SPRING 2013
FRIDAY-SATURDAY APR 12th-13th
"Umwege: Detours in German Literature and Thought"
Smith-Buonanno Hall, 95 Cushing Street, Pembroke Campus
FRIDAY, APR 12th
2:15pm – Registration (Forum, 107)
2:45pm – Opening Remarks (Room 201)
3:00pm – Panel I: Detours in and of Literature (Room 201)
Peter Erickson (Univ. of Chicago)
Herkules am Scheideweg: Wieland's ‘Musarion’ and the Conversion to Philosophy
Michael Swellander (Columbia Univ.)
To Walk on One’s Head: Language, Walking, and the Resistance to Metaphor in Büchner’s ‘Lenz’
Mordechai Hodkin (Northwestern Univ.)
Surveying the Landscape: Mapping Stifter’s Discursive Paths
Moderator: Stephanie Galasso
5:00pm – Coffee Break (Forum, 107)
5:30pm – Keynote Address (Room 106)
Professor Carol Jacobs (Yale Univ.)
Around ‘The Rings,’ a Detour
(W. G. Sebald's ‘Rings of Saturn’)
7:00pm – Dinner / Reception (Forum, 107)
SATURDAY, APR 13
10:00am – Breakfast (Forum, 107)
10:30am – Panel II: (Room 201)
Nicole Sütterlin (Univ. Basel)
Of Tours and Tombs: Approximation and Aberration in German Romanticism (Novalis via Derrida)
Sam Heidepriem (Univ. of Michigan)
Telos or No? – A Wandering Line in Hegel Reception
Gerhard Hommer (Konstanz)
The Right to Detours in the Weimar Republic
Moderator: Ian Sampson
12:30pm – Lunch (Forum, 107)
1:30pm – Panel III: Critical Detours (Room 201)
Ross Etherton (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder)
Kicking Against the Pricks: Interrupted Reading in ‘Minima Moralia’
Andrew Cavin (Univ. of Michigan)
Primitivism and the Critique of Modernity
Matthias Hennig (Univ. Trier)
Philosophie des Umwegs bei Adorno und Bloch
Moderator: Dennis Johannssen
3:30pm – Coffee Break (Forum, 107)
4:00am – Panel IV: Detours of Suspicion (Room 201)
Joshua G. Winchester (New York Univ.)
Otherwise than Subjectivity: Into the Unidentified Fluke of Freud’s Protective Fictions
Patricia Gwozdz (Univ. Potsdam)
Detour as Retour? Mapping the Reader's Mind (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Steven Lydon (Harvard Univ.)
The Trace and The Whole: Rhythm and Cognition in ‘Das Kapital’
Moderator: Felix Green
For further information, please send an email to detours2013@gmail.com.
THURSDAY, APR 18th
"The Possibility of the Work of Art"
Prof. Christoph Menke (University of Frankfurt)
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 areThe 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.
Maddock Alumni Center
Brian Room
38 Brown Street
12:00pm
FRIDAY, APR 19th
Waste/Books
Approaching Lichtenberg's Sudelbücher as Intellectual Tools
Petra McGillen, Assistant Professor of German, Dartmouth College
Presented by The German Studies Graduate Student Colloquium Series
Detours, Digressions, and Deviations in International Literature & Thought
German Studies Department
Library, Room 103
190 Hope Street
5:30pm
THURSDAY, APR 25th
Symposium on Europe
Faculty Club
1 Magee Street
Portrait Room
11:00am - 4:30pm
11:00 Welcome remarks: Kevin McLaughlin, Dean of the Faculty
Introduction: Gerhard Richard, Chair, Department of German Studies
11:15 Rodolphe Gasché (SUNY Buffalo): “Is ‘Europe’ an Idea in the Kantian Sense?” Respondents: Paul Guyer (Philosophy), Réda Bensmaia (French Studies)
1:00 Lunch
2:00 Dieter Thomä (Universität St. Gallen, Switzerland): “Europe’s Americanism, Europe’s Europeanism”
Respondents: Charles Larmore (Philosophy), Massimo Riva (Italian Studies)
3:15 Dietrich Neumann (Art History, Brown University): "Politics and Architecture: The European Cultural Association on the eve of WWII”
Respondent: Susan Bernstein (Comp. Lit.) + xxx (?)
4:30 Reception (Wriston Terrace, Faculty Club)
WEDNESDAY, MAR 20th
“Totality and its Discontents: Aesthetics and Politics in
Richard Wagner and Sergei Eisenstein”
Lecture by Dieter Thomä (U. of St. Gallen, Switzerland)
Max Kade Distinguished
Visiting Professor
of German Studies
4:30 pm
Barker Room, English Department (70 Brown St)
Reception to follow
In 1939 the Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein directed Richard Wagner’s “Valkyrie” in Moscow. An entry in his notebook from this period reads as follows: “What is fascistic in this play, I wonder?“ This uncanny episode from the years of the Hitler-Stalin-Pact, which carries heavy political import, also stands for an encounter between the main representatives of the total work of art (“Gesamtkunstwerk“) in opera and film. This lecture will analyze the Moscow production and address the broad set of political and aesthetic questions shared by Eisenstein and Wagner. Among the issues discussed are: the masses and the individual; order and decadence; the loss of perspective and the (filmic) “shot.”
The lecture also is a contribution to the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth this year.
The GICG sponsored colloquium series: Detours, Deviations, and Digressions:
WEDNESDAY, FEB 13th
Proust (or Baudelaire): Wanderers and Travelers led by Ann-Carolin Sieffert (French Studies)
Contact Eric Foster, German Studies
190 Hope Street, room 102
5:30pm
WEDNESDAY, FEB 27th
Goethe's Wilhelm Meister: The Grand Detour led by Eric Foster (German Studies)
Contact Eric Foster, German Studies
190 Hope Street, room 102
5:30pm
WEDNESDAY, MAR 13th
Nabokov's Detours led by Professor Michal Oklot (Slavic Studies)
Contact Eric Foster, German Studies
190 Hope Street, room 102
5:30pm
FRIDAY, APR 12th
Special Session: Keynote speaker Carol Jacobs (Yale) at German Graduate Student on Conference on Detours
Contact Eric Foster, German Studies
Times and Locations TBA
FRIDAY, APR 19
Closinig Session: Keynote speaker Petra McGillen (Dartmouth)
Contact Eric Foster, German Studies
Time and Location TBA
FALL 2012
The GICG sponsored colloquium series: Detours, Deviations, and Digressions:
WEDNESDAY, SEPT 12th
1: "Odysseus' Lying Tales" - Byron McDougal (Dept. of Classics)
Contact: Eric Foster, German Studies
190 Hope Street, room 102
5.30pm
WEDNESDAY, SEPT 26th
2: "Herodotus and Pindar" – Prof. Johanna Hanink (Dept. of Classics)
Contact: Eric Foster, German Studies
190 Hope Street, room 102
5.30pm
WEDNESDAY, OCT 10th
3: "Dante's Divine Comedy" - Anna Aresi (Dept. of Italian Studies)
Contact: Eric Foster, German Studies
190 Hope Street, room 102
5.30pm
The GICG sponsored colloquium series (organized by a group of German Studies graduate students) investigates how forms of aberration, resistance, and deferral open up a discursive space in which invention and thought can thrive unencumbered; they constitute the creative potentiality from which every new thought and narration emerge. In this context, the series looks at a number of literary works that have shaped the western canon, such as Homer's Odyssee, Dante's Divine Comedy, Sterne's Tristram Shandy.
Graduate International Colloquium Grants (GICG) support collaborative campus-based activites that strengthen or expand Brown University’s connection with the wider world of academic knowledge production, or that will provide new international perspectives on graduate students’ ongoing work. Grants have and continue to support various events, such as individual visiting speakers, speaker series, workshops, or small conferences.
For further information visit: http://www.brown.edu/about/
WEDNESDAY, OCT 31
The Cogut Center for the Humanities presents
"The Miracle of the Dancing Ball: Walter Benjamin, Mechanical
Mysticism and the Apocalyptic Epistemology Of Changing Everything, All
At Once"
Master seminar
12:00 - 2:00pm
By invitation only
This seminar will consist in a close philosophical reading of
Benjamin's short story "Rastelli Narrates" and its accompanying
sources and parallels. These enigmatic texts will be placed against
the broader background of the modern question of mind and machine and
the spiritual automaton that animates some of this author's most
telling meditations on the fate of the political in general, and of
its critical method and orientation, namely historical materialism and
theology, in particular. We will take issue with some recent
discussions of Benjamin's stance (notably by Giorgio Agamben and Eric
Santner) and aim to resituate him squarely within the much older
tradition of the theologico-political that he was one of the first to
expose to the unprecedented problems raised by the new technologies of
contemporary media.
Speaker Hent deVries will conduct a master seminar for faculty and invited graduate students. Assigned reading required prior to day of seminar. Those who would like to join the Master Seminar must contact Humanities Center. Seating is limited.
Think Transatlantic, Campus Weeks 2012
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2
German Quiz NIght
The Underground
6:30 - 8:30pm
Test your knowledge of all things German and win prizes!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9
Oktoberfest
Andrews Dining Hall
8:00pm - 12:00am
Tickets $5 @ JWW
Nov 5-9, 12-2pm & at door
Both events sponsored by Brown's Department of German Studies, the German Club and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8
Lecture: "Indefensible Ideas: Touching Polemic, Criticism, and Subjectivity"
David Farrell Krell
Pembroke Hall 305
12-2pm
FRIDAY, NOV 16th
Lecture: “The ‘Principle’ of Insufficient Reason: Immediate Heidegger”
Jacques Lezra
(New York University)
Smith-Buonanno 106
4-6pm
SPRING 2012
WEDNESDAY, MAY 2ND
Panel discussion: "Music, Religion, Nationalism"
Discussion of Johannes Brahms' A German Requiem, To Words of the Holy Scriptures, Op.45 (Ein deutsches Requiem, nach Worten der heiligen Schrift) on the occasion of its performance by the Rhode Island Philharmonic on May 5.
Speakers include Larry Rachleff, conductor and musical director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic; Thomas A. Lewis, Religious Studies; and Michael P. Steinberg, Cogut Center for the Humanities.
5:30 - 7:00pm, Pembroke Hall 305
FRIDAY, APRIL 13TH
Lecture: "Harun Farocki's Reading of Footage from the Nazi Camp at Westerbork"
(Includes a screening of Farocki's silent film "Respite" [2007, 40min.])
Sven Kramer, University of Lüneburg, Germany & Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor, Brown University
Prof. Kramer is Professor of German Literature and Literary Cultures at the University of Lüneburg. In addition, he has held a number of visiting positions in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
His research interests include the depiction of violence in literature and of left-wing terrorism in literature. Further fields of research comprise the aesthetics of the Frankfurt School, the theory and the history of the essay and the essay-film, and studies on individual authors and filmmakers, such as H. G. Adler, Améry, Büchner, Geissler, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Kafka, Tieck, P. Weiss, as well as Cronenberg, Kluge, Marker, Riefenstahl.
4-6pm Wilson 309
Reception to follow. Free and open to the public.
MONDAY, APRIL 9th
Lecture "Passion Lost, Passion Regained: On the Love of the World in Heidegger and Arendt"
Dieter Thomä, Professor of Philosophy, Universität of St. Gallen, Switzerland
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.
Co-Sponsored by the Cogut Center for the Humanities and the Departments of Comparative Literature, English, Modern Culture and Media, and Philosophy.
Noon - 2pm Cogut Center for the Humanities/Pembroke Hall Room 202
Brown Bag Lunch Free and Open to the Public
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21ST
Panel Discussion "The Quest for Christa W."
Panelists: Irene Kacandes (Dartmouth University), Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor Sven Kramer (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg), Katrin Dettmer (Brown University), Silja Maehl ( Brown University)
Moderator: Kevin Goldberg (Brown University)
The Department of German Studies plans to commemorate the life (and recent death) of East German and post-unification author Christa Wolf. The panel discussion will consist of questions directed by the moderator to the expertise of particular panelists as well as more general questions meant to stimulate exchange and audience reflection. Discussion topics will be generated from, among other sources, excerpts of Wolf’s writings and controversial scholarly critiques. Following the exchange, the audience will be invited to pose questions to the panelists and to offer their own commentary. Closing remarks will address the future of Wolf scholarship and its place within the German (as opposed to East German) literary canon.
Noon - 2pm, Petteruti Lounge
Lunch will be served
MONDAY, MARCH 19TH
Digital Faust, Digital Editions
Lecture by Fotis Jannidis, University of Würzburg
The Digital Faust Edition is an extremely ambitious piece of digital
scholarship, involving the representation of complex relationships
among manuscripts and detailed tracking of Goethe's revision process.
The edition is being prepared using the TEI Guidelines and has
contributed substantially to the creation of a new TEI module for
manuscript editing. In addition, the Faust Edition is working with
several major tool-building initiatives including InterEdition and
Juxta, both of which focus on developing tools for collating,
comparing, and visualizing textual data for digital scholarly
editions. This presentation will offer a look at the design and
encoding process and the editorial theory underlying this massive work.
Fotis Jannidis is Professor and Chair for German and Digital Literary Studies at the University of Würzburg, where he also is one of the directors of the Digital Faust Edition.
Noon - 1:30pm, Rockefeller Library Conference Room
Bring your lunch.
Organized by the Computers and the Humanities Users Group (CHUG)
WEDNESDAY, FEB 29th
Reading and Workshop with Tzveta
Sofronieva (Writer in Residence, MIT)
Tzveta Sofronieva is Max Kade Writer in Residence at Massachusetts Institute for Technology for Spring 2012. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, living in Berlin since 1992, and a frequent traveler, Ms. Sofronieva has an academic background in Physics and a doctorate in Cultural Studies. Her work, including short stories, essays, and poetry, explores the relationships across languages and different spheres of knowledge, as well as the impact of gender in these contexts. She writes in Bulgarian, English, and German.
Lunchtime Reading
Wednesday, February 29, 2012, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
German Studies Department, 190 Hope St, Library
Lunch will be provided.
Please sign up by contacting Wendy Perelman.
Workshop Discussion on Translation
(M)Other Words: How can the Terra Incognita of Multilingualism be located?
Wednesday, February 29, 2012, 3 – 5 p.m.
Sayles Hall 105
Please sign up by contacting Professor Forrest Gander.
Co-sponsored by German Studies, Literary Arts, and Comparative Literature.
FALL 2011
SATURDAY, SEPT. 24TH
Breakfast Seminar with Peter Fenves (Northwestern)
Peter Fenves (Joan and Sarepta Harrison Professor of Literature & Professor of German, Comparative Literature, and Jewish Studies at Northwestern University) will conduct a breakfast seminar to discuss his current work in progress (on the relevance of the quantum mechanical concept of entanglement to the relationship between Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger)
9:30 a.m. – noon, Petterruti Lounge
Cosponsored by the Cogut Center for the Humanities, Comparative Literature, English, Modern Culture & Media, and Philosophy
Copies of Fenves’ paper, which will form the basis of our discussion, can be obtained by contacting Wendy Perelman in the German Department
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WED, OCT. 26TH AND THU, OCT. 27TH
Brauer Lecture and Seminar with Andrew Benjamin (Monash University)
Wed, 10/26: Lecture
Andrew Benjamin (Professor of Critical Theory and Philosophical Aesthetics at Monash University) will deliver a lecture entitled "Leben und Glück: Notes on Walter Benjamin and Hölderlin."
5:30 p.m., Brown-RISD Hillel, 80 Brown St
Thu, 10/27: Lunch Seminar and Discussion
Andrew Benjamin willconduct a lunchtime seminar and discussion on the "Where are the Animals? On Kant's Critique of Practical Reason"
Noon - 2:00 p.m., German Department Library, 190 Hope St
Lunch provided. Please register with Wendy Perelman.
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OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER
"Deutschlandwochen," a series of events on German Culture and Language in the US. Click here for more information.
FRIDAY, OCT. 14TH: Quiz Abend
Come test your knowledge of things German and win Prizes!
6:30-8:30pm, The Underground
FRIDAY, OCT. 28TH: Schnitzeljagd @ Kaffeestunde
What’s German at Brown?! Come find out by participating in our Scavenger Hunt that takes you around campus and brings you back to Kaffeestunde at the German Studies Department!
3-5pm, German Department Library
THURSDAY, NOV. 3RD: Lecture by Friedrich Löhr
Generalkonsul Friedrich Löhr (German Consulate Boston) will deliver a lecture entitled “Germany, the Euro and Transatlantic Relations: Leadership in an Interdependent World”
4 pm with reception following, Watson Institute
SUNDAY, NOV. 6TH: Film Screening
"Kebab Connection" (Fatih Akin, 2004) - a comedy set in Hamburg about a young Turkish-German man who is an aspiring filmmaker, and the clash of cultures and pre-parental anxiety ensues after his German girlfriend announces that she's pregnant.
7pm, Salomon 001
PAST EVENTS
Friday & Saturday |
(Re)Making Myths: The Creation, Use, and Abuse of Myths in German Literature, History, and Culture with keynote speaker Peter Uwe Hohendahl |
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| Friday, March 18 | FATIMA NAQVI - Join us for lunch and a discussion of Michael Haneke’s latest film, THE WHITE RIBBON (2009). led by Professor FATIMA NAQVI, Department of Germanic, Russian and East European Languages and Literature, Rutgers. |
| Thursday, December 2 - Sunday, December 5 |
sponsored by by Peter Handke |
Monday |
BENJAMIN’S BLOTTING PAPER Monday, November 15th, 5:30pm |
Friday & Saturday |
“Romanticism and the Question of Community" This colloquium will bring together scholars to present research in progress on the principles, practices, experiences, and theories of community in Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment literatures and cultures, with a special emphasis on Romantic literature and thought. |
Tuesday
Wednesday
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CHRISTINA KUBISCH EVENTS Student workshop, by invitation, contact jacob_richman@brown.edu for more info.
4pm: Public Presentation, overview of her work and career with audience Q+A , Visual Arts Dept, List Auditorium, 64 College Street |
Wednesday |
LECTURE "Cultural Transformation. Goethe's Divan as an Experiment" 5:00pm, 190 Hope Street, Room 103 Click HERE for flyer |
| Monday 5 Apr |
WORKSHOP Location: 190 Hope Street, Room 103 Poetry Workshop at 12:00pm The poetry workshop participants will discuss Tawada’s texts in the original and translations into Czech, English, German, Japanese, and Russian, and observe with the author fascinating processes such as shifts in perception, conceptual mutation, and creation of new meaning. and a Poetry Reading at 5:00pm "Translated Faces, Liquefied Letters" Yoko Tawada was born in Tokyo in 1960, educated at Waseda University and has lived in Germany since 1982, where she received her Ph.D. in German literature. She received the prestigious Akutagawa Prize – Japan’s equivalent of a Booker or a Pulitzer – for The Bridegroom Was a Dog. She writes in both German and Japanese, and in 1996, she won the Adalbert-von-Chamisso Prize, a German award recognizing foreign writers for their contributions to German culture. She also received the Goethe-Medal, an official decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. Co-sponsored by the Cogut Center for the Humanities, Departments of Comparative Literature, East Asian Studies, German Studies, Literary Arts, and Slavic Languages |
| Friday 5 Mar |
WORKSHOP "Yoko Tawada: Writings in German and Japanese" 12:00 - 2:00pm, Marston Hall 209 Pre-Registration Required with Click HERE for readings.. co-sponsored by: East Asian Studies, Comparative Literature, and the Cogut Center for the Humanities. |
| Thursday 4 Mar |
LECTURE Prof. John Namjun Kim “Ethnic Irony: Tawada, de Man and the Poetics of Migrating Borders” 5:30pm, Maddock Alumni Center, Click HERE for flyer and HERE for more information. co-sponsored by: East Asian Studies, Comparative Literature, and the Cogut Center for the Humanities. |
| Thursday 25 Feb |
LECTURE Prof. David Levin "Wagner in Pieces: The Interstitial Dramaturgy of the Stuttgart *Ring* Cycle" 5:30pm Barus & Holley, Room 190 Click HERE for flyer. |
| Thursday 18 Feb |
LECTURE "Where does Guilt come from and what will ever come of it? On Nietzsche's Geneaology of the Future" (Visiting Scholar at Yale University, University of Zurich, Switzerland) 4:00pm, Library at 190 Hope Click HERE for flyer. |
| Thursday 4 Feb |
LECTURE "Rescuing Writing: Benjamin with Adorno, Hölderlin, and Kafka“ 5:30pm, Maddock Alumni Center, Click HERE for flyer. |
| Wed 30 Sept |
LECTURE 'The Ongoing Process of German Reunification - A Look Behind the Scenes' Noon, Library at 190 Hope |
| Thur 1 Oct |
COLLOQUIUM “Making Room for Reason in Kant and Derrida” 4:30pm,
190 Hope, Room 103 |
| Fri 23 Oct |
OKTOBERFEST 3:00 pm, lawn, 190 Hope Street |
| Thu 29 Oct |
COLLOQUIUM “How to Make Sense of the World - Nietzsche's Aesthetic Point of View” 4:30pm,
Library at 190 Hope |
Tue through Wed |
EXHIBITION "From Peaceful Revolution to German Unity”. An ongoing exhibition of posters depicting the history of events which lead to the Fall of the Wall and to German reunification. |
| Wed 4 Nov |
FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS “Goodbye Lenin” 8:00 pm, MacMillan 117 Screening of award winning film, “Goodbye Lenin” (2003). German comedy about a son who must hide the fall of the Berlin Wall from his sickly mother because he believes that the shock might kill her. |
| Thur 5 Nov |
FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS “West meets East – Past Experiences and Current Challenges” Reiner Möckelmann, Consul General Reiner Möckelmann, Retired West German Diplomat and Director of Summer School Wust 7:00 pm,
Joukowsky Forum at the Watson Institute Consul General Reiner Möckelmann, a former West German diplomat, who held posts at the embassies in Moscow, Belgrad, Vienna, Lima, Ankara and as Consul General in Istanbul, will lecture about his experiences working for the embassy during the Cold War and now since 2006 as Director of the Summer School Wust located in former East Germany. This school was founded in order to give educational opportunities to former citizens of the GDR. Consul Möckelmann’s career was influenced greatly by the existence of the Berlin Wall. Due to security reasons, as a western diplomat he did not enter East Germany except in transit to Moscow. Upon his retirement, he assumed the Directorship of the Wust Summer School and celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the wall at the school this summer by hosting prominent figures from politics and law who were participants in the ‘peaceful revolution’ and members of formal roundtable negotiations in eastern Germany in 1989-1990. Brown University’s German Studies Professor Kay Goodman was a founder of this summer school. Each summer, two to three Brown students travel to Wust to work as instructors at the summer school and to live with families in the village. Sponsored by the C. V. Starr Lectureship Fund |
| Fri 6 Nov |
FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS “Brown/Rostock Exchange 1979-1989: Scholarly Exchanges with East Germany” Professor William Crossgrove, Professor Marilyn Rueschemeyer, Professor Duncan Smith 3:00 pm: Kaffeestunde Joukowsky Forum at the Watson Institute, Free and open to the public. Brown University has a long tradition of exchanges with former East Germany (German Democratic Republic). In 1979, the first exchange between any university in the US and in the GDR was established between Brown and the Wilhelm Pieck University in Rostock, East Germany. Undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty from such disciplines as English, medicine, physics, chemistry and German participated in this exchange. This exchange grew to be the largest exchange program between a US and an East German university. About one hundred students participated in the semester or year program, and many more in the summer programs. Another fifty or so faculty members also regularly participated. The exchange took place between libraries as well, which led to Brown having an extensive collection of holdings relating to the GDR. The Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University still maintains an exchange with the medical school in Rostock. In this roundtable, Professors emeriti Duncan Smith and William Crossgrove from Brown’s Department of German Studies along with Professor Marilyn Rueschemeyer from the Watson Institute will reflect on these exchanges and on their own research on the topic. |
| Sat 7 Nov |
Semi-formal Event (Please dress nicely! Suit and tie are not required, no sneakers, flip-flops or blue jeans) 8:00pm-12:00pm: Music and dancing, food and fun! 8pm-9pm: Live piano music performed by Brown students Ja Bin Hong and Sang Bin Hong Bach: Partita in e minor 9-midnight: Dance to the best German music! Sayles Hall, Ticket required. Click HERE for ticket sales information. |
| Mon 9 Nov |
FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS 11am – 1pm: Wall Art Competition. Add graffiti to our miniature replica of the Berlin Wall and get the chance of winning a trip to two to Berlin! Sharpies will be provided! Bring your own paints! All participants will receive their own Freedom without Walls pens and highlighters. 12noon – 1:00 pm: Public Speaking and Spoken Word Competition. Give a short “speech” or perform a “poetry slam” about the fall of the wall. Winning speech will be entered into nationwide competition. Prize is trip for two to Berlin. All participants will receive a drawstring backpack filled with cool prizes, including a water bottle, and gummi bears! Click HERE for competition guidelines. 1pm-2pm: “Tear Down this Wall”. Grab a hammer, put on a Freedom without Walls t-shirt and tear down this wall! Main Green Twenty years ago, on the 9th of November, 1989, the world watched in astonishment as jubilant crowds gathered around midnight on both sides of the Berlin Wall. A peaceful revolution had forced the Wall open. What is the significance of the fall of the wall? What does it mean to students born twenty years ago? To present and future generations, the fall of the Berlin Wall sends a universal message of hope. It reminds us that peaceful change remains possible even where hard line regimes reign. It reminds us that freedom will prevail. |
| Thu 19 Nov | COLLOQUIUM “Anschauung in Kant, Marx and Benjamin” “Musikähnlich, Sprachähnlich, Musiksprachlich: Repetition and Variation in Adorno” 4:30pm, Library at 190 Hope Click HERE for flyer. |
SPRING 2009
| 5 Feb to 1 March and 5-8 March |
MUSICAL Click HERE for more information |
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| Friday 6 March |
COLLOQUIUM The Magical Mechanical: Automata 4:30 pm |
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| Wednesday 11 March |
WORKSHOP ON POETRY Noon - 2:00pm |
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| Fri-Sat 13-14 March |
SYMPOSIUM Click HERE for event website. |
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| Monday 30 March |
WORKSHOP ON POETRY "Durs Grünbein's Voices" Pre-registration required with zachary_sng@brown.edu. |
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| Friday 3 April |
BROWN DEGREE DAYS |
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| Tuesday 7 April |
LECTURE 5:00pm |
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| Wednesday 8 April |
GERMAN CLUB 7:30pm |
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| Tuesday 28 April |
FILMFEST Noon - 2:00pm |
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| Tuesday 5 May |
COLLOQUIUM Silja Maehl 3:00-5:00pm |
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| Friday 8 May |
DELTA PHI ALPHA INDUCTION & AWARDS CEREMONY 2:00-3:00pm |
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| Friday May 8 |
GRILLFEST 3:00-5:00pm |
FALL 2009
| 4-11 November |
Freedom Without Walls Campus Week Click HERE for more information. |
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Past Events
FALL 2008
Tue |
LECTURE SERIES |
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Tue |
LECTURE |
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Tues |
LECTURE Professor Roberto Simanowski Digitale Median in der Erlebnisgesellschaft. Kunst - Kultur - Utopie Goethe Institut - Boston |
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Tue |
READING |
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| Thur 23 Oct |
LECTURE SERIES German Studies and the Humanities: New Directions Lutz Koepnick "Benjamin in the Age of New Media. RECOMMENDED READING AVAILABLE HERE |
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Thu |
LECTURE SERIES RECOMMENDED READING AVAILABLE HERE |
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Tue |
LECTURE SERIES RECOMMENDED READING AVAILABLE HERE |
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| Thu 4 Dec |
COLLOQUIUM “Coming to Terms with the Ghost: Spectral Narration in Uwe Johnson's Jahrestage” by Prof. Lara Kelingos. Free, refreshments, 4:00pm, 190 Hope, Room 103.
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SPRING 2008
| Fri 25 Jan |
Clemens Risi Welcome Receptionrefreshments, 4:30-6:00pm., Library, 190 Hope Street | |
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| Fri 1 Feb |
Bettina Brandl-Risi talk: "this is my theory-friendly everyday life. It is intense and it is gradually becoming capable of theory! ... and not that art shit or shit like that!" René Pollesch and the Politics of Virtuosity on German Stages, 4:00-5:30pm, Theater, Speech and Dance, Lyman Hall, Room 007. | |
Sat |
Senior Showcase: Hamletmachine, by Heiner Müller In a new translation by Katrin Dettmer and J.E. Macián, Directed by José Enrique Macián, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 PM and Sundays at 2 PM, Leeds Theatre | |
| Sat 23 Feb |
Conference: Fascism, Nazism and Sexuality, 9:00am - 4:00pm, Vartan Gregorian Quad Lounge, 101Thayer Street, Saunders Inn | |
| Thu-Fri 13- 14 Mar |
Conference: Cogut Center presents "WAGNER and SCANDAL - A Rigorous Conversation with Music and Drama", Grant Recital Hall, Brown University. Check HERE for details. | |
| Tues Mar 18 |
Colloquium: "Opera in Performance - In Search of New Analytical Approaches" Prof. Dr. Clemens Risi, Max Kade Visiting Professor of German Studies and Music colloquium (in English), 4:00pm, Smith-Buonnano 106, Reception to follow . |
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| Thu Mar 20 |
Guest speaker, Robert Sollich, dramaturg, to visit Clemens Risi's GRMN1660X: Richard Wagner's Theater course. | |
| Thu 3 Apr |
Concert: "Spiritual Resistance: Music from Theresienstadt" by baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, Russell Ryan on Piano, 7:30pm, First Unitarian Church, Benefit and Benevolent Streets, Prov., RI. Free and open to the public. Reception to follow. Presented by the Cogut Center for the Humanities. |
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| Fri 4 Apr |
Lecture: Soccer and German Patriotism: From the 1954 Miracle to a "Summer's Tale" by Jochen Vogt, (2006), Library, 190 Hope St, 3:00pm | |
| Tue 15 Apr |
Colloquium: Thomas Bäumler, "Shaping Crisis, Shaping Religion: Thinking Social Form in Schleiermacher's 'Speeches'", Dept of German Studies Library 190 Hope St., 4:00pm. | |
| Tue29 Apr |
GERMAN CLUB Kabarettabend. April 29th, 7PM at Peterutti Lounge. Please contact Maria_Elisabeth_Schreiber@brown.edu before Sunday, April 27th if you would like to perform a German related skit, poem, song, or anything else. Free. All welcome. |
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| Thu 1 May |
GRILLFEST May 1st, 3pm, Lawn @ 190 Hope St. Free. |
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| Mon 5 May |
ΔΦΑ INDUCTION CEREMONY: May 5th, 4pm, Library @ 190 Hope St. |
FALL 2007
| Thu 20 Sep |
Seminar: Avital Ronell Presents: Kleist’s Militerary Strategy: Overturning the Story Line in THE MARQUISE VON O. 5:00 – 7:00 PM , Crystal Room, Alumnae Hall |
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Tues |
Oktoberfest, Tuesday, October 2nd, starting at 3 pm. on the lawn near the German Studies Dept. @ 190 Hope St. | |
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Thur 4 Oct |
Reading Digital Literature Conference, Opening reception and Exhibition: 8:00pm - 9:00pm in List Art Center |
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Fri |
Reading Digital Literature Conference, Conference Opening: 4:30pm - 5:00pm |
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Sat |
Reading Digital Literature Conference, |
Sun 7 Oct |
Reading Digital Literature Conference, |
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SPRING 2007
Thu 26 Apr |
"One Hans with Hot Sauce - Life in Two Worlds" A reading in German by author, Hatice Akyün. 4p.m., Dept. of German Studies, 190 Hope Street, Rm.103, Reception will follow the talk. |
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Tues 10 Apr |
"Sentiment and the Sublime in the 18th Century" Lunchtime Seminar at the Cogut Center for the Humanities, by Zachary Sng. Paper will be pre-circulated, and pre-registration is required. For details, click here. |
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Thu 5 Apr |
"Watching Watching: Surveillant Intermediality in Fritz Lang's The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse." Seminar by Thomas Y. Levin, Princeton University. McKinney Room, Watson Institute,
111 Thayer Street. 12-2 pm. Pre-registration required. For details, click here. Hosted by Cogut Center for the Humanities. |
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Wed 4 Apr |
"Anxious Cinema: Surveillance as Narrative Form." Lecture by Thomas Y. Levin, Princeton University. Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street. 7:30 - 9:00 pm. Hosted by Cogut Center for the Humanities. |
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Tues 3 Apr |
"Suicide and Biopower: Elias Canetti's 'Auto-Da-fe'". Colloquium given by Katrin Dettmer. In English. Dept. of German Studies, 190 Hope Street, Rm. 103, 4 p.m. Reception will follow. |
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Mon 19 Mar |
"Talking Cures: The Unconscious as (Operatic) Mise-en-Scène." Colloquium given by Michelle Duncan. In English. Dept. of German Studies, 190 Hope Street, Rm. 103, 4 p.m. Reception will follow. |
FALL 2006
Th 2 Nov |
"Writing in the Web of Words" An Evening with the Author Yoko Tawada, organized by East Asian Studies. Reception and meeting of the author at 6 p.m. Lecture and reading at 7 pm . Located at: 333 Brook Street. |
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Wed 1 Nov |
"Sound Scraps, Vision Scraps: Paul Celan's Poetic Practice," Marjorie Perloff Reinhard Kuhn Memorial Lecture organized by Dept. of Comparative Literature Smith-Buonanno 106, 5 p.m. |
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26
- 28 Oct |
"Freud and the Humanities," A conference, film series, and concert organized by the Cogut Center for the Humanities. (See details on the Cogut Center website) |
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Tues 17 Oct |
"False Alarm: On Responsibility in Kafka's Story "A Country-Doctor.'" Colloquium given by Prof. Zachary Sng, Assistant Professor of German Studies. Dept. of German Studies, 190 Hope Street, Rm. 103, 4 P.M. Reception will follow. |
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Fri 22 Sep |
A Seminar by Werner Hamacher (U. of Frankfurt) to discuss 2 pre-circulated papers: - "The Right to Have Rights" - "The Right Not to Use Rights" Faculty Club, 12-2 p.m. Pre-register with kit@brown.edu. Lunch provided. (sponsored by Comparative Literature, Cogut Center, and German Studies) |
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Thu 21 Sep |
"Uncalled: A Commentary on Kafka's 'The Test,'" |
SPRING 2006
4 May |
Colloquium (in English) given by Prof. Roberto Simanowski entitled "Aesthetics of the Spectacle. On Interaction and Reflection in Digital Literature and Art." (Department Colloquium Series) 190 Hope Street, Rm. 103, 4 p.m. to 5p.m. |
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16 Mar |
"No Place in Reality: The autonomy of Reflection and the Diminution of the Subject in W.G. Sebald's "Austerlitz." Talk by Katrin Dettmer. (Departmental Colloquium Series) 190 Hope Street, Rm. 103, 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. |
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2 Mar |
"Projections of America: The New World in the texts of 20th century German-Jewish authors" Talk by Thomas Kniesche (Departmental Colloquium Series) 190 Hope St., Rm. 103, 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. |
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28 Feb |
"Deep Walls" Exhibition opening and lecture by artist Scott Snibbe CIT Lecture Room 165, 7 pm Reception at 8 pm (Exhibition runs until March 28, 2006) |
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3 Feb |
"Unsettling Opera," a 1-day Workshop Grant Recital Hall, 1 Young Orchard Ave 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Organized by Cogut Center for the Humanities (click here for details) |
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Kaffeestunde
During the academic year, join us every Friday, 3 pm. for Kaffee, Kuchen und Konversation. 190 Hope St, room 103, Library.
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