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The Institute for German Cultural Studies is a research-oriented initiative designed both to recognize extraordinary cross-disciplinary strengths in the study of German culture at Cornell University and to foster cutting-edge scholarly exchange pertaining to the interdisciplinary study of German culture from the medieval era to the present.
Jocelyn Holland’s paper is part of a larger project whose aim is to explore how material techniques and craftmanship, and the qualities of physical materials, shape language and thought. The paper focuses on metaphors derived from techniques of placement and joining. While common examples such as “dovetailing” do a good job of illustrating how technological…
Annetta Alexandridis, classical archaeologist and art historian in Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences, died April 13. Known for her hands-on approach, she was associate director of the Harvard-Cornell Exploration of Ancient Sardis, Türkiye and co-curated the Cornell Plaster Cast Collection.
Willner’s paper examines the biological speculation that Sigmund Freud and his Hungarian disciple Sándor Ferenczi jointly developed between 1913 and 1924 and referred to as “bioanalysis.” During the years surrounding the First World War, they inscribed trauma, regression, death, neurosis, hysteria, Nachträglichkeit, and repetition compulsion into a broad spectrum of biological concepts that had been…
Katrin Lehnen's paper conceptualizes writing as a cultural and social practice and examines how writing practices are transformed in postdigital contexts. Drawing on praxeological theory, writing is understood as a socially typified form of action embedded in cultural norms, material settings, and implicit knowledge. Using an example from early literacy acquisition, the paper illustrates how…
Reading Records, Hearing Poems: Enzensberger Meets Max Roach on Berendt’s ’62 LP Montage
The paper is part of a larger project that examines Erwin Piscator’s three stagings of Nathan der Weise (1942, 1944, 1952) to argue that the Enlightenment drama, in Piscator’s hands, functioned as a form of political action rather than mere artistic representation. By tracing how the same play was redeployed across wartime America and postwar…