to reassure itself that its body is still intact? Starting from Bachmann, the lecture will explore these considerations through moments in Paul Celan, Wolfgang Bauer – and finally John Berryman, whose suicide raises the question whether physical and textual bodies are connected in their vulnerability along a metaphorical axis. And whether this connection renders the two bodies interchangeable.

     

    Friday, November 4th
    5:30pm
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102
    Reception to follow

  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: Petteruti Lounge

    Lesung/Reading/Discussion

    Who cares about grammar and spelling?

    With Tomer Gardi, author of Broken Germanand And Nothing Ever Ends (Eine runde Sache)- winner of the 2022 Leipzig Book Fair Prize in fiction

    2 November 2022

    4pm in Petteruti Lounge

    Readings in German/Hebrew/English, discussion in English

    Sponsored by German Studies Brown University and the German Embassy, Washington DC

    ~~~~~

    Are you allowed to write a book in a language you are not fully in command of? Turns out, yes- and you can even win a major literary award for it. Israel-born author Tomer Gardi wrote And Nothing Ever Ends in broken German and has just been awarded the 2022 Leipzig Book Fair Prize. This session takes a look at finding your voice while moving between two worlds.

    Tomer Gardi, born in 1974 in Kibbuz Dan in Galilee, studied literature in Tel Aviv and Berlin. Broken Germanis Tomer Gardi’s first novel. The first part of the novel is written in broken German, the second in Hebrew, and translated by Anne Birkenhauer to standard German. Otherwise You’ll Get Your Money Backis his second novel, published in 2019. His novel And Nothing Ever Endshas been awarded the 2022 Leipzig Book Fair Prize in fiction. He lives in Berlin. the first part of the novel is written in broken German, the second in Hebrew, translated by Anne Birkenhauer to standard German.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    “Bücherzettel”: Hermeneutical Indication and Heidegger’s Scene of Writing

    A lecture with Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies,
    Felix Christen

    Thursday, October 20th
    5:30pm

    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102
    Reception to follow

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present a lecture with Oswald Egger:  Poikilia

    THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13th
    5pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 103
    Reception to follow

    Oswald Egger, born in Lana, Italy in 1963, lives at the Raketenstation Hombroich, Germany. Since 2011 professor for Language and Form at Muthesius University of Art and Design, Kiel. After completing his studies in Literature and Philosophy, he founded the Kulturtage Lana, which he organized from 1986 to 1995. Editor of the literary magazine Der Prokurist. In 2013 he accepted the Thomas Kling teaching position for poetry at Bonn University. Writer in residence at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas (2000); Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (2001); and at Villa Massimo (2014). He has been the recipient of, among other awards, the Clemens Brentano Preis, the H.C. Artmann Preis, the Oskar Pastior Preis, the Georg-Trakl-Preis für Lyrik, and the Ernst-Jandl-Preis. Recent publications include: Die ganze Zeit (2010); Euer Lenz. Prosa (2013); Harlekinsmäntel und andere Bewandtnisse (2017); Val di Non (2017); Triumph der Farben (2019); and Entweder ich habe die Fahrt am Mississippi nur geträumt, oder ich träume jetzt (2021). An English translation of his book Nichts, das ist (2001) was published as Room of Rumor: Tunings in 2004.

    Poikilia
    Aristoteles hat in seiner Poetik die Behandlung der „Poikilia“ nicht zufällig vermieden, und auch Horaz hat gute Gründe gehabt, seine Ars Poetica mit dem folgenreichen Exempel eines monstrum ridiculum, eines Ungeheuers und Unwesens, zu eröffnen: Ein Gedicht muss ein Organismus sein, eine Einheit und ein Ganzes, so dass man davon nichts wegnehmen, hinzufügen oder in ihm selbst nichts umstellen kann, ohne dabei seine Einheit und Ganzheit zu zerstören. Der Gegensatz der Einheit scheint dabei »Vielheit« zu sein, so wie als Gegensatz der Einfachheit die Vielfältigkeit oder Buntheit tritt: Dies aber hat Goethe im Sinn gehabt, als er Jean Pauls Poetik mit einem „Vergleichen“ verglich: Er „blickt, nach eigentlichst orientalischer Weise, munter und kühn in seiner Welt umher, erschafft die seltsamsten Bezüge, verknüpft das Unverträgliche, jedoch dergestalt, daß ein geheimer ethischer Faden sich mitschlinge, wodurch das Ganze zu einer gewissen Einheit geleitet wird“. Das Wort poikilos vermittelt jetzt nicht nur die allgemeine Idee der Variation. Es vermittelt auch die spezifische Idee eines statischen oder bewegten Bildes: Verwandt mit dem lateinischen Wort pictura und damit mit der berühmten Formulierung in Horaz’ Ars Poetica: ut pictura poesis: „Jeder Charakter, er sei so chamäleontisch und buntfarbig zusammengemalt, als man will, muß eine Grundfarbe als die Einheit zeigen, welche alles beseelend verknüpft; ein leibnizisches vinculum substantiale, das die Monaden mit Gewalt zusammenhält. Um diesen hüpfenden Punkt legen sich die übrigen geistigen Kräfte als Glieder und Nahrung an.“ (Jean Paul) – Wort für Wort ist nach und nach alles in allem ein Bild.

    Poikilia

     

    Aristoteles hat in seiner Poetik die Behandlung der „Poikilia“ nicht zufällig vermieden, und auch Horaz hat gute Gründe gehabt, seine Ars Poetica mit dem folgenreichen Exempel eines monstrum ridiculum, eines Ungeheuers und Unwesens, zu eröffnen: Ein Gedicht muss ein Organismus sein, eine Einheit und ein Ganzes, so dass man davon nichts wegnehmen, hinzufügen oder in ihm selbst nichts umstellen kann, ohne dabei seine Einheit und Ganzheit zu zerstören. Der Gegensatz der Einheit scheint dabei »Vielheit« zu sein, so wie als Gegensatz der Einfachheit die Vielfältigkeit oder Buntheit tritt: Dies aber hat Goethe im Sinn gehabt, als er Jean Pauls Poetik mit einem „Vergleichen“ verglich: Er „blickt, nach eigentlichst orientalischer Weise, munter und kühn in seiner Welt umher, erschafft die seltsamsten Bezüge, verknüpft das Unverträgliche, jedoch dergestalt, daß ein geheimer ethischer Faden sich mitschlinge, wodurch das Ganze zu einer gewissen Einheit geleitet wird“. Das Wort poikilos vermittelt jetzt nicht nur die allgemeine Idee der Variation. Es vermittelt auch die spezifische Idee eines statischen oder bewegten Bildes: Verwandt mit dem lateinischen Wort pictura und damit mit der berühmten Formulierung in Horaz’ Ars Poetica: ut pictura poesis: „Jeder Charakter, er sei so chamäleontisch und buntfarbig zusammengemalt, als man will, muß eine Grundfarbe als die Einheit zeigen, welche alles beseelend verknüpft; ein leibnizisches vinculum substantiale, das die Monaden mit Gewalt zusammenhält. Um diesen hüpfenden Punkt legen sich die übrigen geistigen Kräfte als Glieder und Nahrung an.“ (Jean Paul) – Wort für Wort ist nach und nach alles in allem ein Bild.

  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: Petteruti Lounge

    Are you wondering how a monograph differs from a dissertation? Do you have questions about how to choose a publisher and craft a convincing book proposal? Please join us for this special event with Dr. Myrto Aspioti, an acquisitions editor from De Gruyter, who will present on the process of developing a strong book proposal, selecting an appropriate publication venue, and turning your dissertation into a book.

    This workshop will be a 90-minute hybrid session, followed by lunch, allowing plenty of time for you to ask questions about the publishing process. All young scholars in the humanities who want to learn more about publishing a first book are welcome. Whether you plan on attending in person or virtually, please RSVP here   A Zoom invite will be sent to you if you plan to attend virtually.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present a lecture by

    Distinguished Max Kade Visiting Professor Nils Plath (Universität Erfurt)

    Time Build: In and Out of Ruins

    The ruin is generally considered as a building that shows signs of temporal decay or destruction. This “highly significant fragment” (Walter Benjamin), a negative sign of a decayed past as well as an allegorical sign of transience, is far more than a continuity-providing historical sign that is important for memory. The presence of past and future in ruins, the simultaneous presence and absence of incompatible times made present in them, makes them signatures of a paradoxical temporality. At the same time, ruins as disparate units of fragments embody the impossibility of any promise of totalizability. If one considers them as a means of expression in the aesthetic staging of a consciousness of upheaval, then one can recognize in the ruin a temporal as well as representational-reflexive figure of the first rank. This lecture will look at the literal depictions of ruins in writings of J. W. Goethe, B. Brecht, H. E. Nossack et al..

    Monday, April 11th
    4:30pm
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

  •  Location: Cogut Institute, Pembroke HallRoom: 305

    How might the study of Romanticism benefit from the renewed interest in philological practices and reflections? And conversely: what do scholars of Romanticism bring to the table in the broader debates around philology and the humanities?

    Our conference brings together Brown faculty and leading international scholars working on the relationship between philology, literature, and philosophy in the Romantic period and its reception. 

    The event will take place as a hybrid conference. We invite you to join us either in person or on Zoom. 

    For virtual attendance, please register at https://forms.gle/sKki8zvRGRYoUtdA6. No registration required for in-person attendance. 

    Keynote Lecture by Samuel Weber (Northwestern University) over Zoom

    FRIDAY, MARCH 11th

    9:00 – 9:30:  Breakfast, Welcome Address by Marc Redfield

    9:30 – 11:30
    Susan Bernstein (Brown), “Reading, Philology (Schlegel, Hamacher, de Man)”
    Christian Benne (U. of Copenhagen), “Lessing/Schlegel: On the Politics of Philology”

    11:30 – 12:45: Lunch Break

    12:45 – 2:45
    Christiane Frey (JHU/RWTH Aachen), “Philological Ellipses: Friedrich Schlegel, Rahel Varnhagen”
    Maud Meyzaud (ZfL, Berlin), “Chanting Letters. Hardenberg’s Theory of Prose”

    3:00 – 5:00
    Brian McGrath (Clemson U.), “Hedging”
    Felix Christen (Queen Mary U. of London), “Diaphilology: Poetry, Dialogue, and the Romantic Grounds of Language in Friedrich Schlegel and Dorothea Veit”

    5:15 – 6:15
    Zachary Sng (Brown) & William Keach (Brown), “Love Language: On Schlegel and Shelley”

    7:00 Conference Dinner

    SATURDAY, MARCH 12th

    8:30 - 9:00 Breakfast

    9:00 – 11:00
    Daniel Hoffman-Schwartz (Princeton U.), “Friedrich Gentz’s Un-Empfindlichkeit: Philology, Translation, Critique”
    David Martyn (Macalester College), “Grimm’s Metalangual Philology”

    11:00 – 12:30 Samuel Weber, “Philological Enjoyment: zu gleich” 

    12:30 – 1:45 Lunch Break

    1:45 – 3:45
    Kristina Mendicino (Brown), “To Wit: Jean Paul’s Novel Philology”
    Kevin McLaughlin (Brown), “Philological Reflection: Benjamin on Schlegel and Hölderlin”

     

    Co-organizing Committee

    Kristina Mendicino (German Studies), Marc Redfield (English, Comparative Literature), Zachary Sng (German Studies, Comparative Literature)

    Register for Zoom link
  • The Political Concepts Initiative operates under the assumption that our era needs a revised political lexicon to help us better understand the world in which we live and act, and that the humanities can and should contribute to such a revision. This is all the more urgent today, given the dramatic and traumatic events of the past two years and their repercussions for all aspects of our lives, from the intimacy of our homes to our shared workplaces, countries, and planet.

    The 2022 conference featured Brown and RISD scholars from a variety of fields working to revise, deconstruct, or create concepts in the effort to uncover or recover their political import. These concepts responded to recent historical experience and were meant to meet the challenges of an ominously uncertain future. What can this period teach us about our society and institutions, “us,” “them,” the planet, the historical present we share, and the future of this sharing?

    The event, hosted by the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, was organized by Tim Bewes, Sharon Krause, and Adi Ophir.

    Sessions

    Session 4

    Juliet Hooker, Political Science • “Loss” (video)
    Yannis Hamilakis, Archaeology and the Ancient World • “Remains” (video)

    Moderator: Rolland Murray, English

    Session 5

    Masako Fidler, Slavic Studies • “Impoverished morphemes” (video)
    Thomas Schestag, German Studies • “Term” (video)

    Moderator: Peter Szendy, Comparative Literature

    Session 6

    Holly Case, History • “Struggle” (video unavailable)
    Leon Hilton, Theatre Arts and Performance Studies • “Destituence” (video)

    Moderator: Tim Bewes, English

    YouTube playlist and abstracts
  • The Political Concepts Initiative operates under the assumption that our era needs a revised political lexicon to help us better understand the world in which we live and act, and that the humanities can and should contribute to such a revision. This is all the more urgent today, given the dramatic and traumatic events of the past two years and their repercussions for all aspects of our lives, from the intimacy of our homes to our shared workplaces, countries, and planet.

    The 2022 conference featured Brown and RISD scholars from a variety of fields working to revise, deconstruct, or create concepts in the effort to uncover or recover their political import. These concepts responded to recent historical experience and were meant to meet the challenges of an ominously uncertain future. What can this period teach us about our society and institutions, “us,” “them,” the planet, the historical present we share, and the future of this sharing?

    The event, hosted by the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, was organized by Tim Bewes, Sharon Krause, and Adi Ophir.

    Sessions

    Session 1

    Zachary Sng, German Studies • “Counting” (video)
    David Frank, Philosophy • “Cooperation” (video)

    Moderator: Amanda Anderson, Cogut Institute

    Session 2

    Lynne Joyrich, Modern Culture and Media • “Unthinkable” (video)
    Vazira Zamindar, History • “Civilian” (video)

    Moderator: Sharon Krause, Political Science

    Session 3

    Jinying Li, Modern Culture and Media • “Wall” (video)
    Avishek Ganguly, Literary Arts and Studies, RISD • “Repair” (video)

    Moderator: Adi Ophir, Cogut Institute

    YouTube playlist and abstracts
  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center

    Please join Brown University either virtually or in-person as language scholars, educators, students and translators discuss and question how events related to race, racial justice and social justice have become transnational and impact languages, literatures, and cultures that we study, teach, research and learn. The conference program includes engaging sessions on curriculum design and critical pedagogies, activism, transnational mobilities, racial politics, the Global South and several on translation. Read more on the conference website.

    Thursday, February 24: 2:00pm - 7:15pm. Keynote Address at 5:00pm.

    Friday, February 25: 9:00am - 7:15pm

    Access conference website here
  •  Location: Virtual
    Holding Off….On Interpretation
    Friday, December 10th & Saturday, December 11th
    (see schedule below)
    “Holding off…on Interpretation” is a two-day virtual symposium designed to foster collaboration concerning the question of understanding among thinkers from diverse ranks of the academy. Before any attempt to understand another text, voice, language, or gesture—or simply: before any attempt to understand another, who may also be “oneself” —there are more initial questions, which no project of interpretation could circumvent: namely, what “understanding” could mean in each singular context, and what relation to alterity will have been supposed with the very aim to understand. These persistent questions, especially in an age of unprecedented dissemination through digital technologies, call for halting once more to pose the question of understanding as such, from its early articulations in Greco-Roman antiquity through to more recent critical interventions, with the slowness and restraint that Friedrich Nietzsche had invoked when he wrote of philology as “ephexisin interpretation.”
    FEATURING:
    Isabelle Alfandary (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)
    Michèle Cohen-Halimi (Université Paris 8)
    Andrea Krauss (NYU)
    Brown University faculty and graduate students:
    Kristina Mendicino
    Marc Redfield
    Gerhard Richter
    Zachary Sng
    Sneha Chowdhury
    Simon Horn
    Ethan Lussky

     

    SCHEDULE:
    December 10th

    8am–8:05am: Welcoming Remarks

    Panel 1
    8:05am–11:20am (EST)

    8:05am–9:05am: Gerhard Richter (Brown University), “A World of Gray”

    9:05 am–10:05am: Kristina Mendicino (Brown University), “Out of Use: Reading in Heidegger and Weil”

    10:05am–10:15am: Break

    10:20am–11:20am: Sneha Chowdhury (Brown University), “‘Alles doppelt’: Doubling down on Interpretation with Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger”

    Panel 2
    12pm–2:10pm (EST)

    12:00pm–1:00pm: Marc Redfield (Brown University), “Então adoro: Reading after Lispector”

    1:00pm–1:10pm: Break

    1:10pm–2:10pm: Zachary Sng (Brown University): “The Practice of Reading: Stifter’s Bunte Steine


    December 11th
    Panel 3

    8am–11:15am (EST)

    8:00am–9:00am: Michèle Cohen-Halimi (Université Paris 8), “I don’t know my way about / Ich kenne mich nicht aus”

    9:00am–10:00am: Simon Horn (Brown University), “Protocols for Wonderstanding”

    10:00am–10:15am: Break

    10:15am–11:15am, Ethan Lussky (Brown University), “Implied Explication”

    Panel 4
    12pm–2:10pm (EST)

    12:00pm–1:00pm: Andrea Krauss (NYU), “Holding on—to Understanding: Hannah Arendt”

    1:00pm–1:10pm: Break

    1:10pm–2:10pm: Isabelle Alfandary (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), “Interpreting Hysteria in Studies on Hysteria by Breuer and Freud”


    Join Zoom Meeting
    Meeting ID: 938 8517 4027
    Learn More
  •  Location: Virtual
    Holding Off….On Interpretation
    Friday, December 10th & Saturday, December 11th
    (see schedule below)
    “Holding off…on Interpretation” is a two-day virtual symposium designed to foster collaboration concerning the question of understanding among thinkers from diverse ranks of the academy. Before any attempt to understand another text, voice, language, or gesture—or simply: before any attempt to understand another, who may also be “oneself” —there are more initial questions, which no project of interpretation could circumvent: namely, what “understanding” could mean in each singular context, and what relation to alterity will have been supposed with the very aim to understand. These persistent questions, especially in an age of unprecedented dissemination through digital technologies, call for halting once more to pose the question of understanding as such, from its early articulations in Greco-Roman antiquity through to more recent critical interventions, with the slowness and restraint that Friedrich Nietzsche had invoked when he wrote of philology as “ephexisin interpretation.”
    FEATURING:
    Isabelle Alfandary (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)
    Michèle Cohen-Halimi (Université Paris 8)
    Andrea Krauss (NYU)
    Brown University faculty and graduate students:
    Kristina Mendicino
    Marc Redfield
    Gerhard Richter
    Zachary Sng
    Sneha Chowdhury
    Simon Horn
    Ethan Lussky   

     

    SCHEDULE:
    December 10th

    8am–8:05am: Welcoming Remarks

    Panel 1
    8:05am–11:20am (EST)

    8:05am–9:05am: Gerhard Richter (Brown University), “A World of Gray”

    9:05 am–10:05am: Kristina Mendicino (Brown University), “Out of Use: Reading in Heidegger and Weil”

    10:05am–10:15am: Break

    10:20am–11:20am: Sneha Chowdhury (Brown University), “‘Alles doppelt’: Doubling down on Interpretation with Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger”

    Panel 2
    12pm–2:10pm (EST)

    12:00pm–1:00pm: Marc Redfield (Brown University), “Então adoro: Reading after Lispector”

    1:00pm–1:10pm: Break

    1:10pm–2:10pm: Zachary Sng (Brown University): “The Practice of Reading: Stifter’s Bunte Steine


    December 11th
    Panel 3

    8am–11:15am (EST)

    8:00am–9:00am: Michèle Cohen-Halimi (Université Paris 8), “I don’t know my way about / Ich kenne mich nicht aus”

    9:00am–10:00am: Simon Horn (Brown University), “Protocols for Wonderstanding”

    10:00am–10:15am: Break

    10:15am–11:15am, Ethan Lussky (Brown University), “Implied Explication”

    Panel 4
    12pm–2:10pm (EST)

    12:00pm–1:00pm: Andrea Krauss (NYU), “Holding on—to Understanding: Hannah Arendt”

    1:00pm–1:10pm: Break

    1:10pm–2:10pm: Isabelle Alfandary (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), “Interpreting Hysteria in Studies on Hysteria by Breuer and Freud”


    Join Zoom Meeting
    Meeting ID: 938 8517 4027

     

    Learn More
  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: Petteruti Lounge

    The Brown University Department of German Studies Department Undergraduate Group invites you to a lecture by Dr. Natasha Kelly, Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Rhode Island:

    At the End of “Dasein”
    An Afro-German Voyage into the Future
    by Dr. Natasha A. Kelly
    Wednesday, December 1, 2021 | 7 PM | Petteruti Lounge
    Whilst it has become common practice for US-American Afrofuturists to use projections of the future as a way to balance the existing power structures, Black Germans are still busy re-examining life in their homeland and rewriting the narratives of past generations. Slowly coming to terms with their lost or stolen histories, they courageously challenge the dominant representation and knowledge systems of German society and hesitantly leave the world behind them. As cultural critic Mark Dery proposes, in this lecture I will present how a community whose past has deliberately been erased, and whose presence is subsequently absent, can imagine a possible future.
    This event is sponsored by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Washington DC as part of the 2021 “Time to Act” Campus Weeks.
  •  Location: Metcalf Research BuildingRoom: Auditorium

    Film Screening:

    UNDINE - Undine works as a historian lecturing on Berlin’s urban development. But when the man she loves leaves her, the ancient myth catches up with her. Undine has to kill the man who betrays her and return to the water.

    Wednesday, November 7
    7pm
    Metcalf Research Building Auditorium

     

    Sponsored by the German Studies Department and the Center for Language Studies with support from the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Washington

  •  Location: Virtual


    Lecture by Kira Thurman

    Thursday Nov 11th, 4pm (over Zoom)

    Singing like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms

    How have constructs of Blackness and whiteness been created, maintained, or challenged via classical music? In this talk, Kira Thurman explores the long history of Black musicians from the United States and beyond who performed in Germany and Austria in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Performing the music of Schubert, Brahms, and other German composers, Black classical musicians challenged audiences’ expectations of what a black performer looked and sounded like in the Jazz Age. Audiences labeled musicians such as Marian Anderson and Roland Hayes “negroes with white souls,” and marveled at their musical mastery. If the listener closed his or her eyes and listened, these African American musicians, many remarked, “sounded like Germans.” How had they managed to accomplish this feat? By exploring the German reception of Black musicians, Thurman’s talk finds a new way to answer the question, “Can someone be Black and German?” by instead asking another: “What has it meant to be Black and to perform German music?”

    Please e-mail German_Studies@Brown.edu to receive a Zoom link. 

    ———————————
    Kira Thurman is an assistant professor of History and German Studies at the University of Michigan. A winner of the Berlin Prize among other awards and fellowships, she is the author of several award-winning articles on music, the Black diaspora, and German-speaking Europe. Her book, Singing like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, just appeared with Cornell University Press (Fall 2021). New Yorker music critic Alex Ross praised it as “one of the most original and revelatory books to have been written about classical-music history in many years…An instant classic that deserves the widest possible audience.”

  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: The Underground

    Quizabend

    Test your knowledge of all things German and win prizes!

    Thursday, November 4
    7pm
    The Underground

    Sponsored by the German Studies Department with support from the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Washington

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: Side yard

    Join us for our first in-person Kaffeestunde of the year! 

    Come practice your German in person with your peers and faculty.  The event will take place in the side yard of the German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street.

    Please use Google link to sign up.  https://forms.gle/Rh6sqE3Q2sevicXW8

    Hope to see you there!

    Learn More
  • Please join us Wednesday, April 7th at 3pm Eastern for the final session in our Spring Colloquium series, featuring Stephanie Galasso (Ph.D. 2018).

    Stephanie Galasso is Schröder Research Associate in German at Cambridge University. She is currently at work on a book in which she documents the colonialist knowledge projects that underlie German genre theory of the long nineteenth century. Her postdoctoral research is inspired by the convergence of poetry and social justice activism in the work of contemporary artists in Germany as well as the US and UK.

    Drawing on her current work in the research group on Cultural Production and Social Justice at Cambridge University, Dr. Galasso will present a paper with the title “Sharon Dodua Otoo’s Synchronicity: Destabilizing Temporal Hierarchies,” and there will be a Q & A session following the paper.

    Zoom link:

    https://brown.zoom.us/j/91639950360?pwd=bjdHRU1IdG9tamg1dHVVNDU4RkFrQT09

  • The departments of Comparative Literature and German Studies are pleased to host a talk by Kevin McLaughlin titled “Philology of Life: Walter Benjamin on Goethe,” which will draw on material from his forthcoming book on Benjamin’s literary criticism.

    Kevin McLaughlin is the George Hazard Crooker University Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and German Studies at Brown and is the author of three books, Writing in Parts: Imitation and Exchange in 19th-Century Literature (Stanford UP, 1995); Paperwork: Literature and Mass Mediacy in the Age of Paper (U of Penn P, 2005); and Poetic Force: Poetry after Kant (Stanford UP, 2014). McLaughlin is also the co-translator with Howard Eiland of Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project (Harvard UP, 1999). He has been the Dean of the Faculty at Brown University since 2011. 

    Thursday March 25
    4pm

    Zoom link to join:  https://brown.zoom.us/j/96757930577

  •  Location: Virtual

    The Department of German Studies Departmental Undergraduate Group is pleased to present

    A lecture with Stefanie Heine, Universität Zürich

    PROSE BREATHING:  MUSIL’S ATEMZÜGE

    March 18th, 1pm EST

    Via Zoom

    Join Zoom Meeting
    Meeting ID: 912 9985 0852
  • As a follow-up to the Colloquium Session with Jason Groves on his book, The Geological Unconscious, Groves and Zachary Sng will lead a seminar-format discussion of Ludwig Tieck’s “Der Runenberg” (available here in English or in German).

    This event is part of the graduate seminar GRMN 2662D, Decentering German Studies (taught by Z. Sng), but all are welcome. 

  • GERMAN STUDIES COLLOQUIUM SERIES, SPRING 2021

    Please join us for a Zoom session with Jason Groves (Department of Germanics, U. of Washington) to discuss material from his new book, The Geological Unconscious: German Literature and the Mineral Imaginary (Fordham UP, 2020). 

    To get a copy of pre-circulated readings, please e-mail German_Studies@Brown.edu

  • GERMAN STUDIES COLLOQUIUM SERIES, SPRING 2021

    Please join us for a session with Rebecca Comay (Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto). We will be discussing her text, “Deadlines.”

    This session is taking place as part of the seminar HMAN 2401C: Inscribing the Event: Poetics and Politics of the Date (Gerhard Richter & Marc Redfield), but all are welcome. 

    To join Zoom link https://brown.zoom.us/j/93275199789

  • The German Studies Department is pleased to present

    A discussion about Germany Today, with Jagoda Marinić , Author , Journalist and Director of Heidelberg’s Intercultural Center

    In English and German

    Monday, November 30, 10 am EST

    Please email german_studies@brown.edu for the zoom link

    Sponsored by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Washington

  • German Studies Colloquium Series

    Colloquium #1:  “LANGUAGE PANGS” with Ilit Ferber

    October 29th, 1:30pm EST

    Join via https://brown.zoom.us/j/96040731187

    Please join us for this colloquium session, which Prof. Ferber will lead on the basis of her latest book, with a focus upon the attached reading selections.

    Ilit Ferber is Professor of Philosophy at Tel-Aviv University. Her research focuses on the philosophy of emotions, especially melancholy, suffering and pain, from the perspective of language. Ilit has published articles on Leibniz, Herder, Freud, Benjamin, Heidegger, Scholem and Améry. She has also co-edited a book on the role of moods in philosophy, and two books, in English and Hebrew, on lament in Gershom Scholem’s thought. Her book, Philosophy and Melancholy: Benjamin’s Early Reflections on Theater and Language, explores the role of melancholy in Benjamin’s early writings and discusses the relationship between Benjamin, Freud and Leibniz. Her new book, Language Pangs: On Pain and the Origin of Language, explores the role of pain in Herder’s theory of the origin of language, Heidegger’s seminar about Herder, and Sophocles’ Philoctetes. Ilit is currently working on two parallel projects, concerning (1) Jean Améry’s philosophy of temporality and (2) the role of acoustics in Walter Benjamin’s work.

  • The German Studies Department is pleased to present
    Q&A in German, with Director Jakob Preuss

    In ALS PAUL ÜBER DAS MEER KAM – Tagebuch einer Begegnung begleitet Regisseur Jakob Preuss den Weg des Kameruners Paul Nkamani von einem improvisierten Flüchtlingscamp in Marokko nach Deutschland. Der Film erzählt eine ganz persönliche Migrationsgeschichte und eine ungewöhnliche Freundschaft zwischen Regisseur und Protagonist im politisch brisanten Umfeld der europäischen Migrationsdebatte.

    After being held for two months in a deportation center, Paul meets the documentary filmmaker from Berlin at a shelter for migrants in Southern Spain. Because of the economic crisis in southern Europe, Paul decides to continue on to Germany, the former colonizing power in Cameroon and the country of his dreams. When Paul decides to continue on to Germany, Jakob has to make a choice: will he become an active part of Paul’s pursuit of a better life or remain a detached documentary filmmaker? (German/French with English subtitles)

    Q&A with Director in German, Wednesday, October 28, 1pm

    https://brown.zoom.us/j/95274098350?pwd=aUFHU0pCdnlRa1ZQYzNreUJETlIyUT09

     

    Film available at https://watch.eventive.org/baibrownu from 10/21-10/28

    (see separate Events entry or German Studies website for more details)

     

    Sponsored by Brown Arts Initiative and German Consulate in Boston

  • The German Studies Department is pleased to present

    Q&A in English, with the Director, Jakob Preuss

     

    “When Paul came over the Sea – Journal of an Encounter“ (2017) tells the story of Paul Nkamani, a migrant from Cameroon, and his journey to Germany within the context of the ongoing European debates on migration. Paul has made his way from his home across the Sahara to the Moroccan coast where he lives with others in a makeshift village waiting for the right moment to flee to Spain. This is where he meets Jakob, a filmmaker from Berlin, who is filming along Europe’s borders. Paul manages to cross the Mediterranean in an inflatable boat. He survives - but half of his companions die on this tragic 50-hour odyssey. After being held for two months in a deportation center, Paul meets Jakob again at a shelter for migrants in Southern Spain. Because of the economic crisis in southern Europe, Paul decides to continue on to Germany, the former colonizing power in Cameroon and the country of his dreams. When Paul decides to continue on to Germany, Jakob has to make a choice: will he become an active part of Paul’s pursuit of a better life or remain a detached documentary filmmaker? (German/French with English subtitles.

     

    Q&A with Director in English, Tuesday, October 27, 3pm

    https://brown.zoom.us/j/96041709641?pwd=NTk2RGZFUUF2WTFDV29GYkZXM0NEUT09

     

    Film available at https://watch.eventive.org/baibrownu from 10/21-10/28

    (see separate Events entry or German Studies website for more details)

     

    Sponsored by Brown Arts Initiative and German Consulate in Boston

  • German Studies presents
    Jonathan Fine
    Thursday, October 22nd
    1pm
    via Zoom https://brown.zoom.us/j/93563205903

    Jonathan David Maclachlan Fine is Head (Museumsleiter) of the Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, a post he has held since January 2020.

    Join us for a discussion of the Humboldt Forum and Germany’s belated reckoning with its past a a colonial power.


  • The German Studies Department presents

    A film screening of
    When Paul Came over the Sea/ Als Paul über das Meer kam (2017)
    by Documentary Filmmaker Jakob Preuss

    “When Paul came over the Sea – Journal of an Encounter“ (2017) tells the story of Paul Nkamani, a migrant from Cameroon, and his journey to Germany within the context of the ongoing European debates on migration. Paul has made his way from his home across the Sahara to the Moroccan coast where he lives with others in a makeshift village waiting for the right moment to flee to Spain. This is where he meets Jakob, a filmmaker from Berlin, who is filming along Europe’s borders. Paul manages to cross the Mediterranean in an inflatable boat. He survives - but half of his companions die on this tragic 50-hour odyssey. After being held for two months in a deportation center, Paul meets Jakob again at a shelter for migrants in Southern Spain. Because of the economic crisis in southern Europe, Paul decides to continue on to Germany, the former colonizing power in Cameroon and the country of his dreams. When Paul decides to continue on to Germany, Jakob has to make a choice: will he become an active part of Paul’s pursuit of a better life or remain a detached documentary filmmaker? (German/French with English subtitles)

    Sponsored by Brown Arts Initiative and German Consulate in Boston.

     

    Film available at https://watch.eventive.org/baibrownu from 10/21-10/28.

     

    Q&A with Director in English, Tuesday, October 27, 3pm
     (see separate Events entry for more details)

     

    Q&A with Director in German, Wednesday, October 28, 1pm
    (see separate Events entry for more details)

     

    Sponsored by the Brown Arts Initiative and the Boston Consulate

  • Visualizing the Holocaust

    Thursday, October 15th
    1pm ET

    The Brown European History Workshop (BEHW) welcomes
    Anne Kelly Knowles
    McBride Professor of History
    The University of Maine

    All are welcome.  To register and get a link, email
    browneuropeanhistoryworkshop@gmail.com

  •  Location: Via Zoom

    Join members of the German Studies department for a virtual open house!

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    Lecture:  Dirk Oschmann, University of Leipzig
    Wednesday, April 15th
    5:30pm
    German Studies
    190 Hope Street, 102

    Free and open to the public.

     

    More details to follow soon.

  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: Petteruti Lounge

    German Studies Graduate Student Conference:
    M E D I A T I O N S ⇌ M E D I T A T I O N S

    Friday, April 10th      1pm-6pm
    Saturday, April 11th  9am-6pm
    Sunday, April 12th    9am-6pm

    All sessions to be held in Petteruti Lounge
    Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center
    75 Waterman Street

  •  Location: Alumnae HallRoom: Crystal Room

    Brauer Lecture and Seminar Series with Samuel Weber, Northwestern University

    Lecture:
    Monday, March 16th 5:30pm
    RI Hall 108
    60 George Street

    Seminar:
    Tuesday, March 17th 12:30pm
    Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center
    Crystal Room/Alumnae Hall
    194 Meeting Street

    Free and open to the public.

    Please contact wendy_perelman@brown.edu by Monday, March 9th to pre-register and to obtain texts for the 3/17 lunch seminar.

  •  Location: RI HallRoom: 108

    Brauer Lecture and Seminar Series with Samuel Weber, Northwestern University

    Lecture:
    Monday, March 16th 5:30pm
    RI Hall 108
    60 George Street

    Seminar:
    Tuesday, March 17th 12:30pm
    Crystal Room/Alumnae Hall
    194 Meeting Street

    Free and open to the public.

    Please contact wendy_perelman@brown.edu by Monday, March 9th to pre-register and to obtain texts for the 3/17 lunch seminar.

  •  Location: Pembroke HallRoom: 305

    Romantic Philologies
    March 13-14th
    9am-5pm
    Pembroke Hall 305

    Keynote address:  “On the Purity of the Word”
                                    Samuel Weber, Northwestern University

    Speakers:
    Christian Benne, University of Copenhagen
    Susan Bernstein, Brown University
    Christiane Frey, Humboldt University Berlin
    Daniel Hoffman-Schwartz, Princeton University
    WIlliam Keach, Brown University
    Anja Lemke, University of Cologne
    David Martyn, Macalester College
    Brian McGrath, Clemson University
    Kevin McLaughlin, Brown University
    Maud Meyzaud, University of Bochum
    Kristina Mendicino, Brown University

    [Complete Conference Program]

    Sponsored by Comparative Literature, German Studies, The Cogut Institute for the Humanities, and the Brown Romanticism Seminar

  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: Petteruti 205, Kasper Multipurpose 040

    Translation Across Disciplines highlights cross-disciplinary interest in the field of translation and the humanities. The conference is a collaborative event between departments and centers whose research and work and coursework is intricately tied to language.

    Please join us as we bring together scholars and practitioners from various disciplines from Brown and from different parts of the world to learn about and from each other’s work. Panelists and presenters will investigate the various ways by which linguistic exchange occurs in society and across societies. Sessions in the form of discussions or presentations will focus on literary translation, professional translation, experimental translation, the pedagogy of translation and the politics of interpreting.

    Invited guests include: Ann Goldstein, Qussay Al-Attabi, Sophie Collins, Katherine Hedeen, Jen Hofer, Moira Inghilleri,  Nikolas Kakkoufa, Madhu Kaza,  John Keene, Rajiv Mohabir, Sophie Seita, Stephanie van Reigersberg

    Participants from Brown include: John Cayley, Emily Drumsta, Kate Goldman, Zhuqing Li, Kevin McLaughlin, Ourida Mostefai, Sawako Nakayasu, Samuel Perry, Stephanie Ravillon, Massimo Riva, Nidia Schumacher, Zachary Sng, Jane Sokolosky, Cole Swensen, Esther Whitfield; Graduate Students: Chloe Hill, Stine An, Baoli Yang, Kendall Morris and select undergraduates

    Please access the conference website here and register here.

    Translation Conference

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 203

    CHARLES DE ROCHE
    Universität Zürich
    Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies, Brown University

    On Nancy, Hölderlin, the Fragmentary and the One

    Wednesday, February 26th
    5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 203

    Free and open to the public. Reception to follow.

  •  Location: Pembroke HallRoom: 305

    “Critical Intimacy and the Uncoercive Gaze:  How Do We Relate to our Objects of Study in the Humanities?”

    A discussion featuring Gerhard Richter’s new book, Thinking with Adorno: The Uncoercive Gaze (Fordham University Press, 2019)

    Tuesday, November 12
    12:00 noon – 1:30 p.m.
    Pembroke Hall, Room 305
    172 Meeting Street
    Lunch will be served

    This book presentation and discussion will center on the question of how, in the humanities, we relate to our objects of study—how we “gaze” at them. Gerhard Richter’s new book argues that the work of Theodor W. Adorno is best understood through the lens of his highly suggestive—yet often overlooked—concept of the “uncoercive gaze,” an innovative way of relating to the object of one’s analysis that interweaves critical intimacy and analytic vigilance.

    Featuring:

    Jacques Lezra, Chair, Department of Hispanic Studies, University of California, Riverside; Editor, “IDIOM” book series, Fordham University Press

    Kristina Mendicino, Brown University

    Marc Redfield, Chair, Department of Comparative Literature, Brown University

    Gerhard Richter, Brown University

    Dominik Zechner, Pembroke Center & Rutgers University

    For those wishing to read the Introduction and Chapter 1 ahead of time, please e-mail Wendy Perelman <wendy_perelman@brown.edu> to request a PDF file. (It is not necessary to have read the text in advance to attend the luncheon and discussion.)

    Hosted by the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of German Studies.

    Free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture with

    JÖRG KREIENBROCK, Northwestern University

    “The Idea of the Sonnet”

    Friday, November 8th
    5:30pm
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public.

    Jörg Kreienbrock is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies. He received his Ph.D. in 2005 from the Department of German at New York University with a dissertation thesis examining representations of the small and minute in the prose works of Robert Walser. From 2005 to 2006 he held a position as Visiting Assistant Professor of German Studies at Emory University.

  •  Location: List Art BuildingRoom: 120

    The Department of German Studies, in conjunction with the History of Art and Architecture and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany are pleased to present

    Magdalena Droste, Brandenburg Technische Universität

    We’re not building churches and villas for them.”  Mies van der Rohe and the Red Bauhaus:  Bauhaus Politics and Approaches to Design, 1930–1933

    Thursday, November 7th
    4pm
    LIST120, 44 College Street

    Free and open to the public

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    Monday, November 4th
    2:00pm
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 103

    Join us for a conversation with author, Stephen Kinzer.  From 1990 to 1996, Stephen Kinzer was the New York Time Bureau in Chief in Germany., first in Bonn and then in Berlin, where he was present at the unification ceremony at the Brandenburg Gate in 1990.  As art of the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, he will talk and tell tales of the Wende and post-Communist Europe.  His most recent book, Poisoner in Chief, has been called a ‘Tarantino movie yet to be made.’  The talk will be held in German.  Refreshments will be provided.

    Sponsored by the German Studies Department and the Federal Republic of Germany

  •  Location: Pembroke HallRoom: 202

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture with

    Alexander Garcìa Düttmann, Universität der Künste, Berlin

    Art and Politics or Why Opera is a Bit Much

    Tuesday, October 29th
    5:30pm
    Pembroke Hall, 202
    172 Meeting Street

    Free and open to the public.

    Alexander García Düttmann, an internationally reknowned scholar, writer, and critic, is Professor of Philosophy and the Theory of Art at the University of the Arts in Berlin, Germany. He also has taught at the University of Essex (UK), Monash Unversity (Australia), New York University, Middlesex University, Goldsmiths College (London, UK), and the Royal College of Art. Among his most recent books are Participation: Awareness of Semblance (2011); Naïve Art: An Essay on Happiness (2012); What Does Art Know? For an Aesthetics of Resistance (2015); What Is Contemporary Art? On Political Ideology (2017); and Love Machine: The Origin of the Work of Art (2018). He also is the editor of the French edition of Jacques Derrida’s Theory and Practice, a previously unpublished seminar by Derrida on Marx (2017).

  •  Location: 85 Waterman Street (BERT)Room: 130

    The German Studies Department in conjunction with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany are pleased to present

    A Reading with Olga Grjasnowa, Author, Berlin.

    In English and German.

    Olga Grjasnowa was born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1984. Since then she has lived in Poland, Russia, Israel and Turkey. When she was 12, she moved to Germany, eventually graduating from the German Institute for Literature/Creative Writing in Leipzig. She will read from her acclaimed debut novel Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt for which she received the Klaus-Michael Kühne Preis as well as the Anna Seghers-Preis, and from her latest novel, Gott ist nicht schüchtern.  In German and English.

    Monday, October 21st
    5:00pm

    BERT130, 85 Waterman Street

    Free and open to the public.

  •  Location: RI HallRoom: 108

    The Department of German Studies is please to present a lecture with

    Ian Fleishman, University of Pennsylvania

    Title “Each man kills the thing he loves”:  Queer Failure in Querelle

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s swansong Querelle, released in August of 1982, in the wake of the director’s death by drug overdose, is marked both thematically and stylistically by a self-destructive narcissism and an embrace of abjection: the depiction of dueling near-identical brothers and sadomasochistic sexual encounters indulges in willful (and willfully awkward) anachronism, alienatingly unconvincing post-dubbing, shoddy sets in garish colors and tacky costuming that Die Zeit considered, in its review of the film, befitting the “Fundus eines mondänen Schwulen-Karnevals.” 

    With all of this in mind, the manifesto-like final lines of Jack Halberstam’s Queer Art of Failure read almost as if they were a film review of Querelle: “To live is to fail, to bungle, to disappoint, and ultimately to die; rather than searching for ways around death and disappointment, the queer art of failure involves the acceptance of the finite, the embrace of the absurd, the silly, and the hopelessly goofy. Rather than resisting endings and limits, let us instead revel in and cleave to all of our own inevitable fantastic failures.” Yet Halberstam takes care to distance himself from the “narrow range of affective responses” that constitute the “camp archive” to which this film would presumably belong. Reevaluating this disavowal of camp, this paper seeks an updated definition of the camp abject in the various versions of Querelle, ultimately positing that Fassbinder’s Genet adaptation invites us to understand queer as a narrative function of self-erasure: the biographical author’s disappearance into the work that bears his name.

    Wednesday, October 9th
    5:30pm
    RI Hall 108, 60 George Street (Main Green)
    Free and open to the public.

    Ian Fleishman is an Assistant Professor of German and the newest member of the standing faculty of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. In May 2013 he completed his doctorate in French and German Literature at Harvard University, having previously studied at the Freie Universität in Berlin, the Sorbonne Nouvelle and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and at Middlebury College in Vermont. He has published or has work forthcoming in Comparative Literature Studies, German Quarterly, French Studies, The Germanic Review, Essays in Romanticism, Mosaic, The Journal of Austrian Studies and elsewhere on subjects ranging from the Baroque to contemporary cinema.

  •  Location: 190 Hope Street

    Please join us as we celebrate the release of the first issue of Zeitschrift, the Brown University German Journal, on May 13 at 7:30pm at 190 Hope St.! Zeitschrift is the result of an amazing collaboration of many talented German-speaking and German-learning students at Brown, and we know you will enjoy the essays, translations and artwork that we have collected. So come to pick up your copy of the journal, meet the contributors and editors, and have some Kabob and Curry! We are looking forward to seeing you! Please RSVP to help us prevent food waste: bit.ly/2VjhHjF

  •  Location: Faculty Club

    “For - Paul Celan” A symposium hosted by the Department of German Studies

    Thursday, April 25th 8:30am - 5:30pm
    Friday, April 26th 8:45am - 5:30pm
    Saturday, April 27th 9:45am - 3:30pm

    For specific sessions, speakers and other details, please visit the German Studies events page.

    This workshop will consist of presentations and discussions of work in progress, as well as sessions devoted to pre-circulated primary readings.  Please register by April 22nd with wendy_perelman@brown.edu

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture by

    Dieter Thomä, Princeton University, Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies
    University of St. Gallen

    “Troublemakers in Arts and Politics:  On Hobbes, Schiller and Nietzsche”

    Tuesday, April 16th
    5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a workshop by

    John Hamilton, William R. Kenan Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Harvard University.

    Publications include: Soliciting Darkness: Pindar, Obscurity, and the Classical Tradition (2004); Music, Madness, and the Unworking of Language (2008); Security: Politics, Humanity, and the Philology of Care (2013); Philology of the Flesh (2018); and Classical Complacency (forthcoming, 2019). 

    Workshop, 4/12
    “Implacable Philology”
    Please pre-register for this event with wendy_perelman@brown.edu
    to obtain pre-circulated texts.

    Lecuture, 4/11
    “Im Rauschen der Sprache: Reading Goethe’s Iphigenie auf Tauris with Adorno, Fassbinder, and Jauss”
    (see separate events listing for more details)

    Both events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture by

    John Hamilton, William R. Kenan Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Harvard University.

    Publications include: Soliciting Darkness: Pindar, Obscurity, and the Classical Tradition (2004); Music, Madness, and the Unworking of Language (2008); Security: Politics, Humanity, and the Philology of Care (2013); Philology of the Flesh (2018); and Classical Complacency (forthcoming, 2019). 

    Lecture, 4/11
    “Im Rauschen der Sprache: Reading Goethe’s Iphigenie auf Tauris with Adorno, Fassbinder, and Jauss”

    Workshop, 4/12 12noon
    “Implacable Philology”
    Please pre-register for this event with wendy_perelman@brown.edu
    to obtain pre-circulated texts.

    Both events free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture with

    Marita Tatari, Berkeley, University of California

    “The Stage of the Present and the Life of Artforms:  Hegel, Arendt, and Jacobi Revisited”

    Tuesday, April 2nd
    5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    The Department of German Studies and the Department of Literary Arts is pleased to present the German Poet’s Speaker Series including a reading, a lecture and a workshop with poet Ulf Stolterfoht.

    Tuesday, March 12th 7pm
    “Fachsprachen/Lingos” w/Rosemarie Waldrop
    McCormack Family Theater
    Sponsored by Literary Arts

    Wednesday, March 13th 5:30pm
    “Once Again: Avantegarde and Experimental Literature”
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Thursday, March 14th 5:30pm
    On the “fachsprachen/lingos” Project
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 103

    All events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies and the Department of Literary Arts is pleased to present the German Poet’s Speaker Series including a reading, a lecture and a workshop with poet Ulf Stolterfoht.

    Tuesday, March 12th 7pm
    “Fachsprachen/Lingos” w/Rosemarie Waldrop
    McCormack Family Theater
    Sponsored by Literary Arts

    Wednesday, March 13th 5:30pm
    “Once Again: Avantegarde and Experimental Literature”
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Thursday, March 14th 5:30pm
    On the “fachsprachen/lingos” Project
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 103

    All events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    The German Studies Department is pleased to present a lecture in German, “Heinrich Heine und Goethe in Weimar” with Christian Lietdke. 

    Thursday, March 7th
    12noon
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 103
    Lunch will be served.  Please register with Jane_Sokolosky@brown.edu

    Christian Liedtke is the head archivist of the manuscript collection at the Heinrich-Heine-Institut, Düsseldorf, Germany, and current Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio (USA). He has worked extensively on Heinrich Heine and German “Vormärz” literature, among his most recent publications are “Heinrich Heine. Ein ABC” (Hamburg 2015) and “Heinrich Heine: Katechismus” (Hamburg 2017). His lecture (in German) will present Heine’s lifelong discussion of Goethe’s works and personality with its literary, philosophical and political aspects. Sometimes poetic, sometimes polemical or comical, but always unique in style and substance, it illustrates Heine’s view of a modern German literature.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a workshop with

    Elisabeth Strowick, NYU

    “Scenes of Suspicion”  (Szenen des Verdachts)

    Texts to be read in preparation will be provided by request.

    Registration required.  Please email mirjam_paninski@brown.edu to RSVP and obtain texts. RSVP by February 24th.

    Saturday, March 2nd
    10:30-3:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture by

    Elisabeth Strowick, NYU

    Lecture 3/1:  “Scene in Suspense: Stifter, Freud, Austin”

    Workshop 3/2:  “Scenes of Suspicion” (Szenen des Verdachts) -see separate event listing for details

    Free and open to the public

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture by
    Marcus Coelen,Psychoanalyst; Visiting Professor at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University New York

    2/26 Workshop: „Thinking Mothers“

    2/25 Lecture:  „Thinking Mothers“ - see separate event listing for details

    Both events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: Rhode Island HallRoom: 108

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture by
    Marcus Coelen,Psychoanalyst; Visiting Professor at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University New York

    2/25 Lecture:  „Thinking Mothers“

    2/26 Workshop: „Thinking Mothers“ - see separate events listing for details.

    Both events are free and open to the public.

  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus CenterRoom: Blue Room

    Want to practice speaking German with your peers, meet new people, and hang out with your fellow German-speaking buddies? Look no further! The German Language Table will be meeting from 12:30 to 2pm every Tuesday in the Blue Room. Hannah hails from München and organizes the Stammtisch. You’ll find her at the table with the orange sign – feel free to bring lunch and drop in as you please!

    The language table is part of a larger effort by the Center of Language Studies to bring language practice opportunities to campus. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Hannah Grosserichter (hannah_grosserichter@brown.edu) or Frau Sok (jane_sokolosky@brown.edu)!

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture by
    Visiting Assistant Professor Jonathan Blake Fine

    The Clandestine Charlatan: August Friedrich Cranz  and  his Readers

    Tuesday, January 29th
    4pm
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is please to present a lecture with

    Edith Anna Kunz, University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and Max Kade Distinguished Professor of German Studies, Brown University

    “Mit vielen Namen glaubt man mich zu nennen -” Thoughts on Goethe’s “Faust”

    Wednesday, November 14th
    5:30pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 102
    Free and open to the public

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103

    German employment lawyer expert Christoph Crisolli (Kliemt, HR lawyers, Frankfurt am Main) will explain the process for getting employment authorization to work in Germany for non-EU citizens and answer any questions.  Pizza lunch.

  •  Location: List Art BuildingRoom: 120

    The Department of German Studies in association with The Goethe Institute and The Germany Embassy is pleased to present a film screening of

    In the Aisles/In den Gängen

    Tuesday, November 6th, 5:15 pm
    List 120 – Pizza provided

    In German with English subtitles
    Director Thomas Stuber in Person

    Q&A following the screening

    Shy Christian takes on a job at a German superstore. He is taken under the wing of Bruno from the beverages department, who tries to teach him how to operate a forklift, as well as negotiate the complicated web of workplace rivalries and alliances. But it’s the relationship he develops with the kind Marion from the confectionary department that truly makes his heart sing (even if Marion is married). What follows is a richly empathetic and gentle human drama.

  •  Location: Sayles HallRoom: 205

    Navigating the German Business World with Shane Sabine ’07

    Shane Sabine graduated in 2007, concentrating in Business Economics.  Since 2008, he has been working in Frankfurt as a strategist at Ad Astra Global, providing strategy consulting services to top German companies.  As such, Shane can speak to the challenges that entering the German business world as an American might entail, and provide advice on how to face them.  Kabob and Curry lunch.

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 103
    German Resume Editing Workshop
    Wednesday October 24
    2pm-3:30pm
    190 Hope St, Room 103
    Preparing your German resume? Our graduate students are here to help you! Come in for editing or just to brainstorm, and enjoy some coffee and cake.
  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102
    Student Panel about Internships in Germany
    Tuesday October 23
    7:30pm-8:30pm
    190 Hope St, Room 102
    If you’re looking to go to Germany next summer, you’ll want to talk to our panelists! Meet students who’ve spent their summers in Germany or Austria working in corporate, health, social work, tech, academia, or teaching English to learn about their experiences and get invaluable advice!
    Kabob and Curry dinner.
  •  Location: Kassar HouseRoom: Auditorium
    How to Apply for Internships in Germany
    Thursday October 18, 12pm-1pm
    Kassar-Fox Auditorium
    151 Thayer

    Applying for opportunities in a foreign country can feel overwhelming. Come learn about the German internship scene and what to do to get in on it!
    Kabob and Curry lunch.
  •  Location: Rhode Island HallRoom: 108

    The Department of German Studies presents a 2-day lecture by

    DAVID FARRELL KRELL

    “Struck by Apollo”: Hölderlin’s Journey’s to Bordeaux and Back

    Lecture 1: Tuesday , October 16 th 5:30pm

    Lecture 2: Wednesday ,October 17th 5:30pm

    Both lectures to be held in RI Hall, Room 108
    Free and open to the public

    David Farrell Krell is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago and Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University. Considered one of the most important intellectual voices of our time, he is the author of numerous influential books in European critical thought, most recently Phantoms of the Other: Four Generations of Derrida’s Geschlecht (2014) and Ecstasy, Catastrophe: Heidegger from Being and Time to the Black Notebooks (2015).

     

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture by

    MARKO PAJEVIC, University of Tartu

    Translating to Transform Society: Buber/Rosenzweig’s and Meschonnic’s Bible-Translations

    Monday, October 1st, 2018
    5:30pm

    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102

    Free and open to the public

  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: side yard

    Not ready for the summer to go quite yet? Join the German DUG and Club for a BBQ!   Enjoy classic summertime favorites, chat with old friends, and meet new ones. German concentrators will be available to answer any questions about the German Studies program, but feel free to stop by just for a bite—we’re open to everyone! 

    Vegan options will be available, and an inside back-up location is reserved in case of rainy weather. Please reach out to david_randl@brown.edu in case of any accessibility concerns.
    Sunday September 30, 4-6PM
    190 Hope Street side yard
    Indoors if inclement weather
  •  Location: 190 Hope StreetRoom: 102

    The department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture with

    CHRISTINE IVANOVIC, University of Vienna and former Distinguised Max Kade Visiting Professor of German Studies

    Th e Mimetic Desire of Translation:  Reading Derrida and Celan with Girard

    In this presentation, we will refer to Renée Girard’s concept of mimetic desire as outlined in his seminal study Deceit, Desire, And the Novel (1961/65) in order to better understand the desire of / for language as thematized by Derrida in his treatise The Monolingualism of the Other on the one hand, by Celan in his Bremen Speech on the other hand. Both authors articulate in their texts a certain mimetic desire of translation: their movement in space and time is correlated to a movement of language, resulting in an experiential crisis that questions both the Own and the Other. What happens if we apply Girard’s understanding of mimesis as desire and acquisition to the act of translation?

    MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24th
    5:30pm
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Room 102
    Free and open to the public

  •  Location: J. Walter Wilson BuildingRoom: Room 420

    Stop by the Office of International Programs and learn about the many different study abroad opportunities available to undergraduates. It’s never too early to plan!

  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    A joint event by the German Department at Brown University and the German Department at the Johns Hopkins University
    “Phenomenology and Literature: New Readings in Husserl”
    This workshop will consist of presentations and discussions of work in progress, as well as sessions devoted to pre-circulated primary readings. Please register by April 26, 2018 with Wendy_Perelman@Brown.Edu
    See URL for panelists.
    Co-sponsored by: Max Kade Foundation, the C.V. Starr Lectureship Fund from the Office of the Dean of Faculty, the Department of Comparative Literature, and the Department of German Studies
    Saturday and Sunday, May 5-6th
    9:30am-5:30pm
    Pembroke Hall 102
    172 Meeting Street
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    A joint event by the German Department at Brown University and the German Department at the Johns Hopkins University
    “Phenomenology and Literature: New Readings in Husserl”
    This workshop will consist of presentations and discussions of work in progress, as well as sessions devoted to pre-circulated primary readings. Please register by April 26, 2018 with Wendy_Perelman@Brown.Edu
    See URL for panelists.
    Co-sponsored by: Max Kade Foundation, the C.V. Starr Lectureship Fund from the Office of the Dean of Faculty, the Department of Comparative Literature, and the Department of German Studies
    Saturday and Sunday, May 5-6th
    9:30am-5:30pm
    Pembroke Hall 102
    172 Meeting Street
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture with
    Marcus Coelen, Psychoanalyst; Visiting Professor at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University New York
    “What is Psychoanalysis? A Philological Speculation”
    Tuesday, April 24th, 2018 6pm
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street Room 103
    Free and open to the public
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present Anja Lemke, Professor für Neuere deutsche Literatur, Universität zu Köln
    Lecture: Vermögen und Kontingenz. Figurationen des Möglichen im Roman um 1800
    Friday, April 20th
    6:00pm
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street, Library, Room 103
    Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Guest lecture on Walter Benjamin by Professor Daniel Weidner (Humboldt-Universität Berlin & Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin, Germany)
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Professor Michael Levine (Rutgers University) will present a lecture and seminar. It will be a special open session of the course “Kafka and the Philosophers” (jointly taught by Dennis Johannßen and Gerhard Richter). Free and open to all.
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    2018 Brauer Seminars on “Grievance Among Friends,” with Professor Avital Ronell (New York University). Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    2018 Brauer Seminars on “Grievance Among Friends,” by Professor Avital Robell (New York University). Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 305
    2018 Brauer Seminars on “Grievance Among Friends,” by Professor Avital Ronell (New York University). Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Guest lecture on Walter Benjamin by Prof. Daniel Weidner (Humboldt-Universität Berlin)
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Please join us in the Department of German Studies for pizza on December 11th at 6pm! This informal meeting and meal will be a forum to share thoughts on diversity, inclusion, and community in German Studies within the context of an open atmosphere. We welcome you to contribute your thoughts, experiences, and suggestions, and look forward to this pause during finals that will allow us to reflect more generally on our ongoing conversations as a community, and on the various directions they may take, moving forward. So that we can estimate the number of attendees to order the appropriate amount of food, please RSVP to Wendy_Perelman@Brown.Edu no later than 9am on Monday, December 11th.”
  •  Location: MacMillan 115
    Zafer Şenocak was born in Turkey, the son of a publicist and teacher. He spent the first few years of his life in Ankara and Istanbul. In 1970 the family moved to Bavaria, Germany. He studied German literature, political science and philosophy at the University of Munich. He is the author of numerous novels, essays, and collections of poems, including Atlas of a Tropical Germany: Essays on Politics and Culture, Door Languages, Perilous Kinship and, most recently, In deinen Worten. He has lived in Berlin since 1990, with various spells abroad as writer-in-residence at universities in France, Canada and USA
  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, The Underground
    Join the Brown German Club and DUG for our 8th annual Trivia Night!
    MONDAY @ 7pm in the Underground in Faunce
    Questions in English about topics related to German, Swiss and Austrian culture, history, food, people, geography, sports!
    Free t-shirts for first 20 attendees! Free German pens for everyone!
    Prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places! Gift certificates to local food venues!
    Come alone and join a group OR bring your own awesome team!
    We’ve got Gummibaren and Schokolade!
    Winner of our Visual Art and Writing Competition to be announced during Quizabend/Trivia Night!
    Sponsored by the German Information Center, the German Embassy, German Club, and the Department of German Studies
    www.germany.info
    @germanyinusa
  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, The Underground
    Join the Brown German Club and DUG for our 8th annual Trivia Night!
    Questions in English about topics related to German, Swiss and Austrian culture, history, food, people, geography, sports!
    Winner of our Visual Art and Writing Competition to be announced during Quizabend/Trivia Night!
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present the C.V. Starr Foundation Lectureship.
    Lecture Series: “The Sea: A Philosophical Exploration,” by David Farell Krell.
    David Farrell Krell is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago and Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University. Considered one of the most important intellectual voices of our time, he is the author of numerous influential books in European critical thought, most recently Phantoms of the Other: Four Generations of Derrida’s Geschlecht (2014) and Ecstasy, Catastrophe: Heidegger from Being and Time to the Black Notebooks (2015).
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Guest lecture by Nicole Sütterlin, Assistant Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present the C.V. Starr Foundation Lectureship.
    Lecture Series: “The Sea: A Philosophical Exploration,” by David Farell Krell.
    David Farrell Krell is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago and Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University. Considered one of the most important intellectual voices of our time, he is the author of numerous influential books in European critical thought, most recently Phantoms of the Other: Four Generations of Derrida’s Geschlecht (2014) and Ecstasy, Catastrophe: Heidegger from Being and Time to the Black Notebooks (2015).
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present the C.V. Starr Foundation Lectureship.
    Lecture Series: “The Sea: A Philosophical Exploration,” by David Farell Krell.
    David Farrell Krell is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago and Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University. Considered one of the most important intellectual voices of our time, he is the author of numerous influential books in European critical thought, most recently Phantoms of the Other: Four Generations of Derrida’s Geschlecht (2014) and Ecstasy, Catastrophe: Heidegger from Being and Time to the Black Notebooks (2015).
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present the C.V. Starr Foundation Lectureship.
    Lecture Series: “The Sea: A Philosophical Exploration,” by David Farell Krell.
    David Farrell Krell is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago and Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University. Considered one of the most important intellectual voices of our time, he is the author of numerous influential books in European critical thought, most recently Phantoms of the Other: Four Generations of Derrida’s Geschlecht (2014) and Ecstasy, Catastrophe: Heidegger from Being and Time to the Black Notebooks (2015).
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Guest Lecture by Dr. Marcel Schmid.
    Dr. Marcel Schmid is a postdoctoral fellow of the Swiss National Sience Foundation and a visiting research scholar in Brown University’s Department of German Studies. After having studied at the University of Zurich, Yale, and New York University, he defended his dissertation on the concept of autopoiesis in literature in 2014. His first book, Autopoiesis und Literatur, was published in 2016. He also co-edited a volume on the literature of the life reform movement, Die Literatur der Lebensreform, which also appeared in 2016. Schmid is interested in the interface between literary analysis and technology. He is currently working on a book project entitled “Cultural Seriality in Times of Technological Singularity,” and a book about the cultural history of acceleration in car design. Additionally, he is editing a volume entitled “Transparent Texts: Self-Referentiality and Self-Reflexivity in Literature” in English, and a volume in English and German on author Christian Kracht.
  •  Location: Smith-Buonanno, Room 201
    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present the Interdisciplinary 2-day conference “reading exhaust” - it aims to trace the oscillation of exhaustion between completion and depletion, plenitude and hollowness, productivity and bankruptcy, as well as its connotations of a possibly infinite depth. To this end, it seeks to combine close readings with reflections on the relation of reading and working, and the institutionalized and professionalized status of reading today.
    Guest speaker Daniel Heller-Roazen is the Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Comparative Literature and the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. He is also the author of numerous books and articles, the most recent publication being “No One’s Ways: An Essay on Infinite Naming (2017)”. He has received fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In 2010 he was awarded the Medal of the Collège de France.
    SCHEDULE:
    Friday, October 20th 1pm - 7:30pm
    1pm Arrival and Registration
    1:45pm Opening Remarks
    2pm Keynote Speaker: Daniel Heller-Roazen (Princeton)
    3:30pm Mid-afternoon break (coffee and water provided)
    7:30pm End of sessions
    Saturday, October 21st 10am - 4:30pm Smith-Buonanno 201 (see separate entry in calendar)
    1pm Break for lunch
    2:30pm Resume
    4:30pm Concluding Remarks
  •  Location: Alumnae Hall Auditorium
    Join us in Alumnae Hall as we celebrate Oktoberfest! We will have German-style food, drinks, games, and barn-dancing.
  •  Location: Alumnae Hall Auditorium Lobby
    It’s that time again: Brown German Club’s annual Oktoberfest Celebration.
    Food, drink, & all things German. Doors open 7pm on Friday, October 20th at Alumnae Hall.
    Tickets cover everything, and are $7 at the door/$5 presale.
    Venmo presale until Oct 19 5pm (Send $5 to @brown_german with name and email in the note)
    Cash presale at the Blue Room Oct 16-19 10am-2pm
  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, Multipurpose Room

    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present the Interdisciplinary 2-day conference “reading exhaust” - it aims to trace the oscillation of exhaustion between completion and depletion, plenitude and hollowness, productivity and bankruptcy, as well as its connotations of a possibly infinite depth. To this end, it seeks to combine close readings with reflections on the relation of reading and working, and the institutionalized and professionalized status of reading today.
    Guest speaker Daniel Heller-Roazen is the Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Comparative Literature and the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. He is also the author of numerous books and articles, the most recent publication being “No One’s Ways: An Essay on Infinite Naming (2017)”. He has received fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In 2010 he was awarded the Medal of the Collège de France.
    SCHEDULE:
    Friday, October 20th 1pm - 7:30pm
    1pm Arrival and Registration
    1:45pm Opening Remarks
    2pm Keynote Speaker: Daniel Heller-Roazen (Princeton)
    3:30pm Mid-afternoon break (coffee and water provided)
    7:30pm End of sessions
    Saturday, October 21st 10am - 4:30pm Smith-Buonanno 201 (see separate entry in calendar)
    1pm Break for lunch
    2:30pm Resume
    4:30pm Concluding Remarks

  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present the C.V. Starr Foundation Lectureship.
    Lecture Series: “The Sea: A Philosophical Exploration,” by David Farell Krell.
    David Farrell Krell is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago and Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University. Considered one of the most important intellectual voices of our time, he is the author of numerous influential books in European critical thought, most recently Phantoms of the Other: Four Generations of Derrida’s Geschlecht (2014) and Ecstasy, Catastrophe: Heidegger from Being and Time to the Black Notebooks (2015).
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Guest lecture by Dr. Nils Plath.
    Dr. Nils Plath is an assistant professor in the Department for Comparative Literature at the Universität Erfurt (Germany). His numerous publications concern such topics as time and temporalities in reading, translation and teaching, reading and communities, documentary and realism, writing and scripture, pop and contemporary culture, as well as landscapes in literature, the visual arts, and film. His current research focuses on the actuality of literary theory and its histories; languages in translation; landscape and urban environments in literature, film, and the arts; time and witnessing, aesthetics and engagement; representations in/of the documentary; written signs; and authorship and copyright. His most recent publications include Hier und anderswo. Zum Stellenlesen bei Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Theodor W. Adorno und Jacques Derrida (Kadmos Kulturverlag Berlin, June 2017, 560 p.), and Satzzeichen. Szenen der Schrift (ed. with Helga Lutz and Dietmar Schmidt; Kadmos Kulturverlag Berlin, July 2017, 420 p., with contributions by Gabriele Brandstetter, Rüdiger Campe, Alexander García Düttmann, Eva Geulen, Anselm Haverkamp, Carol Jacobs, Elfriede Jelinek, Wolf Kittler, Gertrud Koch, Renate Lachmann, Hans-Thies Lehmann, Thomas Macho, Christoph Menke, Eva Meyer, J. Hillis Miller, Inka Mülder-Bach, Gerhard Neumann, Ulrike Ottinger, Gabriele Schwab, Bernhard Siegert, Barbara Vinken, Joseph Vogl, Elisabeth Weber, Samuel Weber, Hanns Zischler, and others).
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Guest lecture by Christine Ivanovic, University of Vienna (Austria) and Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies, Brown University (Fall 2017. Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: > No location for this event
    German Studies Placement exam
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Workshop: follow up to 4/21 lecture with Jan Mieszkowski
    “Slogans and Other One-Liners from Marx to Adorno”
    Saturday, April 22nd10am - 1pm
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street
    Library, 103
    REGISTRATION REQUIRED to miriam_rainer@brown.edu
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    LECTURE: “Slogans and Other One-Liners from Marx to Adorno”
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street
    Library, 103
    Free and open to the public.
    Follow-up workshop to be held on Saturday, 4/22
    10am - 1pm
    Registration required to: miriam_rainer@brown.edu
    German Studies Department
    190 Hope Street
    Library, 103
  •  Location: Hillel, Meeting Room
    Second Interdepartmental Meeting of the Brown, Harvard, and Yale German Departments
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Guest lecture by Professor Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany), co-sponsored by the Departments of German Studies and Comparative Literature
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Workshop: April 5th, 5:30 – 7:30pm
    Herta Müller über die Gegenständlichkeit der Dinge
    Csaba Szabó is among the most accomplished and distinguished literary scholars in Hungary today. He received his PhD in Literary Studies at the Lajos-Kossuth-University Debrecen in 2003 with a landmark contribution to Hölderlin studies worldwide: “erlaubt, geboten“ (Beiträge zu Hölderlins Zäsuren und Zitieren) [“allowed, called for“ (Contributions to Hölderlin’s Caesuras and Citations)]. Since 2006 he teaches German literature at the Eszterhazy Karoly University of Applied Sciences in Eger (Hungary). Since 2015 he is the editor of the journal Performa.
    Csaba Szabó has extensively written (and taught) on authors who travel the no man’s land between philosophy, literary theory, philology, and literature, such as Hannah Arendt, Konrad Bayer, Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Franz Kafka, Immanuel Kant, Osip Mandelstam, Friedich Nietzsche, and Simone Weil. What is more, Szabó is one among the most recognized and influential translators of his generation. He has published three books, by Heidegger [Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung], Benjamin [Collected Essays] and Søren Kierkegaard [Kritik der Gegenwart] in Hungarian translation (all three accompanied by philological commentaries and incisive essays on the task – the burden, danger, and delight – of translation). Among his most famous translations are poems and poetological essays by Hölderlin and Paul Celan. But Szabó has also written on Hungarian writers and poets, such as Miklós Radnóti and Mihály Babits (especially in regard to their work as translators).
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Lecture: April 4th, 5:30 pm
    “Wie kommen Dinge als Dinge?” (über Das Ding von Martin Heidegger)
    Csaba Szabó is among the most accomplished and distinguished literary scholars in Hungary today. He received his PhD in Literary Studies at the Lajos-Kossuth-University Debrecen in 2003 with a landmark contribution to Hölderlin studies worldwide: “erlaubt, geboten“ (Beiträge zu Hölderlins Zäsuren und Zitieren) [“allowed, called for“ (Contributions to Hölderlin’s Caesuras and Citations)]. Since 2006 he teaches German literature at the Eszterhazy Karoly University of Applied Sciences in Eger (Hungary). Since 2015 he is the editor of the journal Performa.
    Csaba Szabó has extensively written (and taught) on authors who travel the no man’s land between philosophy, literary theory, philology, and literature, such as Hannah Arendt, Konrad Bayer, Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Franz Kafka, Immanuel Kant, Osip Mandelstam, Friedich Nietzsche, and Simone Weil. What is more, Szabó is one among the most recognized and influential translators of his generation. He has published three books, by Heidegger [Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung], Benjamin [Collected Essays] and Søren Kierkegaard [Kritik der Gegenwart] in Hungarian translation (all three accompanied by philological commentaries and incisive essays on the task – the burden, danger, and delight – of translation). Among his most famous translations are poems and poetological essays by Hölderlin and Paul Celan. But Szabó has also written on Hungarian writers and poets, such as Miklós Radnóti and Mihály Babits (especially in regard to their work as translators).
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Guest lecture by William Donahue, Chair of the German Department and the John J. Cavanaugh, CSC Professor of the Humanities at the University of Notre Dame. Jointly organized by Brown’s Department of German Studies and the Program in Judaic Studies.
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Guest lecture by Prof. Klaus Mladek (Department of German Studies, Dartmouth)
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Oswald Egger, born in Lana, Italy in 1963, lives at the Raketenstation Hombroich, Germany. Since 2011 professor for Language and Form at Muthesius University of Art and Design, Kiel. After completing his studies in literature and philosophy, he founded the Kulturtage Lana in South Tyrol, which he ran from 1986-1995. Editor of the literary magazine “DerProkurist.” In 2013 he accepted the Thomas Kling teaching position for poetry at Bonn University. Writer in residence at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas (2000); Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (2001); and at Cornell University (2003).
    He has been the recipient of the Clemens Brentano Prize, the H.C. Artmann Prize, the Oskar Pastior Prize, Peter Huchel Preis and the Outstanding Artist Award for his poetry, his poetic research, and his work in radio drama. Recent publications include: Diskrete Stetigkeit. Poesie und Mathematik (2008); Die ganze Zeit (2010); Euer Lenz. Prosa (2013); Gnomen und Amben (2015); Harlekinsmäntel und andere Bewandtnisse (2017). An English translation of Nichts, das ist (2001) was published as Room of Rumor: Tunings in 2004.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Oswald Egger, born in Lana, Italy in 1963, lives at the Raketenstation Hombroich, Germany. Since 2011 professor for Language and Form at Muthesius University of Art and Design, Kiel. After completing his studies in literature and philosophy, he founded the Kulturtage Lana in South Tyrol, which he ran from 1986-1995. Editor of the literary magazine “DerProkurist.” In 2013 he accepted the Thomas Kling teaching position for poetry at Bonn University. Writer in residence at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas (2000); Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (2001); and at Cornell University (2003).
    He has been the recipient of the Clemens Brentano Prize, the H.C. Artmann Prize, the Oskar Pastior Prize, Peter Huchel Preis and the Outstanding Artist Award for his poetry, his poetic research, and his work in radio drama. Recent publications include: Diskrete Stetigkeit. Poesie und Mathematik (2008); Die ganze Zeit (2010); Euer Lenz. Prosa (2013); Gnomen und Amben (2015); Harlekinsmäntel und andere Bewandtnisse (2017). An English translation of Nichts, das ist (2001) was published as Room of Rumor: Tunings in 2004
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Guest lecture by Gabriel Trop, Associat Professor of German at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  •  Location: > Location to be determined
    Speaker Kristina Mendicino (German Studies, Brown University) will address topics from her recent publication, Prophecies of Language: The Confusion of Tongues in German Romanticism (Fordham University Press, 2016).
    Registration is required.
    The location of this workshop will accompany pre-circulated readings.
    Luncheon will be served.
    The Brown Romanticism Workshops are co-sponsored by the Cogut Center for the Humanities, the Departments of English and Comparative Literature.
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Lecture by Professor Martin Jay (University of California, Berkeley), hosted by the Brown University Department of German Studies
  •  Location: The Underground (basement of Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center)
    Join the Brown German Club and DUG for our 7th annual Trivia Night!
    Questions in English about topics related to German, Swiss and Austrian culture, history, food, people, geography, sports!
    Free water bottle or USB stick for all attendees!
    Prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places! Gift certificates to local food venues!
    Come alone and join a group OR bring your own awesome team!
    Winner of our Visual Art and Writing Competition to be announced during Quizabend/Trivia Night!
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Guest lecture by Michael Auer, Department of German Studies, University of Munich, Germany. Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    November 9th 6:00pm
    Conference: Der Weg des Klangs
    German Department library
    190 Hope Street
    November 10th 6:00pm
    Workshop: Eingebungen
    German Department library
    190 Hope Street
    Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    Seminar meets 3 times: Wednesday, October 19; Thursday, October 20; Friday, October 21 (always at 5:30 p.m.) Free and open to the public.
    Rodolphe Gasché is Distinguished Professor and Eugenio Donato Chair of Comparative Literature at SUNY Buffalo.
    He studied philosophy and comparative literature in Munich, Berlin, and Paris. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany). Besides translating major works by Derrida and Lacan into German and publishing numerous articles in a variety of scholarly journals, he has published several books: Die hybride Wissenschaft (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1973), System und Metaphorik in der Philosophie von Georges Bataille (Bern: Lang, 1978), The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection (Cambridge: Harvard, 1986), Inventions of Difference: On Jacques Derrida (Cambridge: Harvard, 1994), The Wild Card of Reading: On Paul de Man (Harvard, 1998), Of Minimal Things: Studies on the Notion of Relation (Stanford, 1999),
    The Idea of Form: Rethinking Kant’s Aesthetics (Stanford, 2003), Views and Interviews: On Deconstruction in America (The Davies Group, Publishers, 2006), The Honor of Thinking: Critique, Theory, Philosophy (Stanford, 2007), Europe, or The Infinite Task: A Study of a Philosophical Concept (Stanford, 2009), Un Arte Muy Fragil: Sobre la Retorica de Aristoteles (Metales Pesados, 2010), The Stelliferous Fold: Toward a Virtual Law of Literature’s Self-Formation (Fordham, 2011), Imada Nai Sekai Wo Motomete: Heidegger, Derrida, Löwith (Getsuyosha Limited, 2012), Georges Bataille: Phenomenology and Phantasmatology (Stanford, 2012), Geophilosophy: On Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s What is Philosophy? (Northwestern University Press, 2014). His interests concern nineteenth- and twentieth-century French literature, critical theory, and its relation to continental philosophy since early romanticism. Before coming to Buffalo, he taught at the Freie Universität, Berlin, and the Johns Hopkins University.
  •  Location: > Multiple locations: see description for details
    Please join us for a lecture in English and a Reading in German with the German author, journalist and director and founder of Heidelberg’s Intercultural Center and currently in charge of the culture offerings at the International Welcome Center Heidelberg. Jagoda Marinic will reflect on Germany today, its culture of welcoming refugees and its attempts at integration.
    Monday, October 17, 4pm, Watson Institute: The American Dream: A Dream Turned German, Immigration, Integration, and Citizenship in Germany
    Tuesday, October 18, 6pm, Kassar-Fox Auditoriam, 151 Thayer: A Reading in German from her novel “Restaurant Dalmatia” (2013), and her collection of essays “Was ist Deutsch in Deutschland?” (2016)
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Guest lecture by Prof. Edith Anna Kunz (U of Lausanne, Switzerland). Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Kassar House, Foxboro Auditorium
    A reading in German by Jagoda Marinic, Director of Intercultural Center Heidelberg
    Restaurant Dalmatia (2013)
    “Mit großer Sensibilität stellt Jagoda Marinić die Frage nach Identität und Herkunft als Voraussetzung für ein erfülltes Leben und die Freiheit, seinen Ort in der Welt zu finden.
    Sie weiß, … weshalb für jeden Kroaten der Balkan ganz woanders anfängt. Und warum Marco Polo vielleicht doch Kroate war.”
    Made in Germany Was ist deutsch in Deutschland?(2016)
    Willkommenskultur schön und gut - Wie steht es um die Integrationskultur?
    Reading in German with Discussion Following
  •  Location: Salomon Center, Room 202
    The Departments of German Studies, Italian Studies and MCM
    present a film screening
    LUCHINO VISCONTI: IL LAVORO
    (THE JOB, 1962)with Romy Schneider and Tomas Milian
    Friday
    SEPTEMBER 30th
    5:30 PM,
    Salomon 202
    Followed by a conversation with
    Gertrud Koch,
    Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, and
    Alexander García Düttmann
    All Welcome!
  •  Location: Barus & Holley, Room 190
    Lecture by Prof. Alexander García Düttmann (Universität der Künste, Berlin and Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies, Brown University, Fall 2016). Free and open to the public.
    After growing up in Barcelona, Alexander García Düttmann studied in Frankfurt am Main with Alfred Schmidt and in Paris with Jacques Derrida. Since 1992, he has lived in San Francisco, New York, Melbourne, and London, and he has taught at Stanford University, The University of Essex, Monash University, New York University, Middlesex University, Goldsmiths College, and the Royal College of Art. What are García Düttmann’s most recent publications, and what are they about? In 2011, he published “Participation: Awareness of Semblance” (Konstanz University Press), an attempt to make sense of the concept of participation, especially in relation to art and politics. Thomas Bernhard observes at one point: “Each person wants to participate and at the same time to be left alone. And because it is not possible to have it both ways, there is always a conflict.” In 2012, García Düttmann published “Naive Art: An Essay on Happiness” (August Verlag), a series of fragments set in San Francisco. Happiness, the author contends, lies in the creation of everyday habits that allow one to conceive of an idea and break with established conventions. In 2015, García Düttmann published “What Does Art Know? For An Aesthetics Of Resistance” (Konstanz University Press). In this book, he claims that art is a form of thinking and that for this reason it does not produce knowledge. Alexander García Düttmann has translated some of Derrida’s works into German, and Benjamin’s essay on Julien Green into French. He has also edited “Theory and Practice”, an unpublished seminar by Jacques Derrida on Marx (Éditions Galilée 2016).
  •  Location: Pembroke HallRoom: Room 305

    An international conference examining the legacy of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory.

  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Join us every Friday for German conversation over coffee and snacks at Kaffeestunde. Kaffeestunde is held every Friday from 3-4pm in the German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street, Library. German speakers of all levels welcome.
  •  Location: RI Hall, Room 108
    Lecture, co-hosted by the Departments of German Studies and Comparative Literature, by Prof. Alexander García Düttmann (Universität der Künste, Berlin and Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies, Brown University, Fall 2016). Free and open to the public.
    After growing up in Barcelona, Alexander García Düttmann studied in Frankfurt am Main with Alfred Schmidt and in Paris with Jacques Derrida. Since 1992, he has lived in San Francisco, New York, Melbourne, and London, and he has taught at Stanford University, The University of Essex, Monash University, New York University, Middlesex University, Goldsmiths College, and the Royal College of Art. What are García Düttmann’s most recent publications, and what are they about? In 2011, he published “Participation: Awareness of Semblance” (Konstanz University Press), an attempt to make sense of the concept of participation, especially in relation to art and politics. Thomas Bernhard observes at one point: “Each person wants to participate and at the same time to be left alone. And because it is not possible to have it both ways, there is always a conflict.” In 2012, García Düttmann published “Naive Art: An Essay on Happiness” (August Verlag), a series of fragments set in San Francisco. Happiness, the author contends, lies in the creation of everyday habits that allow one to conceive of an idea and break with established conventions. In 2015, García Düttmann published “What Does Art Know? For An Aesthetics Of Resistance” (Konstanz University Press). In this book, he claims that art is a form of thinking and that for this reason it does not produce knowledge. Alexander García Düttmann has translated some of Derrida’s works into German, and Benjamin’s essay on Julien Green into French. He has also edited “Theory and Practice”, an unpublished seminar by Jacques Derrida on Marx (Éditions Galilée 2016).
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Faculty and students of the German Studies Department for German conversation over coffee and snacks at Kaffeestunde. Kaffeestunde is held every Friday at 3pm in the German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street, Room 103. German speakers of all levels welcome.
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Lecture by Stanley Corngold, Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. Corngold is a distinguished literary critic and critical theorist as well as one of the most influential Kafka scholars in the world. Reception to follow. Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    Bernard, in Virginia Wolf’s _The Waves_, gives us the exergue of the workshop: “It is strange that we, who are capable of such much suffering, should inflict so much suffering.” The principal purpose of the workshop is - through a careful reading of Derrida’s _States of the Soul_ (2000) - to confront the double problem of “Bemächtigung” as the attainment of power and “Grausamkeit” as the power to suffer and to inflict suffering on oneself and on others. This double problem is reflected in the final seminar that Derrida taught, on the death penalty and on the beast and the sovereign.
    Our three meetings will take place in Pembroke Hall, Room 202 as follows: Monday, March 21, 6:00 p.m - 8 p.m.; Tuesday, March 22, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.; and Wednesday, March 23, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Guest lecture by Professor Rochelle Tobias (German Department, Johns Hopkins University). The principal texts that Professor Tobias will be addressing in her lecture are Walter Benjamin’s “Two Poems by Friedrich Hölderlin” and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s lecture on Benjamin’s text (“The Courage of Poetry” in his _Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry_). Reception to follow. Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Professor Gerhard Richter will introduce his latest book, _Inheriting Walter Benjamin_ (London: Bloomsbury, 2016). Sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature. Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Grant Recital Hall
    Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers for the pop music generation in GERMAN language.
    Using puppetry and lip-syncing, Bridge Markland transforms Schiller’s classic Sturm und Drang tragedy into a fast-paced, one woman show. Rebellion, envy, tragic love, stubbornness, hero-worship and desperation are all themes of the play. Markland underscores Schiller’s dramatic words with clips from 157 songs ranging from Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” to Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface”, from Ennio Morricone’s hit “Once Upon a Time in the West” to the theme from “Dallas”. Schiller’s text is spoken by various actors from Berlin’s theatre scene.
    The Berlin performer Bridge Markland is a virtuoso of role change and transformation. She is an artist who effortlessly crosses boundaries between dance, theatre, performance, cabaret and puppet theatre. For 31 years, Bridge Markland has performed to great acclaim on stages in Berlin, Germany, Europe, Canada, USA and Australia. Bridge works as a solo artist or with other companies. Since 2002 she has been a company member of Platypus Theater, a German-Australian children’s theatre.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    Presentation of “Matches: A Light Book” (New York: Punctum Book, 2015). In her experimental new work imbricating poetic writing, philosophy, and political critique, Chrostowska places into an illuminating constellation her unique fragments, aphorisms, and thought-images that stand in the tradition of such writers as Schlegel, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno, Bloch, and Blanchot. As the German filmmaker and author Alexander Kluge writes of her book: “A must-read for aficionados of the fragment and literary critical experiments for the breadth of its subject matter and its style.” S.D. Chrostowska teaches Humanities and Social & Political Thought at York University (Toronto, Canada). Free and open to the public. Reception to follow.
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Lecture by Distinguished Max Kade Visiting Professor Rembert Hüser (University of Frankfurt, Germany). Title: “I Was Appointed Today to the Position of Prosecutor of The Autonomous Republic of Crimea.”
    Reception to follow. Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: German Studies Building
    Join us for our annual holiday Kaffeestunde where we will engage in German conversation, sing seasonal songs, enjoy some German holiday treats and the German Club will be decorating gingerbread houses! German speakers of all levels are welcome. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11th. 3-5pm at the German Studies Department, 190 Hope Street, Library
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Workshop on Friedrich Schlegel’s canonical essay “On Incomprehensibility” (1800).
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Workshop on Friedrich Schlegel’s canonical essay “On Incomprehensibility” (1800)
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 305
    “Media determine our situation,” Friedrich Kittler infamously wrote in his introduction to Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Although this dictum is certainly extreme–and media archaeology has been critiqued for being overly dramatic and focused on technological developments–it propels us to keep thinking about media as setting the terms for which we live, socialize, communicate, organize, do scholarship, etc. After all, as Kittler continued in his opening statement almost 30 years ago, our situation, “in spite or because” of media, “deserves a description.” What, then are the terms–the limits, the conditions, the periods, the relations, and the phrases–of media? And what is the relationship between these terms and determination?
    For more information on the conference, speakers and registration please click on the event link below.
    The event will be livestreamed at http://www.brown.edu/web/livestream/
  •  Location: Granoff Center, Martinos Auditorium
    Opening event of the two-day conference “Terms of Media II: Actions”
    Conference Introduction, 7 p.m.
    • Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Professor and Chair, Department of Modern Culture and Media, Brown University
    Keynote Address, 7:15 p.m.
    • Marcell Mars, Public Library Project
    • Rick Prelinger, Professor of Film and Digital Media and Board Member of the Internet Archive, University of California, Santa Cruz
    For more information on the conference, speakers and registration please click on the event link below.
    The event will be livestreamed at http://www.brown.edu/web/livestream/
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    The German Studies Department is please to present a lecture by
    Dr. Bruno Duarte
    IFL-UNL, Lisboa, Portugal
    Visiting Research Fellow, Brown University
    “The Medusa’s Head”
    Kant, Schlegel, Benjamin

    Tuesday, October 6th, 4pm
    190 Hope Street, Room 103
    Reception to follow. Free and open to the public.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    It’s not too early to get your questions answered!
    Come to the informational session on
    THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24th
    at 1pm
    GERMAN STUDIES LIBRARY, 190 Hope Street, first floor
    All types of programs available, for advanced speakers of German and for beginners! All concentrations welcome!
    Former study abroad students available to answer questions.
    Questions? Unable to attend?
    Email Frau Sok
    ~Jane_Sokolosky@brown.edu
  •  Location: > No location for this event
    German Studies Placement Test - Please log on to Canvas to take the online placement test (see link below). You may access this at anytime. Please contact Professor Jane Sokolosky with any questions at jane_sokolosky@brown.edu
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Michael Power’s public dissertation defense is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, April 28 at 2:00 p.m. in the German Department Library at 190 Hope Street. The title of his doctoral dissertation is “Clouds: Walter Benjamin and the Rhetoric of the Image.” Interested faculty, graduate students, and members of the broader German Studies community are invited to attend this public event.
  •  Location: Barus & Holley, Room 158
    Please join us for a two-day conference exploring echoes, reflections, and their resonances across the supposed boundaries of literature, aesthetics, and politics. Graduate students from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds will question gestures and motifs of duplication in poetry, film, photography, psychoanalysis, and philosophy. We hope that these interrelated presentations will shed insight into how such movements inflect our readings of literature and art.
    We are also delighted to welcome Professor Avital Ronell (NYU) as our keynote speaker, who will present a talk entitled, “Choosing Derrida: The Wanderer and Her Shadow.”
    Friday, 4/24 B&H 158
    Keynote 5:30-7:30pm Kassar House
    Saturday, 4/25 B&H 159
  •  Location: Kassar House, Foxboro Auditorium
    Please join the German Department in welcoming Prof. Avital Ronell, who will be presenting a keynote lecture entitled ‘Choosing Derrida: The Wanderer and Her Shadow’. Avital Ronell is Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature at New York University; she is also the Jacques Derrida Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School. In her work, she engages with critical and literary theory, continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, feminist philosophy, and ethics.
  •  Location: Salomon Center, Room 001
    Professor Eric Ames (Department of Germanics, University of Washington) will present a lecture on the work of German filmmaker Werner Herzog as part of the Herzog film series organized by the Department of German Studies.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    In four public lectures, each followed by a seminar discussion, Prof. Düttmann will sketch out an approach to aesthetics based largely on a reading of Adorno. The first two lectures will provide a more general conceptual framework; the third and the fourth lecture will explore specific aspects of the ideas developed in the beginning.
    Alexander García Düttmann is Professor of Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art at the Universität der Künste (Berlin) and Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University. He is one of the most interesting and influential European philosophers and critics writing today. Düttmann works at the intersection of deconstruction, hermeneutics, and the Frankfurt School, focusing on the philosophy of art, aesthetics (especially film and music), as well as cultural and political theory. He is the author of 14 books to date, which have been translated into a number of languages around the world. Among his books are What Does Art Know? For an Aesthetics of Resistance (2015); Naïve Art: An Essay on Happiness (2012); Participation: Consciousness of Semblance (2011); Visconti: Insights Into Flesh and Blood (2007); Philosophy of Exaggeration (2004); Between Cultures: Tensions in the Struggle for Recognition (1997); At Odds with Aids (1993); The Memory of Thought: An Essay on Heidegger and Adorno (1991); The Gift of Language: Memory and Promise in Adorno, Benjamin, Heidegger, and Rosenzweig (1989).
  •  Location: Smith-Buonanno, Room 201
    Professor of Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, Universität der Künste (Berlin, Germany) and Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies will host a screening of LUCHINO VISCONTI’S OTHER WORLDS: A SCREENING OF “CONVERSATION PIECE” (1974). Late in his life Visconti made a film set in the times in which he lived as an elderly man: the Italian society of the 1970s. “Gruppo di famiglia in un interno”, also known as “Conversation Piece”, is a film about the clash between two incompatible worlds, a world in the process of disintegration and a world in the process of emergence, a world in which art, political solidarity, and ethical responsibility are valued for what they are, and a world of power in which money has become the only measure of what is valuable. The film stars Burt Lancaster, Silvana Mangano and Helmut Berger. Claudia Cardinald and Dominique Sanda make guest appearances. A restored version of the film will be screened in Italian with English subtitles.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    In four public lectures, each followed by a seminar discussion, Prof. Düttmann will sketch out an approach to aesthetics based largely on a reading of Adorno. The first two lectures will provide a more general conceptual framework; the third and the fourth lecture will explore specific aspects of the ideas developed in the beginning.
    Alexander García Düttmann is Professor of Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art at the Universität der Künste (Berlin) and Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University. He is one of the most interesting and influential European philosophers and critics writing today. Düttmann works at the intersection of deconstruction, hermeneutics, and the Frankfurt School, focusing on the philosophy of art, aesthetics (especially film and music), as well as cultural and political theory. He is the author of 14 books to date, which have been translated into a number of languages around the world. Among his books are What Does Art Know? For an Aesthetics of Resistance (2015); Naïve Art: An Essay on Happiness (2012); Participation: Consciousness of Semblance (2011); Visconti: Insights Into Flesh and Blood (2007); Philosophy of Exaggeration (2004); Between Cultures: Tensions in the Struggle for Recognition (1997); At Odds with Aids (1993); The Memory of Thought: An Essay on Heidegger and Adorno (1991); The Gift of Language: Memory and Promise in Adorno, Benjamin, Heidegger, and Rosenzweig (1989).
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Geoffrey Bennington is Asa G. Chandler Professor of French at Emory University. He is the author of numerous books in literary and critical theory, with a focus on the work of Jacques Derrida. His lecture is sponsored jointly by the Department of German Studies, the Department of Comparative Literature, and the Department of French Studies.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    In four public lectures, each followed by a seminar discussion, Prof. Düttmann will sketch out an approach to aesthetics based largely on a reading of Adorno. The first two lectures will provide a more general conceptual framework; the third and the fourth lecture will explore specific aspects of the ideas developed in the beginning.
    Alexander García Düttmann is Professor of Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art at the Universität der Künste (Berlin) and Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University. He is one of the most interesting and influential European philosophers and critics writing today. Düttmann works at the intersection of deconstruction, hermeneutics, and the Frankfurt School, focusing on the philosophy of art, aesthetics (especially film and music), as well as cultural and political theory. He is the author of 14 books to date, which have been translated into a number of languages around the world. Among his books are What Does Art Know? For an Aesthetics of Resistance (2015); Naïve Art: An Essay on Happiness (2012); Participation: Consciousness of Semblance (2011); Visconti: Insights Into Flesh and Blood (2007); Philosophy of Exaggeration (2004); Between Cultures: Tensions in the Struggle for Recognition (1997); At Odds with Aids (1993); The Memory of Thought: An Essay on Heidegger and Adorno (1991); The Gift of Language: Memory and Promise in Adorno, Benjamin, Heidegger, and Rosenzweig (1989).
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    In four public lectures, each followed by a seminar discussion, Prof. Düttmann will sketch out an approach to aesthetics based largely on a reading of Adorno. The first two lectures will provide a more general conceptual framework; the third and the fourth lecture will explore specific aspects of the ideas developed in the beginning.
    Alexander García Düttmann is Professor of Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art at the Universität der Künste (Berlin) and Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University. He is one of the most interesting and influential European philosophers and critics writing today. Düttmann works at the intersection of deconstruction, hermeneutics, and the Frankfurt School, focusing on the philosophy of art, aesthetics (especially film and music), as well as cultural and political theory. He is the author of 14 books to date, which have been translated into a number of languages around the world. Among his books are What Does Art Know? For an Aesthetics of Resistance (2015); Naïve Art: An Essay on Happiness (2012); Participation: Consciousness of Semblance (2011); Visconti: Insights Into Flesh and Blood (2007); Philosophy of Exaggeration (2004); Between Cultures: Tensions in the Struggle for Recognition (1997); At Odds with Aids (1993); The Memory of Thought: An Essay on Heidegger and Adorno (1991); The Gift of Language: Memory and Promise in Adorno, Benjamin, Heidegger, and Rosenzweig (1989).
  •  Location: Building for Environmental Research & Teaching (BERT), Room 130
    The German Studies Department along with the German Studies DUG will be hosting a Werner Herzog Film Series for this semester! We will be showing one Herzog film a month, followed by a lecture in April from Herzog-specialist, Professor Eric Ames, from the University of Washington. Please join us for the screenings of the films as well as the lecture!
    Screening #1: Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
    Friday, February 20th, 7 pm
    BERT 130
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Distinguished philosopher and author David Farrell Krell will deliver the 2014 Brauer Lectures in the Department of German Studies. The topic of the four lectures will be “Ecstasies of Time,” on Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of temporality in his magnum opus, Being and Time. Lecture 4: “Through the Looking-Glass.” Reception to follow. Open to the public.
  •  Location: Smith-Buonanno, Room 201
    Dimitris Vardoulakis is chair of the Philosophy Research Initiative at the University of Western Sydney (Australia) and director of “Thinking Out Loud: The Sydney Lectures in Philosophy and Society,” which are published as a book series by Fordham University Press. His books include “The Doppelgänger: Literature’s Philosophy” (Fordham University Press, 2010); “Sovereignty and Its Other: Toward the Dejustification of Violence” (Fordham University Press, 2013); and “Stasis: On Agonistic Democracy” (Fordham University Press, forthcoming). Free and open to public. Reception to follow.
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Distinguished philosopher and author David Farrell Krell will deliver the 2014 Brauer Lectures in the Department of German Studies. The topic of the four lectures will be “Ecstasies of Time,” on Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of temporality in his magnum opus, Being and Time. Lecture 3: “Ecstasy at the ‘Other End’ of Dasein.” Reception to follow. Open to the public.
  •  Location: Watson Institute, McKinney Conference Room
    This panel seeks to turn our usual focus on the fall of the wall upside down. That is, rather than have American scholars ask what the Fall of the Wall meant for Germany, two German scholars from the Free University of Berlin (Christian Lammert, an international relations scholar and Boris Vormann, a human geographer) will discuss what the fall of the wall meant for the US. The response will be given by a British expert on European politics talking about what the fall of the wall meant for the rest of Europe (Jonathan Hopkin, The London School of Economics) . The panel is organized by political scientist and Watson Fellow Mark Blyth.
  •  Location: Barus & Holley, Room 190
    Guest lecture by Rüdiger Campe, Professor and Chair, Department of Germanic Language and Literatures, Yale University. Among Campe’s most recent books is “The Game of Probablity: Literature and Calculation from Pascal to Kleist” (Stanford University Press, 2012). Free and open to the public. Reception to follow.
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Distinguished philosopher and author David Farrell Krell will deliver the 2014 Brauer Lectures in the Department of German Studies. The topic of the four lectures will be “Ecstasies of Time,” on Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of temporality in his magnum opus, Being and Time. Lecture 2: “The Raptures of Time.” Reception to follow. Open to the public.
  •  Location: RI Hall, Room 108
    Distinguished philosopher and author David Farrell Krell will deliver the 2014 Brauer Lectures in the Department of German Studies. The topic of the four lectures will be “Ecstasies of Time,” on Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of temporality in his magnum opus, Being and Time. Lecture 1: “The Ecstas(i)es of Time.” Reception to follow. Open to the public.
  •  Location: Pembroke Field House
    A afternoon full of German fun with barbecue, volleyball and German music. Come celebrate the end of the school year with your German Studies peers and professors - and of course participate in our annual soccer match!
  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, The Underground
    The Department of German Studies and Brown German Club invite you to attend our annual German Talent Show. There will be German songs, poetry, acting, and Spass! It sure to be a SUPERGEIL event you won’t want to miss out on.
    Kabarettabend
    Thursday, April 17th
    7:00pm
    The Underground
  •  Location: The Underground (basement of Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center)
    A night full of entertaining performances from members and students of the German Studies community. Snacks, songs, skits - German fun to be had by all.
  •  Location: List Art Building, Room 120
    The practice of dance has been integral to religious and civic life since antiquity, and the earliest philophical accounts of cultural activity and human understanding have discussed dance. Public and private choreographies have remained central to artistic and political production throughout history, and today, dance captures the contemporary imagination not just via staged productions but also in the broadcast media, film, and the Internet. It is therefore no surprise that Dance Studies has grown significantly in popularity and reach as an academic discipline in recent decades. Dance scholars draw on diverse work in the humanities and social sciences in order to examine the way moving bodies are culturally and physically organized, whether on- or off-stage, through formal choreography or disciplinary discourses, in waiting-rooms, at turnstiles, or in political protest.
    This one-day symposium explores the intellectual promise of this field for the study of culture and society in general. Our guest speakers are:
    - Gabriele Brandstetter (Free University, Berlin)
    - Jean-Luc Nancy (University of Strasbourg) – via video-cast
    - Jacques Rancière (University of Paris, St. Denis)
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    A roundtable discussion with authors Howard Eiland (MIT) and Michael Jennings (Princeton) around the new book “Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life” (Harvard University Press, 2014). The authors will present this book and engage in a public podium discussion.
    Cogut Center for the Humanities
    Pembroke Hall
    172 Meeting Street, Room 202
    Reception to follow.
    Michael Jennings (Princeton University), Howard Eiland (MIT), and others will speak on the occasion of the publication of _Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life_.
    “Walter Benjamin himself often grappled with the vexed and constantly shifting relations between self and work, life (bios) and writing (graphein). Whatever faint yet abiding hyphen may connect the two, that same line also forever holds them apart. The new biography by Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings, two Benjamin scholars of the first rank, offers a sober, meticulous, and often moving image of Benjamin’s brief life in the shadow of catastrophe. Brilliantly interweaving the conceptual threads of Benjamin’s enigmatic work with his no less enigmatic existence, this impeccably informed and eminently readable account of Benjamin’s life sets a new standard for his biographers and critics in any language. Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life is destined to stand the test of time.”—Gerhard Richter, Brown University
    “Here, for the first time, is a thorough, reliable, non-tendentious, and fully developed account of Benjamin’s life and the sources of his work. Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life is by far the best biography of Benjamin that has yet appeared. A remarkable scholarly achievement, it will prove of enduring value and will doubtless become the standard reference work for those who become intrigued by the complicated contours of Benjamin’s life.”—Peter Fenves, Northwestern University
  •  Location: Watson Institute, Joukowsky Forum
    European Politics Seminar Series
    presented by Rolf Schütte, German Consul General for the New England States
    Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street
    The European Politics Seminar series is chaired by Marilyn Rueschemeyer.
  •  Location: Marston Hall
    Title: “Like Gleich”: Hölderlin Liking Sophocles
    Seminar on Tuesday, March 18, 2014 from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
    Marston Hall, 2nd floor seminar room
    Samuel Weber is the Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities at Northwestern University and co-director of its Paris Program in Critical Theory. He has published influential books on Balzac, Lacan, and Freud as well as on the relation of institutions and media to interpretation. More recent books include Theatricality as Medium (2004) and Targets of Opportunity: On the Militarization of Thinking (2005). An important major study of Walter Benjamin, Benjamin’s–abilities, appeared in 2008. His most recent book has just appeared in French with the title of Inquiétantes singularités.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 305
    Samuel Weber, “The Singularity of Literary Knowledge”
    Lecture on Monday, March 17, 2014 at 5:30 p.m.
    Pembroke Hall, 3rd Floor
    Samuel Weber is the Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities at Northwestern University and co-director of its Paris Program in Critical Theory. He has published influential books on Balzac, Lacan, and Freud as well as on the relation of institutions and media to interpretation. More recent books include Theatricality as Medium (2004) and Targets of Opportunity: On the Militarization of Thinking (2005). An important major study of Walter Benjamin, Benjamin’s–abilities, appeared in 2008. His most recent book has just appeared in French with the title of Inquiétantes singularités.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Did you learn German in high school? You could be eligible for one of the German Studies freshman prizes!
    The Caesar Misch Prize in German, established in 1913 by a gift from Mrs. Marios L. Misch.
    and the Asa Clinton Crowell Prize in German, established in 1928 by alumnae of Pembroke College, are monetary prizes awarded to members of the freshman class who excel in preparatory German. You must have acquired your knowledge of German primarily through preparatory study in high school, rather than through family and community contacts or extended residence in a German-speaking country to be considered for this award. The exam is not open to native speakers or students who have spent more than one month abroad. For further information and to sign up to be considered for this prize, please email Wendy_Perelman@brown.edu in Brown’s Department of German Studies by Friday, March 21st.
  •  Location: Faculty Club
    In his book from 2008, Darstellbarkeit: Das Erscheinen des Verschwindens, Rainer Nägele broaches the question of presentability, laying the accent on the “-ability” –– in German, the “–bar” –– that marks not only the potential, but also the vanishing point before any presentation. How can one address the bare limit, a barrier of sorts, that precedes every presentation? How might one read the unapparent opening of appearance? These questions figure implicitly in the writings of Paul Celan, Antonin Artaud, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Georg Trakl, to name several of the authors whose texts Nägele reads as he approaches the limits of presentation to and from which each of these writers speaks.
    The questions Nägele poses in his book pose themselves with every text––in his words, “with every turn, with every sentence”––along different lines, in different terms. Rather than arriving at closure, his work opens the problem of presentability in such a way that invites new turns to those traces of disappearance that mark literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, performance, and aesthetics. In a symposium hosted by the German Department at Brown University, speakers will return to Nägele’s work to pursue presentability, or the appearing of disappearing.
    Reception to follow at 190 Hope Street, German Studies Department
    PARTICIPANTS:
    Rainer Nägele is the Alfred C. and Martha F. Mohr Professor of German, Comparative Literature, and Classics at Yale University.
    Zachary Sng is Associate Professor of German and Comparative Literature and Brown University.
    Michael Levine is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University.
    Susan Bernstein is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Brown University.
    Jason Groves is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale University.
    Kristina Mendicino is Assistant Professor of German Studies at Brown University.
    Thomas Schestag is Associate Professor of German Studies at Brown University.
    Gerhard Richter is Professor of German Studies at Brown University.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    The German Studies Degree Day on February 28 will provide students with an opportunity to look at career paths after Brown with a degree in German Studies. The alumni guests will include Paula Armstrong, graduate student at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; and Jeremy Williams, senior consultant for Kaiser Associates, Inc.
    190 Hope Street, Room 103
    Reception to follow
  •  Location: McCormack Family Theater
    Berlin artist, Bridge Markland, will be performing her show “Faust in a Box”. This German version of Ms. Markland’s production is a one-person show and includes a variety of music from Madonna to Westernhagen to the Rolling Stones, quotations, texts and lighting tricks. You can see more of Ms. Markland’s work at the website below.
  •  Location: McCormack Family Theater
    The Department of German Studies and the German Department Undergraduate Group invite you to
    Faust in a Box
    Directed and Performed by Bridge Markland
    “Goethes Faust 1 für die Generation Popmusik”
    The production is a one-person show and includes a variety of music from Madonna to Westernhagen to the Rolling Stones, quotations, texts and lighting tricks. Join us to experience Faust as never before!
    Performed in German
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 305
    This conversation reflects on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s significant but under examined 1964 visit to West and East Berlin. King managed to cross into East Berlin without a passport and spoke to immense crowds on both sides of the Berlin wall. He spoke urgently about segregation in the US, the Berlin wall, divided societies world-wide and the importance of emphasizing a “common humanity.”
    Discussion led by:
    Taylor Branch, Author of “The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement”
    Comments:
    Tricia Rose, Director, Center for the Study of Race + Ethnicity in America (CSREA)
    Michael Steinberg, Director, Cogut Center for the Humanities
    Andre Willis, Visiting Professor, Religious Studies
    Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race + Ethnicity in America (CSREA) and the Cogut Center for the Humanities.
  •  Location: Sidney Frank Hall, Room 220 (Nathan Marcuvitz Auditorium)
    Actress Barbara Sukowa stars in this biopic of influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt’s reporting on the 1961 trial of ex-Nazi Adolf Eichmann in The New Yorker—controversial both for her portrayal of Eichmann and the Jewish councils—introduced her now-famous concept of the “banality of evil.” Using footage from the actual Eichmann trial and weaving a narrative that spans three countries, director Margarethe von Trotta turns the often invisible passion for thought into immersive, dramatic cinema.
    Followed by Q&A with screenwriter Pamela Katz.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Graduate Student Symposium: presentations by Rebecca Haubrich and Natalie Lozinski-Veach with discussion to follow.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    The German philosopher Rolf-Peter Horstmann is one of the world’s leading authorities on Hegel and German Idealism. He will lead a special breakfast seminar on one of Hegel’s most interesting and representative writings, the sections “Vorerinnerung” and “Mancherlei Formen, die jetzt beim Philosophieren vorkommen” from Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie (1801). The German Department will provide coffee, tea, juice, bagels, fruit, etc. If you would like a copy of the reading e-mailed to you, please contact Wendy Perelman . This event will be held in German.
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 202
    Laments without Words: Composing Loss in the Late German Democratic Republic, 1979–1989
    This talk examines commemorative works written by a generation of East German composers who came into renown in the final decades of their country’s existence. Educated in the early years of the German Democratic Republic, they were among the first generation “home grown” artists in a socialist state now on the brink of decline. I focus on their musical contributions to official rituals of commemoration that indelibly marked the East German experience, to show how these composers used the space of public performance to express alternative narratives of loss to those promoted by the state.
    BIO:
    Martha Sprigge is a postdoctoral fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows and an assistant professor of music and German at the University of Michigan. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in August 2013 with a dissertation on music written for the purposes of mourning and commemoration in the German Democratic Republic. Her work has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Musicological Society, and the American Council of Learned Societies.
    Co-sponsored by the Music Department, Religious Studies, German Studies, the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, and the Cogut Center for the Humanities.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Looking for opportunities to work and intern in Germany?
    Wondering how to spend your summer in Germany?
    TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12
    5pm
    First Floor Library
    Department of German Studies
    190 Hope Street
    Please join your fellow students who will talk about internships they have had in Germany during the summer. Professor Sokolosky will also have information about other internships in the Humanities and Sciences.
  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, The Underground
    The German Club and Brown Language Society invite you to
    Stammtisch!
    Our weekly German discussion group. All levels welcome!
    We’ll be chatting, listening to German music, learning about German culture, and meeting other germanophile peers. Bring or buy your lunch–see you in the Blauem Zimmer (Blue Room)!
  •  Location: Sayles Hall Lobby
    The German Department and Club invite you to our annual
    OKTOBERFEST Celebration
    Friday, November 1st
    7:00 - 12:00
    German Music! Dancing! Food! Beer!
    It is sure to be a Wunderbar night, join us!
    Tickets: $5
    JWW 11-3
    Monday - Friday
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Michael Levine, Professor of German & Comparative Literature Rutgers University
    Michael Levine is the author of Writing Through Repression: Literature, Censorship, Psychoanalysis (Johns Hopkins UP, 1994); The Belated Witness: Literature, Testimony, and the Question of Holocaust Survival (Stanford UP, 2006); and A Weak Messianic Power: Figures of a Time to Come in Benjamin, Derrida, and Celan (Fordham UP, 2013), which just appeared.
    LECTURE: “Of Big Ears and Bondage: Benjamin, Kafka, and the Static of the Sirens”
    FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1st
    12:00 noon
    Maddock Alumni Center
    38 Brown St., Brian Room
    Light lunch reception to follow
  •  Location: Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, Upper Blue Room
    The German Club and Brown Language Society invite you to
    Stammtisch!
    Our weekly German discussion group. All levels welcome!
    We’ll be chatting, listening to German music, learning about German culture, and meeting other germanophile peers. Bring or buy your lunch–see you in the Blauem Zimmer (Blue Room)!
  •  Location: MacMillan Hall, Room 115
    The German Club invites you to join us for our German Trivia Night!
    QUIZABEND
    Friday, October 18th
    7-9pm
    MacMillan 115
    All are welcome! | Event held in English
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture by Dirk Oschmann, Professor of German, University of Leipzig (Germany) & Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies, Brown University.
    Professor Dirk Oschmann is the author of Auszug aus der Innerlichkeit. Das literarische Werk Siegfried Kracauers (1999); Bewegliche Dichtung. Sprachtheorie und Poetik bei Lessing, Schiller und Kleist (2007); and Friedrich Schiller (2009). His talk, based on a new book on Kafka he is completing, challenges the widely-held assumption that Kafka’s work presents exclusively forms of estrangement and self-estrangement. What has not been understood is that, in Kafka’s world, the concept of freedom itself is the dialectical underbelly of this strangeness. Oschmann’s talk will explicate this systematic connection on the basis of Kafka’s great novel fragments, The One Who Sank out of Sight (a.k.a. Amerika), The Trial, and The Castle. [Lecture in German; discussion in German and English.]
  •  Location: > No location for this event
    Test Event
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Philosopher, critic, and writer David Farrell Krell, a Professor Emeritus at DePaul
    University in Chicago, joins Brown’s German Department as Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies and as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Cogut Humanities Center in Fall 2013. Krell, who had the opportunity to work with Heidegger himself, is the author of many important books on German, French, and Ancient Greek thought. One of the leading living American thinkers specializing in the German and European critical traditions, he has published a dozen scholarly books on writers and topics such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, the tragic absolute in German Idealism, architecture, the problem of “contagion” in German Idealism and Romanticism, and Derrida and the work of mourning, among others His most recent book, Derrida and Our Animal Others, just appeared with Indiana University Press.
    Lecture and reception to follow.
  •  Location: Faculty Club
    German Studies:
    THURSDAY, April 25th
    11:00am - 4:30pm (Reception following)
    Faculty Club - Portrait Room
    LECTURES:
    Rodolphe Gasche (SUNY Buffalo): “Is ‘Europe’ an Idea in the Kantian Sense?”
    (11:00am)
    Dieter Thoma (Universitat St. Gallen, Switzerland): “Europe’s Americanism, Europe’s Europeanism”
    (2:00pm)
    Dietrich Neumann (Art History, Brown University): “Politics and Architecture: The European Cultural Association on the Eve of WWII”
    Participants: Reda Bensmaia (French Studies), Susan Bernstein (Comparative Literature), Paul Guyer (Philosophy),
    Charles Larmore (Philosophy), Kevin McLaughlin (Dean of the Faculty), Gerhard Richter (German Studies), Zachary Sng (German Studies)
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    Lecture: The Possibility of the Work of Art. Christoph Menke is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt (Germany). He specializes in problems of aesthetic theory, political philosophy, ethics, theories of subjectivity, and the social normativity of freedom. Among his many books are
    The Sovereignty of Art: Aesthetic Negativity in Adorno and Derrida; Tragödie im Sittlichen: Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit nach Hegel; Reflections
    of Equality; Tragic Play; Irony and Theater from Sophocles to Beckett; Kraft: Ein Grundbegriff ästhetischer Anthropologie; as well as an introduction to the philosophy of
    human rights.
    Reception to follow.
    http://www.brown.edu/Departments/German_Studies/events/index.html
  •  Location: Smith-Buonanno Lounge, Room 107
    “Umwege Detours in German Literature and Thought”, German Studies Graduate Student Conference
    Keynote Speaker Carol Jacobs, Yale University
    “Around ‘The Rings’, a Detour” (W.G. Sebald’s ‘Rings of Saturn’)
    Friday, 4/12 5:30pm
    Smith-Buonanno Hall, 95 Cushing Street
    Please see URL or flyer for additional details or email detours2013@gmail.com
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Weihnachtsmarkt: German Christmas Market
    Want to get into the holiday spirit? Please join the Brown German Club and DUG for Christmas Kaffeestunde and Weihnachtsmarkt, this Friday from 5:00-7:00pm at 190 Hope Street! There will be fabulous music, great food, fun crafts, and an all around good time will be had by all. Pluse those who attend get to take home a gift! And who doesn’t love gifts? Really? So come on out this Friday and celebrate the Christmas season, German style!
  •  Location: Smith-Buonanno, Room 106
    Jacques Lezra is Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish, and Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature at NYU. He is a specialist in the literature of the Renaissance and Early Modern period, Cervantes and Shakespeare in particular, and in contemporary political philosophy. He is the author of Wild Materialism: The Ethic of Terror and the Modern Republic (2010) and Unspeakable Subjects: The Genealogy of the Event in Early Modern Europe (1997). Lezra’s 1992 translation into Spanish of Paul de Man’s Blindness and Insight won the PEN Critical Editions Award. His forthcoming books are entitled Principles of Insufficient Reason: Mediation and Translation After Marx and Accidental Modernity.
  •  Location: Andrews Dining Hall
    Looking for a WUNDERBAR Friday night?
    Join the Brown German Club at our annual Oktoberfest celebration on Friday, November 9th! Held in Andrews Dining Hall, doors open at 8pm. $5 entry, or $3 with a doodle! Tickets sold at the door or in JWW lobby 12-2. Questions? Ariana_gunderson@brown.edu
  •  Location: Pembroke Hall, Room 305
    Philosopher, critic, and writer David Farrell Krell joins Brown’s German Department as Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies and as a Cogut Humanities Center Distinguished Visitor in Fall 2012. Krell, who had the opportunity to work with Heidegger himself, is the author of many important books on German, French, and Ancient Greek thought. One of the leading living American thinkers specializing in the German and European critical traditions, he has published a dozen scholarly books on thinkers and topics such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, the tragic absolute in German Idealism, architecture, the problem of “contagion,” and Derrida and the work of mourning, among others. He also is the author of three novels to date: The Recalcitrant Art: Diotima’s Letters to Hölderlin and Related Missives; Son of Sprit; and Nietzsche: A Novel. While at Brown this fall, Krell is co-teaching an interdisciplinary seminar with Gerhard Richter, “Ontology of Life: Reading Heidegger’s Being and Time with Derrida” (German 2660K).
  •  Location: Watson Institute, McKinney Conference Room
    U.S.-German Business Relations and the Eurozone Crisis
    Speakers: Dr. Michael Lutz, Managing Director, Viessman Manufacturing (US) and Lemuel Kidd, Operations Manager of Viessman Manufacturing Company (US).
    Cosponsored by the German Department and the European Politics Seminar Series.
    A reception will follow.
  •  Location: MacMillan Hall, Room 117 (Starr Auditorium)
    German Club will be screening a film, “Alles auf Zucker” as part of our Think Transatlantic campaign. Free Popcorn! All are welcome. Movie in German with English subtitles.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Join us at a special Kaffeestunde (3-5 PM Hope 190) where you can learn more about what the German Department, German Club, and German DUG (Department Undergraduate Group) may offer you! This is the time for you to ask questions about anything German-related, as well as about study abroad and internships! For those who are interested in practicing their German or getting to know other German-speakers on campus, this will be a wonderful event for you. Snacks and beverages will be served.
  •  Location: Cogut Center for Humanities, Pembroke Hall
    “Passion Lost, Passion Regained: On the Love of the World in Heidegger and Arendt”
     
    The Department of German Studies is pleased to present a lecture by Professor Dieter Thomä is the author of numerous influential books – on such topics as Heidegger; totality and pity in Richard Wagner and Eisenstein; fatherhood; parenthood; the problem of happiness; and the American way of life as interpreted from a European perspective. He also contributes regularly to leading European newspapers such as Süddeutsche Zeitung and Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Introduction by Gerhard Richter.
    Monday, April 9 12noon-2pm
    Cogut Center for the Humanities/Pembroke Hall Room 202
    Brown Bag Lunch Free and open to the public
    Co-sponsored by The Cogut Center for the Humanities and the Departments of Comparative Literature, English, Modern Culture & Media and Philosophy
  •  Location: Robert Campus Center, Petteruti Lounge
    Please join a distinguished panel for a discussion of
    twentieth-century Germany’s most controversial writer, Christa Wolf.
    Discussants will address Wolf’s political scandals in the former
    German Democratic Republic (DDR) as well as her contributions towards
    a particular Socialist, Modern, and Feminist aesthetic. Free and open
    to the public. Lunch provided. Wednesday, March 21, Faunce Hall,
    Petteruti Lounge, 12:00-2:00. Sponsored by German Studies, Comparative
    Literature, and the Cogut Center for the Humanities.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Wondering what to do with a concentration in German Studies, previous study abroad experience or foreign language skills? Come to German Studies Degree Day Event and find out!
    Here is a brief introduction to our two super cool panelists:
    Marc Levitt ’03, German Studies
    - Fulbright Fellowship at Universität Postdam
    - Worked for both the Kerry ’04 and Obama ’08 campaigns
    - Special Assistant at the Office for Policy and International Affairs at the Department of Energy
    - Currently a student at Georgetown University Law Center, JD ’12
    Ellen Wong ’10, German Studies
    - Fulbright English Teaching Assistant
    - Research Intern for Danya International (consulting)
    - Career interest and experiences include: teaching, international consulting, international relations (Europe-US relation)
    Snacks and refreshment will be provided (better than regular Kaffeestunde!) Please RSVP by contacting Jan Cao at jieran_cao@brown.edu before March 6th (next Tuesday) so that we will have enough food and space for everyone :)
    (Sponsored by the German Studies DUG, Dean of College and the Career Lab)
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Interested in language programs, internships, or fellowships in Germany over the summer or after graduation? Come join us, the German studies DUG, to hear about student panelists’ experience in university science labs, Fulbright Teaching Assistantship, as well as intensive language programs in Germany! All are welcomed and lunch will be provided!
  •  Location: Salomon Center, Room 001
    Join the German Club and Brown’s German Studies Department for a special screening of “Kebab Connection”. This comedy tells the tale of Ibo (Ibrahim), a young filmmaker of Turkish descent, and his German girlfriend Titzie, an aspiring actress. The film is 90 minutes long and will be shown with English subtitles. Sponsored, as part of “Deutsche Wochen” by the German Studies Department and the German Embassy. Free T-shirts and other giveaways!! No knowledge of German required!
  •  Location: Watson Institute, Joukowsky Forum
    “Germany, the Euro and Transatlantic Relations: Leadership in an Interdependent World
    Lecture with Generalkonsul Friedrich Löhr
    German Consulate Boston
    Thursday, November 3, 2011, 4:00 PM
    Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street
    Reception to follow
    Sponsored by Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Washington, DC,
    and Brown’s German Studies Department
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Want to gain international research experience at the top engineering university in Germany this summer? Wollen Sie Deutsch lernen? Scholarships are available and no language requirement. Freshman can also apply. It is a fantastic opportunity to both do research and learn language. Come find out more about UROP international at the info session at German Departments, room 102, 190 Hope St on November 1st, Tuesday, 4:00 pm.
  •  Location: Hope Street 190 (German Studies)
    Grab a friend and come explore the history of Brown as it relates to German culture. Teams of students will receive tasks to complete in this campus-wide scavenger hunt. Never been to the John Carter Brown Library? Now’s the time! It all starts at the German Studies Library, 190 Hope Street. All questions in English. Free t-shirts for all participants! Prizes for the top three teams!
  •  Location: Smith-Buonanno HallRoom: Room 106

    Brown University’s Departments of German Studies and of History and the Cogut Center for the Humanities are pleased to announce a joint interdisciplinary graduate student conference, entitled “(Re)Making Myths: The Creation, Use, and Abuse of Myths in German Literature, History, and Culture”. This conference critically examines German discourses on myth within spheres of the everyday, academia, and politics in an interdisciplinary setting. What is the function of myths, of their making, re-making, construction and destruction in German society and culture, politics and history? How does myth-making and the re-making of myths define the national identity of Germans? What are the strategies of representation and reworking of myth in visual culture and performance? Are there enduring German myths, or should we rather think about this theme as one that is in permanent flux?

  •  Location: Smith-Buonanno, Room 106
    Prof. Peter Uwe Hohendahl (Cornell University) delivers the Keynote Address for the Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference “(Re)Making Myths: The Creation, Use, and Abuse of Myths in German Literature, History, and Culture”, organized by the Departments of German Studies and History, and kindly supported by the Cogut Center for the Humanities.
  •  Location: Smith-Buonanno, Room 201
    Brown University’s Departments of German Studies and of History and the Cogut Center for the Humanities are pleased to announce a joint interdisciplinary graduate student conference, entitled “(Re)Making Myths: The Creation, Use, and Abuse of Myths in German Literature, History, and Culture”. This conference critically examines German discourses on myth within spheres of the everyday, academia, and politics in an interdisciplinary setting. What is the function of myths, of their making, re-making, construction and destruction in German society and culture, politics and history? How does myth-making and the re-making of myths define the national identity of Germans? What are the strategies of representation and reworking of myth in visual culture and performance? Are there enduring German myths, or should we rather think about this theme as one that is in permanent flux?
  •  Location: German Studies Building
    Want to spend next summer in Germany?
    Come find out about internships, research opportunities, scholarships, language programs, and more.
    Friday, December 3rd at 1 P.M.
    190 Hope Street Library
    Free pizza!
    Former participants will talk about their experiences!
  •  Location: List Art Building, Room 120
    Christina Kubisch gives a public presentation of her work spanning her career.
    Christina Kubisch belongs to the first generation of sound artists. Trained as a composer, she has artistically developed such techniques as magnetic induction to realize her installations. Since 1986 she has added light as an artistic element to her work with sound. Her work displays an artistic development which is often described as the “synthesis of arts” - the discovery of acoustic space and the dimension of time in the visual arts on the one hand, and a redefinition of relationships between material and form on the other.
  •  Location: Grant Recital Hall
    Screening of Christina Kubisch’s new video WAVE CATCHER (2010) about her sound installation work.
    Christina Kubisch belongs to the first generation of sound artists. Trained as a composer, she has artistically developed such techniques as magnetic induction to realize her installations. Since 1986 she has added light as an artistic element to her work with sound. Her work displays an artistic development which is often described as the “synthesis of arts” - the discovery of acoustic space and the dimension of time in the visual arts on the one hand, and a redefinition of relationships between material and form on the other.
    Grant Recital Hall is newly renovated and accessible. To request special services, accommodations or assistance for this event, please contact Ashley Lundh [401.863.3234 - Ashley_Lundh@brown.edu] as far in advance of the event as possible.
  •  Location: > No location for this event
    The Cogut Center for the Humanities announces the close of its Graduate Fellowship search for academic year 2010-11.
    Graduate Fellowships provide an enhanced context for advanced doctoral students, including the opportunity for presentation of work and the benefits of critique from an exciting group of Cogut Center Faculty Fellows, Mellon and International Humanities Postdoctoral Fellows and Distinguished Visiting Fellows.
    Graduate Fellows receive office space at the Humanities Center as well as a generous research fund; they are expected to participate in the Cogut Center’s scheduled Fellows’ Seminars (every Tuesday 11-2) and other center events.
    Four Graduate Fellowships are awarded annually by the governing board of the Cogut Center for the Humanities. Fellowships cover the enrollment fee, health insurance, the health services fee, and a stipend.
    Doctoral students who have advanced to candidacy are eligible and encouraged to apply.
    Application deadline is March 12, 2010. Successful candidates will be notified by mid-April, 2010.
    For instructions, visit: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Humanities_Center/grants/graduate.html
  •  Location: > No location for this event
    The Cogut Center for the Humanities announces the close of its Undergraduate Fellowship search for academic year 2010-11.
    Undergraduate Fellowships provide an enhanced context for advanced honors students, including the opportunity for collegial interaction and the benefits of critique from an exciting group of Cogut Center Faculty Fellows, Mellon and International Humanities Postdoctoral Fellows, Graduate Fellows and Distinguished Visiting Fellows. Four Undergraduate Fellowships are awarded annually by the governing board of the Cogut Center for the Humanities. A generous research fund is available with these Fellowships.
    Undergrad Fellows are expected to participate in the Cogut Center’s scheduled Fellows’ Seminars (every Tuesday 11-2) and other center events.
    Rising junior and senior honors students are encouraged to apply.
    Application deadline is March 12, 2010. Successful candidates will be notified by mid-April, 2010.
    For instructions, visit: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Humanities_Center/grants/undergraduatefellows.html
  •  Location: > No location for this event
    The Cogut Center for the Humanities announces its Graduate Fellowship search for academic year 2010-11.
    Graduate Fellowships provide an enhanced context for advanced doctoral students, including the opportunity for presentation of work and the benefits of critique from an exciting group of Cogut Center Faculty Fellows, Mellon and International Humanities Postdoctoral Fellows and Distinguished Visiting Fellows.
    Graduate Fellows receive office space at the Humanities Center as well as a generous research fund; they are expected to participate in the Cogut Center’s scheduled Fellows’ Seminars (every Tuesday 11-2) and other center events.
    Four Graduate Fellowships are awarded annually by the governing board of the Cogut Center for the Humanities. Fellowships cover the enrollment fee, health insurance, the health services fee, and a stipend.

    Doctoral students who have advanced to candidacy are eligible and encouraged to apply.
    Application deadline is March 12, 2010. Successful candidates will be notified by mid-April, 2010.
    For instructions, visit: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Humanities_Center/grants/graduate.html
  •  Location: > No location for this event
    The Cogut Center for the Humanities announces its Undergraduate Fellowship search for academic year 2010-11.
    Undergraduate Fellowships provide an enhanced context for advanced honors students, including the opportunity for collegial interaction and the benefits of critique from an exciting group of Cogut Center Faculty Fellows, Mellon and International Humanities Postdoctoral Fellows, Graduate Fellows and Distinguished Visiting Fellows. Four Undergraduate Fellowships are awarded annually by the governing board of the Cogut Center for the Humanities. A generous research fund is available with these Fellowships.
    Undergrad Fellows are expected to participate in the Cogut Center’s scheduled Fellows’ Seminars (every Tuesday 11-2) and other center events.
    Rising junior and senior honors students are encouraged to apply.
    Application deadline is March 12, 2010. Successful candidates will be notified by mid-April, 2010.
    For instructions, visit: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Humanities_Center/grants/undergraduatefellows.html
  •  Location: Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room
    “Rescuing Writing: Benjamin with Adorno, Hölderlin, and Kafka“, presented by Gerhard Richter, Professor of German at the University of California, Davis.
    Professor Richter’s research and teaching interests include European Critical Thought since Kant; Modern German Literature and Culture, including photography and visual culture; the Frankfurt School; Deconstruction; Literary, Cultural and Aesthetic theory.