Call for Submissions: The Peter Uwe Hohendahl Graduate Essay Prize in Critical Theory (Deadline: Oct. 15)
Call for Submissions. Deadline: Oct. 15.
IGCS Colloquium: David Martyn
The realization that monolingualism is not the norm but the exception—or, more radically, that “there is no such thing as a monolingual text” (Till Dembeck)—has posed new opportunities, but also new challenges for the study of literary multilingualism. Scholars now read purportedly monolingual texts through the lens of multilingualism, but at the risk of broadening…
IGCS Colloquium: Stefan Willer
Whether in fantasies about origins or stories about conflicting family emotions, whether in the desire for enrichment or in the examination of traditions: the theme of inheritance is inexhaustible in literature. In his presentation, Stefan Willer examined how these topics are addressed in contemporary German literature. To this end, he outlined some of the current…
IGCS Colloquium: Jocelyn Holland
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…
Classical art historian Annetta Alexandridis dies at 58
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.
IGCS Colloquium: Jenny Willner
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…
IGCS Colloquium: Katrin Lehnen
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…
Institute for German Cultural Studies Spring 2026 Colloquium Series
Reading Records, Hearing Poems: Enzensberger Meets Max Roach on Berendt’s ’62 LP Montage
IGCS Colloquium: Hannes Kerber
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…
IGCS Colloquium: Vanessa Gubbins
“Rilke’s Re-positions (Umstellungen)” is the fourth chapter of my book, Democracy’s Medium: Poems Critique the Rule of the People in Peru and Germany. This book is an exercise in democratic conversation that I carry out with the reader, with the aims of revisiting the concept of democracy from the basis of our conversation. My book’s…
IGCS Colloquium: Andrew Vielkind
This essay examines experimental cinema practices undertaken in postwar Austria, particularly between the late 1950s and early 1960s. The “metrical” films made by Marc Adrian, and Peter Kubelka have been often theorized as being in dialogue with the Viennese modernist music tradition. Building upon existing scholarship, I underscore the impact of the short-lived Wiener Gruppe…
IGCS Colloquium: Amparo Necker
PEAT AND THE PEOPLE: EMERGENT BODIES IN PINA BAUSCH’S LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS
Institute for German Cultural Studies Fall 2025 Colloquium Series
Fridays • 2:30PM • Klarman Hall • Room 155Open to the public
Institute for German Cultural Studies Spring 2025 Colloquium Series
Fridays • 2:30PM • Klarman Hall • Room 155Open to the publicMarch 14: Thomas Schestag (Brown University)
Institute for German Cultural Studies Fall 2024 Colloquium Series
Das dritte Geschlecht. Ein Queer Reading von Thomas Manns Roman Joseph und seine Brüder
Peter Loewen named dean of Arts and Sciences
Coming from the University of Toronto, where he was the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Loewen began his five-year appointment as the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Aug. 1.
Institute for German Cultural Studies Spring 2024 Colloquium Series
The Heart Left Behind: On Ecstasy and Present Absence in Rilke’s Middle Period
Rehearsing the Revolution: On Damani Partridge’s “Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin”
On November 2, Professor Damani Partridge, an eminent scholar in Anthropology, Africana Studies, and German Studies at the University of Michigan and Vice President and President Elect of the German Studies Association, gave a lecture on “Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin” at Cornell. The event was…
IGCS Event: Esther Dischereit
On September 19, the Institute for German Cultural German Studies, together with the Department of German Studies and the Jewish Studies Program at Cornell had the pleasure of hosting the renowned German-Jewish author and public intellectual Esther Dischereit for a reading of texts from her latest project, the exhibition Wer war Fritz Kittel?
IGCS Colloquium: Dr. Jenny Körber
On September 15, 2023, Dr. Jenny Körber (University of Hamburg) presented her paper “Irdische und himmlische Verhältnisse. Ordnungen der Genealogie und Heraldik” in the IGCS Fall Colloquium Series. Dr. Körber, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg, combines literary criticism and art history in her research. Her work centers on Jesuits, early modern…
IGCS Colloquium: Ulrike Vedder
Ulrike Vedder: “Auswandern - Heimkehren - Verschellen: Liminales Erzählen und die Kunst des Handelns in der Auswandererliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts”
Institute for German Cultural Studies Fall 2023 Colloquium Series
Auswandern– Heimkehren – Verschellen: Liminales Erzählen und die Kunst des Handelns inder Auswandererliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts
Symposium: New Directions in German Studies
The goal of this symposium is to provide students from across cohorts an opportunity to present their research, answer questions, and receive feedback on their work. It draws on the expertise of a variety of disciplines such as Romance studies, comparative literature, medieval studies, art history, visual and media studies, cultural studies, intellectual history and…
Institute for German Cultural Studies Spring 2023 Colloquium Series
The Age of Conspiracy Theories and the Decline of Politics: Freud, Arendt, Agamben