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

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.

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 April 22 & 23	(Re)Making Myths: The Creation, Use, and Abuse of Myths in German Literature, History, and Culture with keynote speaker Peter Uwe Hohendahl
Friday, March 18	FATIMA NAQVI - A lunchtime colloquium 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	Kaspar sponsored by Theatre Arts & Performance Studies by Peter Handke directed by Ioana Jucan '11
Monday November 15	BENJAMIN’S BLOTTING PAPER Lecture by Gerhard Richter, University of California, Davis. Monday, November 15th, 5:30pm Brown/RISD Hillel House 80 Brown Street Gerhard Richter is Professor of German and the Director of the Graduate Program in Critical Theory. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1996. His research and teaching focus on European Critical Thought since Kant; modern German literature and culture (including photography and visual culture); literature and philosophy; and the Frankfurt School. He is the author of Walter Benjamin and the Corpus of Autobiography (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2000; 2nd edition, 2002), Ästhetik des Ereignisses. Sprache-Geschichte- Medium (Munich: Fink, 2005), Thought-Images: Frankfurt School Writers' Reflections from Damaged Life (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2007), and Afterness: Figures of Following in Modern Thought and Aesthetics (New York: Columbia UP, in press).
Friday & Saturday November 13 & 14	*“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. The colloquium will include 45-minute papers by six invited guests from prestigious North American universities. Three Brown faculty will also present papers and an additional three will serve as session moderators. For more info, click here.
Tuesday 28 Sept Wednesday 29 Sept Thursday 30 Sept	CHRISTINA KUBISCH EVENTS Student workshop, by invitation, contact jacob_richman@brown.edu for more info. 1pm: lunch and informal discussion (in German and English) at German Studies Dept., 190 Hope Street 8pm: Screening of Christina's new video WAVE CATCHER (2010) about her sound installation work, at Grant Hall, behind Orwig Music Building (1 Young Orchard Avenue.) 4pm: Public Presentation, overview of her work and career with audience Q+A , Visual Arts Dept, List Auditorium, 64 College Street
Wednesday 14 Apr	LECTURE Prof. Anil Bhatti (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Centre for German Studies, New Delhi, India) "Cultural Transformation. Goethe's Divan as an Experiment" 5:00pm, 190 Hope Street, Room 103 Click HERE for flyer
Monday 5 Apr	WORKSHOP Two events with award-winning poet Yoko Tawada 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" Tawada's reading will be a collage of poems and prose texts on the theme of polyphony and multilingualism. Different texts will be read in Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Japanese, French and Russian. The audience will experience and participate in the sounds of familiar and unfamiliar voices and languages and will observe how texts communicate with one another and give rise to newer meanings and images. 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 Prof. John Namjun Kim (University of California, Riverside) "Yoko Tawada: Writings in German and Japanese" 12:00 - 2:00pm, Marston Hall 209 Pre-Registration Required with Prof. Zachary Sng 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 (University of California, Riverside) “Ethnic Irony: Tawada, de Man and the Poetics of Migrating Borders” 5:30pm, Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room 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 (University of Chicago) "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 Dr. Daniel Cuonz "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 Prof. Gerhard Richter (University of California, Davis) "Rescuing Writing: Benjamin with Adorno, Hölderlin, and Kafka“ 5:30pm, Maddock Alumni Center, Brian Room Click HERE for flyer.
Wed 30 Sept	LECTURE Prof. Wolfgang Bernard (University of Rostock, Germany) 'The Ongoing Process of German Reunification - A Look Behind the Scenes' Noon, Library at 190 Hope Pizza lunch provided
Thur 1 Oct	COLLOQUIUM Professor Kevin McLaughlin (Professor of English and Comparative Literature and German Studies) “Making Room for Reason in Kant and Derrida” 4:30pm, 190 Hope, Room 103 Click HERE for flyer.
Fri 23 Oct	OKTOBERFEST Come join us for Wurst und Kuchen 3:00 pm, lawn, 190 Hope Street
Thu 29 Oct	COLLOQUIUM Beatrix Himmelmann (Visiting Professor in Philosophy) “How to Make Sense of the World - Nietzsche's Aesthetic Point of View” 4:30pm, Library at 190 Hope
Tue 4 Nov through Wed 11 Nov	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. Watson Institute lobby Free and open to the public
Wed 4 Nov	FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS FILM SCREENING “Goodbye Lenin” (In German with English subtitles) 8:00 pm, MacMillan 117 Free and open to the public. 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 LECTURE “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 Free and open to the public with reception following 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 ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION “Brown/Rostock Exchange 1979-1989: Scholarly Exchanges with East Germany” Professor William Crossgrove, Professor Marilyn Rueschemeyer, Professor Duncan Smith 3:00 pm: Kaffeestunde 3:30 pm: Roundtable Discussion with reception following 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	FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS GALA 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 Brahms: Intermezzo in e-flat minor (Op.118 No.6) Schumann-Liszt: Widmung 9-midnight: Dance to the best German music! Sayles Hall, Ticket required. Please email German_Studies@Brown.edu for more information. Click HERE for ticket sales information.
Mon 9 Nov	FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS “Tear Down this Wall” 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 Free and open to the public. 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” Michael Powers, German Studies “Musikähnlich, Sprachähnlich, Musiksprachlich: Repetition and Variation in Adorno” Susan Solomon, Comparative Literature 4:30pm, Library at 190 Hope Click HERE for flyer.

Friday & Saturday
April 22 & 23

(Re)Making Myths: The Creation, Use, and Abuse of Myths in German Literature, History, and Culture with keynote speaker Peter Uwe Hohendahl

Friday, March 18

FATIMA NAQVI -
A lunchtime colloquium

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

Kaspar

sponsored by
Theatre Arts & Performance Studies

by Peter Handke
directed by Ioana Jucan '11

Monday
November 15

BENJAMIN’S BLOTTING PAPER
Lecture by Gerhard Richter, University of California, Davis.

Monday, November 15th, 5:30pm
Brown/RISD Hillel House
80 Brown Street

Gerhard Richter is Professor of German and the Director of the Graduate Program in Critical Theory. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1996. His research and teaching focus on European Critical Thought since Kant; modern German literature and culture (including photography and visual culture); literature and philosophy; and the Frankfurt School. He is the author of Walter Benjamin and the Corpus of Autobiography (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2000; 2nd edition, 2002), Ästhetik des Ereignisses. Sprache-Geschichte- Medium (Munich: Fink, 2005), Thought-Images: Frankfurt School Writers' Reflections from Damaged Life (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2007), and Afterness: Figures of Following in Modern Thought and Aesthetics (New York: Columbia UP, in press).

Friday & Saturday
November 13 & 14

“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.
The colloquium will include 45-minute papers by six invited guests from prestigious North American universities. Three Brown faculty will also present papers and an additional three will serve as session moderators. For more info, click here.

Tuesday
28 Sept

Wednesday
29 Sept

Thursday
30 Sept

CHRISTINA KUBISCH EVENTS

Student workshop, by invitation, contact jacob_richman@brown.edu for more info.

1pm: lunch and informal discussion (in German and English) at German Studies Dept., 190 Hope Street
8pm: Screening of Christina's new video WAVE CATCHER (2010) about her sound installation work, at Grant Hall, behind Orwig Music Building (1 Young Orchard Avenue.)

4pm: Public Presentation, overview of her work and career with audience Q+A , Visual Arts Dept, List Auditorium, 64 College Street

Wednesday
14 Apr

LECTURE

Prof. Anil Bhatti
(Jawaharlal Nehru University, Centre for German Studies, New Delhi, India)

"Cultural Transformation. Goethe's Divan as an Experiment"

5:00pm, 190 Hope Street, Room 103

Click HERE for flyer

Monday
5 Apr

WORKSHOP

Two events with award-winning poet
Yoko Tawada

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"

Tawada's reading will be a collage of poems and prose texts on the theme of polyphony and multilingualism. Different texts will be read in Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Japanese, French and Russian. The audience will experience and participate in the sounds of familiar and unfamiliar voices and languages and will observe how texts communicate with one another and give rise to newer meanings and images.

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

Prof. John Namjun Kim
(University of California, Riverside)

"Yoko Tawada: Writings in German and Japanese"

12:00 - 2:00pm, Marston Hall 209

Pre-Registration Required with
Prof. Zachary Sng

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
(University of California, Riverside)

“Ethnic Irony: Tawada, de Man and the Poetics of Migrating Borders”

5:30pm, Maddock Alumni Center,
Brian Room

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
(University of Chicago)

"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
Dr. Daniel Cuonz

"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
Prof. Gerhard Richter
(University of California, Davis)

"Rescuing Writing: Benjamin with Adorno, Hölderlin, and Kafka“

5:30pm, Maddock Alumni Center,
Brian Room

Click HERE for flyer.

Wed
30 Sept

LECTURE
Prof. Wolfgang Bernard
(University of Rostock, Germany)

'The Ongoing Process of German Reunification - A Look Behind the Scenes'

Noon, Library at 190 Hope
Pizza lunch provided

Thur
1 Oct

COLLOQUIUM
Professor Kevin McLaughlin
(Professor of English and Comparative Literature and German Studies)

“Making Room for Reason in Kant and Derrida”

4:30pm, 190 Hope, Room 103
Click HERE for flyer.

Fri
23 Oct

OKTOBERFEST
Come join us for Wurst und Kuchen

3:00 pm, lawn, 190 Hope Street

Thu
29 Oct

COLLOQUIUM
Beatrix Himmelmann
(Visiting Professor in Philosophy)

“How to Make Sense of the World - Nietzsche's Aesthetic Point of View”

4:30pm, Library at 190 Hope

Tue
4 Nov

through

Wed
11 Nov

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.

Watson Institute lobby
Free and open to the public

Wed
4 Nov

FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS
FILM SCREENING

“Goodbye Lenin”
(In German with English subtitles)

8:00 pm, MacMillan 117
Free and open to the public.

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
LECTURE

“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
Free and open to the public with reception following

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
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

“Brown/Rostock Exchange 1979-1989: Scholarly Exchanges with East Germany”

Professor William Crossgrove, Professor Marilyn Rueschemeyer, Professor Duncan Smith

3:00 pm: Kaffeestunde
3:30 pm: Roundtable Discussion with reception following

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

FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS
GALA

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
Brahms: Intermezzo in e-flat minor (Op.118 No.6)
Schumann-Liszt: Widmung

9-midnight: Dance to the best German music!

Sayles Hall, Ticket required.
Please email German_Studies@Brown.edu for more information.

Click HERE for ticket sales information.

Mon
9 Nov

FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS
“Tear Down this Wall”

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
Free and open to the public.

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”
Michael Powers, German Studies

“Musikähnlich, Sprachähnlich, Musiksprachlich: Repetition and Variation in Adorno”
Susan Solomon, Comparative Literature

4:30pm, Library at 190 Hope

Click HERE for flyer.

SPRING 2009

5 Feb to 1 March and 5-8 March		MUSICAL Cabaret Brown University Theatre Click HERE for more information
Friday 6 March		COLLOQUIUM Ulrike Küchler The Magical Mechanical: Automata and the Fantastic in literature. E.T.A. Hoffmann´s Olimpia and Alfred de Musset´s Blandine 4:30 pm 190 Hope Street, Library Click HERE for flyer
Wednesday 11 March		WORKSHOP ON POETRY Ian Cooper (Selwyn College, Cambridge) 'Faces, Fingers and Photographs: Les Murray and his European Contexts' Noon - 2:00pm Marston 209 Preregistration required with zachary_sng@brown.edu Lunch provided Sponsored by the Departments of German Studies and Comparative Literature Click HERE for flyer
Fri-Sat 13-14 March		SYMPOSIUM Theatricality and Performance Click HERE for event website.
Monday 30 March		WORKSHOP ON POETRY Ian Cooper (Selwyn College, Cambridge) "Durs Grünbein's Voices" 5:00 - 7:00 pm 190 Hope Street, room 103 Pre-registration required with zachary_sng@brown.edu. Sponsored by the Dept. of German Studies Click HERE for flyer
Friday 3 April		BROWN DEGREE DAYS Meet alumni to hear about their career paths post Brown. 3:00PM 190 Hope Street, Library Cleck HERE for flyer
Tuesday 7 April		LECTURE Professor Bernd Stiegler "Montage as Cultural Technique" 5:00pm 190 Hope Street, room 203 Click HERE for flyer
Wednesday 8 April		GERMAN CLUB Kabarettabend 7:30pm Hourglass Café (basement @ Faunce House) Click HERE for flyer
Tuesday 28 April		FILMFEST 6th annual Bruniale Filmfest Noon - 2:00pm Salomon 101 Click HERE for flyer
Tuesday 5 May		COLLOQUIUM Katrin Dettmer tbd Silja Maehl "The body of Language: Yoko Tawada and Walter Benjamin". 3:00-5:00pm 190 Hope Street, room 103
Friday 8 May		DELTA PHI ALPHA INDUCTION & AWARDS CEREMONY 2:00-3:00pm 190 Hope Street, room 103
Friday May 8		GRILLFEST 3:00-5:00pm 190 Hope Street, lawn

FALL 2009

4-11 November		Freedom Without Walls Campus Week Click HERE for more information.

4-11
November

Freedom Without Walls Campus Week

Click HERE for more information.

Past Events

FALL 2008

Tue 16 Sept		LECTURE SERIES German Studies and the Humanities: New Directions Elisabeth Weber, "'Torture was the essence of National Socialism': Reading Jean Améry Today." Free, refreshments, 4:00pm, Faunce House, Petteruti Lounge. RECOMMENDED READING AVAILABLE HERE
Tue 23 Sept		LECTURE Professor Roberto Simanowski Eating Text: The Life of Words as Image, Sound and Action @ Goethe Institüt-Boston. Click HERE for details.
Tues 30 Sept		LECTURE Professor Roberto Simanowski Digitale Median in der Erlebnisgesellschaft. Kunst - Kultur - Utopie Goethe Institut - Boston
Tue 7 Oct		READING in English and German Jan Wagner Click HERE to hear Wagner read some of his poems. McCormack Theater @ 7:00pm
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
Thu 30 Oct		LECTURE SERIES German Studies and the Humanities: New Directions Stefan Andriopoulos,"Phantasmagoria: Specters of Kant." Free, refreshments, 4:00pm, location Pembroke Hall 305. RECOMMENDED READING AVAILABLE HERE
Tue 11 Nov		LECTURE SERIES German Studies and the Humanities: New Directions Peter Fenves,"Kant and the Idea of 'Other Human Beings of a Different Species (Race).'" Free, refreshments, 5:00pm., 190 Hope, Room 203. RECOMMENDED READING AVAILABLE HERE
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.

SPRING 2008

Fri 25 Jan		Clemens Risi Welcome Receptionrefreshments, 4:30-6:00pm., Library, 190 Hope Street
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 21-24 Feb		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 .
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.
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.
Thu 1 May		GRILLFEST May 1st, 3pm, Lawn @ 190 Hope St. Free.
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

Tues 2 Oct		Oktoberfest, Tuesday, October 2nd, starting at 3 pm. on the lawn near the German Studies Dept. @ 190 Hope St.
Thur 4 Oct		Reading Digital Literature Conference, Opening reception and Exhibition: 8:00pm - 9:00pm in List Art Center Click here to view our conference website.
Fri 5 Oct		Reading Digital Literature Conference, Conference Opening: 4:30pm - 5:00pm Sessions: 5:00pm - 6:30pm Performance of Digital Literature: 7:00pm - 8:00 pm All in Smith-Buonanno 106
Sat 6 Oct		Reading Digital Literature Conference, Sessions: 9:30am to 6:30pm Performance of Digital Literature: 8:30pm to 10:00 pm All in Smith-Buonanno 106

Sun 7 Oct		Reading Digital Literature Conference, Student Panel: 10:00am - 12:00pm All in Smith-Buonanno 106

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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)
Thu 21 Sep		"Uncalled: A Commentary on Kafka's 'The Test,'" a Lecture by Werner Hamacher (U. of Frankfurt) Brian Room, Maddock Alumni Ctr 5:30 p.m., with reception to follow (sponsored by Comparative Literature, Cogut Center, and German Studies)

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.
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.
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.
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)
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)