Mission Statement
The Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis University (CGES-BR) was founded in 1997 by a generous gift from the German government to Brandeis University, and dedicated in May 1998 by Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Brandeis University is the only Jewish-sponsored non-sectarian research university in North America. CGES-BR's mission is teaching, research and outreach to broader communities about the social, political and cultural issues involved in integrating diversity and difference in Germany and Europe in the new millennium. CGES-BR seeks to promote productive dialogues including many voices about diversity and pluralism in German and European societies, polities and cultures. Within this broad framework, CGES-BR organizes its activities under three headings.
New pluralism in the New Europe:
European integration and globalization oblige Germany and Europe to become more economically, socially and ethnically mixed. These welcome processes, along with the difficulties that come with them, are CGES-BR's primary concern. The complex stories of the renascence of Jewish communities need to be told within this context, not only because they link a sad past to a promising present but also because they provide models for the evolution of a new tolerant pluralism, Europe's most important millennial frontier. The transnational melding of culture and the issues it poses are another important focus. CGES-BR is concerned with German and European culture as living creation in literature, film, music and television of great importance to issues of regional, national and ethnic identity in the new Europe.
Institutions, Identity, and Integration in the New Europe:
The end of the Cold War, German unification, globalization and the dramatic intensification of European integration provide important new contexts shaping a New Europe. CGES-BR is committed to wide-ranging and thorough discussion of the New Europe and Germany's place within it, particularly concerning the nature and effects of changes in patterns of governance and their implications for European senses of membership and belonging.
Diversity and Conflict Resolution in the New Europe:
Europe's new pluralism brings new problems of conflicts between groups and resurrects painful reminders of older ones. This dimension of CGES-BR program focuses on group diversity and the evolution of conflict resolution to understand the challenge of protecting diversity in the New Europe.