Recent Speakers:

CARL NIEKERK (Associate Professor of German, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign): "Mahler contra Wagner: The Philosophical Legacy of Romanticism in Mahler's Third and Fourth Symphonies" (April 17, 2001).

ERIC SANTNER (Professor of German Studies, University of Chicago): "On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life" (April 13, 2001).

LUTZ KOEPNICK (Associate Professor of German, Film and Media Studies, Washington University in St. Louis): "Redeeming History? Foster's New Reichstag and the Political Aesthetic of the Berlin Republic" (March 30, 2001).

JEANNETTE LANDER (Max Kade Visiting Writer's Program, Washington University in St. Louis): "Jewish Life in Germany after the Holocaust" (February 13, 2001).

ROBERT C. HOLUB (Professor of German,  University of California at Berkeley):  "From the Pedestal to the Couch: Goethe,  Freud, and the Jewish Assimilation" (November 14, 2000)

DR. BRIGITTE BURMEISTER (German author) "Dort sein, wo Geschichte stattfindet: Schriftsteller in Berlin/Schriftsteller und Berlin" (April 13, 2000)

KARIN M. FRANK-CYRUS (Geschäftsführerin der Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache in Wiesbaden, Visiting Professor of German, Penn State University): "Wortschatz als Kulturgeschichte. Die Wörter des Jahres und des Jahrhunderts" (April 3, 2000).

PAUL MICHAEL LUETZELER (Rosa May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities, Washington University-St. Louis): "Goethe and Europe" (November 15, 1999).

STEPHAN NEUHAUS (Bamberg University): "'Neue Sachlichkeit' Zu einem umstrittenen Epochenbegriff der deutschen LIteraturgeschichte" (November 10, 1999), "Chauvinismus als Programm? Zu Kleists 'Hermannschlacht'" (November 11, 1999).

CHRISTOPH KÖNIG (Privat-Dozent für Neuere Deutsche Literaturgeschichte an der Freie Universität Berlin, Leiter der Arbeitstelle für die Erforschung der Geschichte der Germanistik, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach a.N.): "Ludwig Geiger als jüdischer Goethe-Philologe" (October 27, 1999).

WOLFGANG MIEDER (Professor of German and Folklore, University of Vermont, Burlingotn): "Ein Sprichwort sagt mehr als tausend Worte" (October 20, 1999).

ERNESTINE SCHLANT BRADLEY (Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Montclair State University) (April 21, 1999) 

JANE BROWN (Professor of German and Comparative Literature, U of Washington, Seattle): "Werther and Romanticism" (January 18, 1999).

GEORG BRAUNGART (Professor of German Philology and Literature, Universität Regensburg): "Die Natur als Künstlerin: Monismus und Ästhetik um 1900" (April 22, 1998).

AZADE SEYHAN (Fairbank Professor in the Humanities, Prof. of German and Comparative Literature, Bryn Mawr College): "Ethnographies of Memory: Women's Narratives on Modern Migrancy and Exile" (April 13, 1998).

JAMES HARDIN (Prof. of German and Editor-in-Chief of Camden House Publisher, U of South Carolina, Columbia): "How I Got Into Publishing" (April 18, 1997).

UWE TIMM, (Author, Munich and Berlin): "Der Autor, das literarische Markt und die Öffentlichkeit" (March 14, 1997).

THEDEL VON WALLMODEN (Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen): "Der Verleger und der Buchmarkt" (November 1996).

HANS RUDOLF VAGET (Professor of German, Smith College): "Thomas Mann und Bayreuth" (March 1996).

MARSHALL J. BROWN (Professor of English and Comparative Literature, U of Washington, Seattle): "From the Transcendental to the Supernatural: Kant and the Gothic" (February 27, 1996).

WERNER SCHNEIDERS (Professor of Philosophy, Universität Münster): "Enlightenment -- Reform -- Revolution" (October 14, 1992).

FRANK TROMMLER (Professor of German and Comparative Literature, U of Pennsylvania): "American and German Modernity: Cultural and Political Interaction" (Oct. 23, 1992).

Academic Conferences

The department periodically hosts professional conferences.  During the last ten years, we have hosted:

Lessing International: Lessing-Reception Abroad, October 28-31, 1999
For more information concerning the corresponding Lessing Yearbook, vol. 32 (ISBN 0-8143-2985-3/ISSN 0075-8833) which contains the papers presented at the conference, please visit the Lessing Society web site.

The Future of Germanistik in the USA: Changing our Prospects, October 13-16, 1994
If you are interested in purchasing the volume resulting from this stimulating conference, please contact the Vanderbilt University Press web site.

International Symposium on the Reception of German and Austrian Exile Literature, April 18-21, 1991