Center for German and European Studies

Events 2023-24

Most CGES Online and hybrid events are recorded. Explore upcoming Fall 2023 events listed below, or browse through the 2022 & Spring 2023 CGES Online Events. Get direct access to a list of all recorded webinars on CGES Online's Archive below. 

CGES Online Recordings: Complete List

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Upcoming Events

Yellow book cover on climate

March 20, 2024

CGES Online Event

Atlases are being redrawn as islands are disappearing. What does an island see when the sea rises? Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean weaves together essays, maps, art, and poetry to show us—and make us see—island nations in a warming world.

Teal and orange book cover

March 26, 2024

CGES Hybrid Event

This talk discusses how the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) adapted anti-Muslim discourse to their political purposes and how that discourse was then appropriated by the conservative center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) to explain the anti-Muslim swerve in Austrian politics, preparing the way for a right-wing coalition government between conservatives and far-right actors that would subsequently institutionalize anti-Muslim political demands and change the shape of the civic conditions and public perceptions of Islam and the Muslim community in a country that had has stood out for its longstanding state recognition of the Muslim community as early as 1912.

Tupoka Ogette speaking with a mic

April 3, 2024

CGES Hybrid Event

Join speaker Tupoka Ogette for a critical dialogue on racism in Germany from a Black East-German perspective. Together with her husband, the sculptor Stephen Lawson, Ogette will discuss the Black German Experience by comparing Black East and West German biographies and experiences since 1980 until today and reflect on lessons and challenges of their Anti-Racism work in Germany.

Book cover with a black and white tiger face behind text

April 8, 2024

CGES Hybrid Event

Based on the true story of a huge scientific undertaking by three Bavarian brothers, and brilliantly translated by Rekha Kamath Rajan, Christopher Kloeble’s The Museum of the World is a fantastic adventure that will change the way we see the history of colonialism.
Holocaust memorial in Berlin at sunset

April 9, 2024

CGES Co-Sponsored Event (In-Person)

In December 1941, during the coldest winter on record, close to 4,000 German and Austrian Jews were deported to the Jungfernhof concentration camp in Riga, Latvia. Neglected for 80 years, the camp containing a mass grave holding up to 800 bodies was recently converted into a public park for leisure and recreation. Karen Frostig, descendant of murdered victims, is organizing a day-long series of events taking place at Brandeis University on April 9 & 10, 2024, to address different histories concerning murder and loss.

Past Events

US and German flag on a yellow background

March 7, 2024

CGES Online Event

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Germany in late January after learning about a secret meeting between members of the right-wing extremist Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) party and known Neo-Nazis was leaked to have discussed deporting millions of migrants and citizens. Yet, the AfD has been gaining ground across Germany in elections and polls. Meanwhile, former president Donald Trump is gaining ground as challenger to President Biden in November in the United States. Join experts Jan-Werner Müller (Princeton), Christiane Lemke (UNC), and Jeff Anderson (Georgetown) for a discussion of the current state of democracy in Germany and the US.

Person with a camera filming a protest in Ukraine

March 6, 2024

CGES Online Event

A discussion with Olga Rudenko, chief editor of award-winning English-language Ukrainian news site The Kyiv Independent, about the challenges of building a new media outlet during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, covering the war, and investigating corruption in the Ukrainian government at the same time. Moderated by Brandeis alumn Matthew Kupfer.
Yellow stop sign with a blue sky behind

March 5, 2024

CGES Hybrid Event

What should societies do to include immigrants who do not enter the country through legally predefined channels? Sanctuary Cities in the United States and Solidarity Cities in Europe approach the question of participation and access to rights from the city level. What strategies for the inclusion of the illegalized immigrants exist at the urban level? How are they transforming within the current debate? And how do they depend on different legal and administrative frameworks, access to social participation, and constructions of belonging? By comparing cases from the U.S. and Europe, the talk will address the phenomenon and discuss its significance against the backdrop of the current politicization of migration.

a sculpture of 2 hands in a town square

February 27, 2024

CGES Online Event

Join Daniela Prugger and Igor Mitchnik who last spoke to us two years ago to hear about the situation on the ground in Ukraine and how things have developed since February 2022.
Globe with symbols in front

February 1, 2024

CGES Online Event

Two climate-related court decisions in late 2023 seemed to squeeze the German government from two sides: One was brought by NGOs and climate activists who sued the government for not following its 2021 climate protection law. The other lawsuit was brought by the opposition against the government’s decision to use billions of Euros left over in a special Covid-19-relief fund for climate measures instead. In both cases the courts ruled against the government. As scientists confirm that 2023 was the hottest year on record, and possibly the warmest in over 100,000 years, join Christiane Gerstetter from Client Earth to learn more about climate legislation and climate litigation in Germany today and what this may mean for climate protection in Germany and beyond.

Shape of Germany with a bunch of faces filling it in

December 19, 2023

CGES Online Event

Over the past decade, Germany has often been lauded for being economically prosperous, politically stable and more welcoming to immigrants than most other countries. In recent months, however, Germany has produced mainly negative headlines. The economy is stuttering, the far right continues to rise, and migrants are increasingly in politicians’ cross hairs. The country’s response to the war in Gaza has been illustrative of this new spirit. Germany’s leaders, aided by major media figures, are using the fight against antisemitism as a pretext to encourage racist resentment and anti-migrant sentiment. Journalist Lukas Hermsmeier discusses his recent op-ed essay for The New York Times in which he connects Germany's right wing turn with the austerity policies of the last two decades.
Book cover of Alexandra's book

December 13, 2023

CGES Online Event

How do you deal with the legacy of a Nazi perpetrator in your own family? How do you confront the silence of relatives, their displacement and denial, their feelings of guilt and shame? Will truth win over family loyalties or complicity prevail? German writer Alexandra Senfft is the granddaughter of Hanns Elard Ludin, the ‘Envoy of the Third Reich’ to Slovakia, executed as war criminal 1947 in Bratislava. In her writings she addresses the intergenerational consequences of the Holocaust in her own and other German families with a Nazi-background.

Puzzle piece with the colors of polish flag

November 30, 2023

CGES Hybrid Event

In these troubled times for democracy, the good news came unexpectedly from Poland. In 2023, by turning out in record numbers, millions of Poles showed that they considered it even more important to exit from national populism than to exit from communism (more than 74% of the electorate cast ballots, compared with 62% in the tide-turning election of June 1989). However, if anyone thinks that returning to liberal democracy is an easy thing to do, they will soon be disillusioned. In many respects, the new Polish democratic government faces a much bigger challenge than its predecessor of 1989. Join us for a conversation with Karolina Wigura, Assistant Professor at Warsaw's Institute for Sociology and Senior Fellow of the Zentrum Liberale Moderne.

Red flyer for the documentary NOW
Screening of Climate Documentary NOW

November 29, 2023

CGES In-Person Event

"NOW" by Jim Rakete is the film for the longed-for green turnaround! In his committed cinema debut, the famous cult photographer meets Generation Greta. No fewer than six young climate activists speak out, including Luisa Neubauer (Fridays for Future), Felix Finkbeiner (Plant for the Planet) and Nike Mahlhaus (Ende Gelände). Why did they become activists? What is at stake? A film that encourages imitation. Quite deliberately – so that today's youth also has a future tomorrow. They receive support in the film from punk rock legend Patti Smith, filmmaker Wim Wenders and many more.

Green TCC logo of globe

November 29, 2023

CGES Online Event

Join us for our fifth transatlantic climate conversation (TCC) and our first in cooperation with our third partner- AFAS - the African Climate and Environment Center - Future African Savannas, a cooperation between the Universities of Bonn/Cologne, the University of Nairobi, Kenya and Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, one of the DAAD's Global Centres for Climate and Environment.

Flyer to stop climate change

November 20, 2023

CGES Online Event

As climate change has become the defining crisis of our time, so too have the urgent measures required to address it taken the center stage in public and political debates across the world’s wealthiest democracies. Climate change remains a typical valence issue; the vast majority of citizens agree on the need to protect the environment and tackle climate change. Why, then, do populist radical right parties decide to politicize the issue in the first place, and what are the conditions under which they benefit from doing so? This talk will examine these questions through the lens of local opposition against wind energy in France and Finland.

black and white photo of a synagogue burning

November 9, 2023

CGES Hybrid Event

As early as 1919, Adolf Hitler distinguished between pogrom violence and so-called “rational” anti-Semitism. To achieve a lasting solution to the “Jewish question,” the young Hitler insisted that anti-Jewish laws and state policies had to be adopted. Hitler’s outward commitment to law was in sharp counterpoint to his public speeches and private conversations of the early 1920s, which contemplated extra-legal violence against the Jews. 85 years after the pogrom night of 1938, learn more from Professor Michael S. Bryant and join our students before the event for a commemorative ceremony.

Old papers of a German passport

November 9, 2023

CGES In-Person Event

As a child, Doris Edwards escaped Nazi-occupied Europe with her brother. Although they were separated from their parents for two years and three months, their parents got out alive and borrowed money to bring the children to New York in 1941, before the United States formally entered World War II. Joins us while Doris Edwards tells the story of how she and her brother escaped and reunited with their parents in New York. The evening will also include candle lighting.

Promotional flyer for Nachtland
A Staged Reading of Nachtland (Nightscape)

November 5, 2023

CGES Co-Sponsored Event

Nachtland* is a mordant satire about marriage, legacy, the rise of the new right, and the terrible impulses buried deep. Marius von Mayenburg is one of Germany’s foremost playwrights. His plays include Fireface, Plastic and The Ugly One.

*Nachtland is an invented German word. It suggests a place of eternal darkness.

Arthur and Lilly smiling at the camera

November 2, 2023

CGES Hybrid Event

What do a 75-year-old Los Angeles based rocket engineer and an eleven-year-old schoolgirl from Austria have in common? Not much at first glance, but Arthur and Lilly influenced each other’s lives in a fateful way.

Flyer for the oil machine movie

October 22, 2023

CGES In-Person Event

Oil has been an invisible machine at the core of our economy and society. It now faces an uncertain future as activists and investors demand change. Is this the end of oil?

The film reveals the hidden infrastructure of oil from the offshore rigs and the buried pipelines to its flow through the stock markets of London. As the North Sea industry struggles to meet the need to cut carbon emissions, oil workers see their livelihoods under threat, and investors seek to protect their assets. Meanwhile a younger generation of climate activists are catalysed by the signs of impending chaos, and the very real threat of global sea level rises. THE OIL MACHINE explores the complexities of transitioning away from oil and gas as a society and considers how quickly we can do it.

Head shot of Rich Felgate smiling

October 16, 2023

CGES Online Event

In Germany, concerned citizens step forward to save an ancient forest from one of Europe’s biggest coal mines. They form an unlikely alliance with a frustrated community in rural England who are forced into action to protect their homes from a new opencast coal mine. FINITE: The Climate of Change is an insider’s view of the world of direct action; a raw, authentic and emotional insight into the David and Goliath battle between front line communities, activists and fossil fuel corporations.

Flyer for FINITE documentary

October 15, 2023

CGES In-Person Event

Join us for a film screening of the environmental documentary FINITE. This will be followed up by a Q&A with the director of FINITE, Rich Felgate, tomorrow, October 16 from 12:00 -1:30 pm ET (on Zoom).

In Germany, concerned citizens step forward to save an ancient forest from one of Europe’s biggest coal mines. They form an unlikely alliance with a frustrated community in rural England who are forced into action to protect their homes from a new opencast coal mine. FINITE: The Climate of Change is an insider’s view of the world of direct action; a raw, authentic and emotional insight into the David and Goliath battle between front line communities, activists and fossil fuel corporations.

CGES@25 logo with stars
Center for German and European Studies 25th Anniversary Reception

October 14, 2023

CGES In-Person Event

As a part of the 75th anniversary celebrations for Brandeis University, join us to celebrate the 25th anniversary of CGES, one of only six Centers for German and European Studies in the US, part of a network of 20 Centers worldwide, and a forum for transatlantic dialogue, research, and interdisciplinary programs. Light refreshments will be served.

Multiple book covers of Beginning to End the Climate Crisis
Beginning to End the Climate Crisis

October 14, 2023

CGES In-Person Event (Recording coming soon)

In light of the overwhelming challenge of the climate crisis, Professor Sabine von Mering will demonstrate how much we can all do when we embrace climate action - at Brandeis, in our personal lives, and beyond.
Nuclear plant with yellow flowers in foreground

October 3, 2023

CGES Hybrid Event

Contrary to public perception, the nuclear power industry continues its slow, decades-long decline. Over the past two centuries, 99 reactors were connected to the grids in the world while 105 were closed. Since 49 of the startups and no closures were located in China, the reactor fleet in the rest of the world declined by 55 units. Did the trend change in recent years? No. In 2022, nuclear power production outside China dropped by 5 percent to its lowest level since the mid-1990s. Since December 2019, all of the 28 reactor construction-starts in the world were implemented either in China (17) or by the Russian nuclear industry (11) in various countries.

Picture of someone holding a sign at a protest

September 28, 2023

CGES Online Event

Indigenous and traditional people of the Amazon region have achieved historic influence in the current left-wing government under Lula in Brazil. Moreover, Lula has committed to social policy, deforestation reduction, and climate leadership, including hosting the COP30 2025 in Belem, Brazil. The first months of the government and the regional Amazon Summit this August have highlighted the opportunities and dangers for indigenous and traditional people, which we will discuss in this seminar, including false promises of the bioeconomy and greenwashing of local governments and agribusiness. We will also discuss what the new regional and South-South integration means for  European countries like France and Germany, and their geopolitical resource interests.

Book cover for Feminine Foreign Policy

September 21, 2023

CGES Hybrid Event

On 1 March 2023, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock presented Germany’s first-ever Guidelines for a Feminist Foreign Policy. Safeguarding women’s and marginalized group’s rights, representation and access to resources has thus become a cornerstone of German foreign policy.

Kristina Lunz, author of “The Future of Foreign Policy is Feminist” will read a brief excerpt from the book and explain the concept, and Consul General Sonja Kreibich will share from her experience implementing the Guidelines.

People in orange suits on ice with a boat in the background

September 20, 2023

CGES Online Event

Join Professor Gerrit Lohmann, Head of the Working Group Paleoclimate Dynamics at the Alfred Wegener Institute and Professor of Physics of the Climate System at the University of Bremen, and a team of students for a sneak preview of their book of interviews with climate scientists from Germany and other countries. Take a look behind the scenes of what motivates, worries, and challenges climate scientists today and learn about causes and consequences of climate change, current problems and possible solutions. Further, gain insight into the political dimension of climate science, including reflections on science communication, societal aspects and feminist perspectives on climate science.

TCC logo green on white

September 13, 2023

CGES Online Event

In this fourth Transatlantic Climate Conversation (TCC) we discuss how experts study the role of food in society - with a special eye towards climate impacts. What questions do health psychologists and cultural sociologists ask to understand why we eat what we eat and how what we eat can or should change for environmental and health reasons?

Saskia Fischer holding a mic

September 12, 2023

CGES Online Event

Fischer will discuss Maxim Biller's novel  “Der falsche Gruß” [English translation: The Bad Salute] which provocatively holds up a mirror to the German cultural industry, forcing readers to dive deep into the mind of the main character, Erck Dessauer, a modern antisemite.