CGES Fall 2005 eventsCGES Spring 2005 eventsBrandeis German Film Evenings |
Events Fall 2005
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
12noon-2pm, Faculty Club Lounge
Please RSVP to cges@brandeis.edu
Luncheon and Reading with Turkish-German author and sociologist Necla Kelek.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
12noon-2pm, Faculty Club Lounge
Please RSVP to cges@brandeis.edu
Luncheon and Reading with Jewish-German author Esther Dischereit.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
5:30-7:30pm, Gosman, Napoli Room
BOTTLE IN THE CELLAR: The lost book of Simcha Guterman:
Jewish-German Dialogue with Yaacov Guterman
The documentary film "A Bottle in the cellar" (Director, Shmuel Imberman) was shown a few times on TV in Israel. It's length is 50 min. It describes Yaacov Guterman's journey to Poland, in the footsteps of his father Simcha Guterman, in an attempt to search and try to find one of his bottles, in which he hid the book he wrote in world war 2. The book, written in Yiddish on narrow stripes of paper, described the Jewish tragedy in the Holocaust. Simcha was a member of the Polish underground, he fought in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 and died in combat.
The last year of the war Yaacov, then 9 years old, was working as a sheperd by a family of peasants. He immigrated to Israel in 1950, finished highschool and served in the army; studied Bible and litterature at the Hebrew University and taught these subjects for several decades. His oldest son Raz was killed in the Lebanese war in 1982. Yaacov started to illustrate books in the late 50-ies. He has illustarted about one hundred and forty books for children and adults in Israel and abroad. His illustrations were shown in two big one man exibitions; in Tel Aviv (1993) and in the Polish National Library in Warsaw (2000). He is active for many years in israeli peace movements and organisations, which struggle for reconcilation with the Palestinians. He has published many poems for children and translated a large body of verse from polish and russian as well. He is a member of Kibutz Haogen, has a wife, 3 children and 2 grandchildren.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
12noon-2pm, Faculty Club Lounge
Please RSVP to cges@brandeis.edu
Luncheon and Talk with Dr. Gottfried Wagner, Richard Wagner and Antisemitism
Respondent: Prof. Eric Chafe, Brandeis University
The great-great-grandson of Franz Liszt, great-grandson of Richard Wagner, Dr. Gottfried Wagner was born with a heavy history on his shoulders. His book Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family's Legacy, was published in April 2000. Gottfried Wagner was born in Bayreuth, Germany, in 1947. He works internationally as a lecturer, stage and video director, music historian, and writer, and is a founder of the Post Holocaust Dialogue Group. He lives in Italy with his wife and son.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
5-6pm, SHIFFMAN 219
WHY IS PARIS BURNING?
Come hear what faculty observers say about it.
After two teenagers were electrocuted ostensibly when being chased by police, youths from poor Paris neighborhoods took to the streets setting hundreds of cars and buses on fire. The violence spread to other cities in France and beyond. Come join Paul Jankowski from History, Jytte Klausen and George Ross from Politics, and Michael Randall from French (ROCL) to learn how observers of French politics and society analyze and assess the situation.
Refreshments will be provided.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
11am-5pm, Faculty Center (Main Dining Room)/ Rapaporte Treasure Hall
8pm, Goethe Institute Boston, 170 Beacon Street
BETTER TO WRITE OF LAUGHTER THAN OF TEARS:
A Colloquium on German Humor.
Faculty Center, Main Dining Room:
11am
Welcome, Steve Dowden (Brandeis University)
11:10-11:45am
"I declare this meeting closed": The Superego and the Challenge to German Humor.
Lesley Chamberlain, writer, London
Response by Ellis Shookman (Dartmouth College)
11:45-12:30
LUNCHEON
12:30-1:30pm
Hilsenrath's Humor.
Thomas Kniesche (Brown Univesity)
Response by Thomas Nolden (Wellesley College)
Rapaporte Treasure Hall:
2-2:45pm
Hollow Laughter in the Tin Drum.
Jane Curran (Dalhousie University)
Response by David Dollenmayer (Worcester Polytechnic)
3-3:45pm
What's So Funny? Moments of Hilarity in Women's Writing.
Sylvia Schmitz-Burgard (College of the Holy Cross)
Response by Veronika Fuechtner (Dartmouth College)
4-4:45pm
That Spurious, Curious, Furious Lesbian: The Performance Art of Claude Import (1945-2000).
Susan Cocalis (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
Goethe Institute Boston:
8pm
"Wahrlich ich sage Euch": Religion und andere Unannehmlichkeiten.
A Cabaret Performance by Sinasi Dikmen
Conveners: Steve Dowden and Sabine von Mering, Department of German, Russian, and East Asian Languages and Literatures.
Monday, November 14, 2005
5-8pm, Lurias, Hassenfeld Conference Center
THE GERMAN ELECTIONS AND THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE.
A Panel Discussion with
Sabine von Mering, Assistant Professor of German and Executive Director, CGES, Brandeis
Paul Jankowski, Raymond Ginger Professor of History, Brandeis
James Cronin, Professor of History at Boston College
George Ross, Hillquit Professor of Labor and Social Thought and Director, CGES, Brandeis
Europe was the scene of a number of important electoral decisions this year. The French and the Dutch rejected the proposed constitution for the European Union. Tony Blair won his third term in office with the lowest share of the vote for a ruling party in modern times. The German elections ended in a stalemate. CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel may be forced to oversee a majority of SPD cabinet members or call new elections in early Spring. Is Europe coming to a political standstill? What do the election results reveal about the stability of democracy in Europe? How do the experts interpret these developments? We invite you to come join the discussion!
Monday, November 21, 2005
12noon-2pm, Faculty Center
THE GERMAN ELECTIONS AND THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE:
Part II. Talk and Luncheon.
"Quo vadis Germany? German Perspectives after the Elections."
With Gert-Joachim Glaeßner, Professor of Political Science, Humboldt Universität, BerlinWednesday, November 30, 2005
12noon-2pm, Faculty Club Lounge
Please RSVP to cges@brandeis.edu
Luncheon and Talk with Professor Hiltrud Arens,
Associate Professor of German, University of Montana, Missoula.
Circus as Metaphor for Culture in Rafik Schami's Novel
Reise zwischen Nacht und Morgen [Journey between Day and Night]
Professor Hiltrud Arens received her Ph.D. in German Studies from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1997. Her research interests have focused on contemporary (and 19th century) women and minority writers in Germany with a special interest in postcolonial and feminist theory. She has given presentations on the authors George Tabori, Rafik Schami, Yoko Tawada, Zafer Senoçak, and Libuse Moníková and on topics dealing with the issue of humor and cultural memory in the context of the Holocaust. She has published on Schami and on Moníková, and a book entitled 'Kulturelle Hybridität' in der deutschen Minoritätenliteratur der achtziger Jahre in 2000 (Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen- 2nd edition forthcoming winter 2005), discussing four authors in the context of minority and German literature of the 1980s of the Federal Republic. Her current research projects involve recent works by Yoko Tawada linking her writing to globalization and media studies, and by George Tabori and the film (with the same title as Tabori's play) Mutters Courage by Michael Verhoeven.
Events Spring 2005
Brandeis in Berlin
Information session on the BRANDEIS BERLIN SUMMER PROGRAM
Enjoy food and drinks while exploring the fantastic possibility to learn the German language and about Germany's culture in one of Europe's most vibrant cities.
Thursday, February 3
6 - 7:30pm
Usdan, International Lounge (downstairs)
Reading and Discussion with German-Romanian Author
CARMEN-FRANCESCA BANCIU (Rutgers University, NJ)
Tuesday, February 15
1:30- 3pm
Shiffman 125
Events in celebration of the 40th anniversary of German-Israeli relations:
Concert withANNEGRET KLAUA, Violin and
MARGARET CHENG TUTTLE, Piano
Performing the world-premiere of young Israeli composer LIOR NAVOK's Violin Sonata.
Also on the program are works by Schubert, Prokofiev, and Gershwin.
Friday, February 18
8pm
Slosberg Auditorium
The concert is FREE and open to the public.
"Changes in the Jewish Communities in Germany Today: Challenging New Solidarity between Eastern and Western European Jews"
Jewish-German Dialogue with CORNELIA WILHELM,
Fellow, Department of Modern History, University of Munich
Tuesday, March 1
5- 7pm
Shiffman Humanities Building 120
A buffet dinner will be served.
Changes and Challenges: New Perspectives for Jewish Communities in Germany, 1989-2005
The exodus of "Russian" Jews from the former Soviet Union has recently triggered an unexpected growth of the German Jewish communities. In fact, it has unexpectedly made this community with is special history the fastest growing Jewish community in the world and has thus caused many changes and challenges to the Jewish establishment. The talk will try to go beyond the debates about problems of religious and social integration and explore how the new dynamism and need of social activism is adding to the emergence of a new Jewish identity and solidarity in Europe: It will focus on an ongoing aid project which had been launched in 1995 by a Russian immigrant of the Munich B'nai B'rith Lodge by founding a sister lodge, a soup kitchen, a hospital and a charity in Lemberg, Ukraine, thus creating new bonds of solidarity and aid with those who stayed behind in the Ukraine. A short documentary will be shown.
Dr. CORNELIA WILHELM has received her Ph. D. in Social- and Economic History at the University of Munich in 1994 with a dissertation on Nazi propaganda and ethnic policy targeting the German-American ethnic group in the United States between 1933 and 1945, published by the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. Between 1997 to 2002 she embarked on a new research project as visiting research fellow of Hebrew Union College/American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, OH, to work on a second book, titled "Pathmaker for a New Jewish Identity in America: Mission and Self-Awareness of the Independent Order B'nai B'rith, 1843-1914". Her work has broadly focussed on transatlantic relations, migration, ethnicity, ethnic and religious minorities and Jewish history, both in Germany and the United States. She has been teaching at the University of Munich, Germany, since 1994.
"Israeli-German Relations"
Jewish-German Dialogue with STEPHAN J. KRAMER,
Secretary General of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and Head,
office of the European Jewish Congress in Berlin
Tuesday, March 8
Faculty Club Lounge- RSVP REQUIRED!
12noon- 2pm
If you would like to attend Mr.Kramer's talk, please RSVP to european@brandeis.edu no later than March 1, 2005. Seating is limited!
STEPHAN J. KRAMER has been Secretary General of the Central Council of Jews in Germany since April 2004 and also heads the office of the European Jewish Congress in Berlin. From March 2000 until 2004 he served as Executive Director of the Council.
Mr. Kramer studied law and economics in Marburg, Bonn, and in Frankfurt. Before joining the Central Council in January 1999 as personal assistant to the late Ignatz Bubis, he worked for five years in the Frankfurt/Main office of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany as a press spokesman and advisor for public and government relations. He also worked as a consultant for the existing individual compensation funds and the slave labour compensation. He established and supervised local offices of the Central and Eastern European Compensation Fund of the Claims Conference in Kischinev, Moldova and Bukarest, Romania. He has served as chief of staff to three different members of the German Bundestag between 1989 and 1995, among them the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Economic Affairs Committee and the Children Commission of the Bundestag. He has headed a consulting firm specializing in both public and government affairs, political lobbying and economic affairs. For the past five years Mr. Kramer also has worked as a freelance journalist.
"Feminist Interpretation of Jesus' Parables"
Lecture with Prof. LUISE SCHOTTROFF
Wednesday, March 16
2:10- 3:30pm
Lown Center for Judaic Studies, Room 302
Dr. LUISE SCHOTTROFF is considered to be Europe's leading feminist New Testament scholar. The author of the ground-breaking Lydia's Impatient Sisters: A Feminist Social History of Early Christianity, her careful documentation of the first generation of Christian women provides testimony to the courage and spirit-filled possibilities of the early church and offers an illuminating methodology for how we might understand the Bible as a source of life-giving power for the everyday lives of women.
Dr. Schottroff's research interests are in feminist exegesis, liberation theology, and feminist and social history of early Christianity. She is the author of twenty-two books, including Let the Oppressed Go Free: Feminist Perspectives on the New Testament, Feminist Interpretation: The Bible in Women's Perspective, and Jesus and the Hope of the Poor. Recently retired from her position as Professor of New Testament at the University of Kassel in Germany, she is a member of the European Society of Women in Theological Research and the Interdisciplinary Working Group of Women's Research at the University of Kassel.
"Headscarves--A Democratic Right? The Headscarf Controversy in Germany and France"
Panel Discussion with AINA KHAN (London), JYTTE KLAUSEN (Brandeis),
and RIEM SPIELHAUS (Berlin)
Thursday, March 17
5- 7pm
Hassenfeld: Luria 1, 2, and 3
Open to the public. A buffet dinner will be served.
Background:
In 1989 three Muslim schoolgirls wearing the Islamic headscarf were expelled from secondary school in Creil, north of Paris. The incident sparked a series of legal and political battles over the right to wear symbols of one ?s religious expression vs. the separation of church and state. In Germany the muslim teacher Fereshta Ludin ended six years of legal battles in November of 2004, defeated. Her home-state Baden-Württemberg was the first to pass a law on April 1, 2004, according to which muslim teachers are no longer allowed to wear the headscarf in public schools. The law forbids all "political, religious, and ideological expressions" that could endanger the neutrality of the state or the peace at the school. Christian symbols, such as the dress of a nun, are not banned. Many German states (including Niedersachsen, Bavaria, and Berlin) are following suit. In an interview, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said: "If a young woman would like to wear a headscarf in public, I consider that tolerable. If she would like to do it as a member of the civil service, I would say: No, there we expect a different way of dress."
A panel of experts will discuss the consequences of new German and French laws banning muslim women who wear the headscarf from schools and universities.
AINA KHAN, Senior Partner and founder, Aina Khan Partnership, London Aina Khan is the Senior Partner and founder of the London-based firm, Aina Khan Partnership, Solicitors, which she launched on 1 June 1994. She qualified as a Solicitor in 1991 and specialises in Family Law, with clients from all over the UK and abroad. Her particular expertise is in Islamic Family law, and she and her team of specialist solicitors provide solutions for Muslims under English law. Aina has played an active role in community affairs for many years, and has stood as a Parliamentary Candidate in 1997. She regularly appears on TV, radio and in the press, commenting and writing on issues affecting Muslim and Asian Communities.
JYTTE KLAUSEN (Associate Professor of Political Science), currently a Bosch Public Policy Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany, is conducting a long-time study of the Muslim political elite in Europe. The core of her study are interviews with 250 Muslim parliamentarians, city councillors and association leaders in six countries: Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France and Germany.
RIEM SPIELHAUS was born in East-Berlin, to a German mother and Egyptian father and graduated in Islamic and African studies from Humboldt University in Berlin. She participated in the research and publication of "Moscheen und islamisches Leben in Berlin" (Mosques and Islamic life in Berlin) and in the research project "Islamic TV-preachers in the Open Channel Berlin." Ms. Spielhaus has recently been the advisor for the Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration, Marieluise Beck. She is also a founding member and member of the board of the Muslim Academy in Germany, a forum for inner- and interreligious discourse amongst Muslims living in Germany and German society. Since November 2002 Ms. Spielhaus has been assistant professor of Islamic studies at Humboldt University and is currently working on her dissertation "Muslim Debates about Islam in Germany."
"The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl"
Documentary film by Ray Mueller (180 minutes)
Thursday, March 17
7- 10pm
Shiffman 201
"PROFESSORS IN PURGATORY - Denazification of Munich University, 1945-1955"
Jewish-German Dialogue with STEFAN WIECKI,
Graduate Student, History (Brandeis University)
Monday, April 11
12noon
Levine-Ross, Hassenfeld Conference Center
In his dissertation "Professors in Purgatory - The Denazification of Munich University, 1945-1955", Wiecki seeks to explain the transition from dictatorship to democracy in Germany after World War II by analyzing the process of denazification of the faculty of Munich University and its long-term consequences on education in post-war German society. He looks at the implementation of the concepts "denazification" and "reeducation" by the American occupation forces in order to see how effective the denazification process was in rooting out Nazism, militarism, anti-Semitism, and anti-democratic sentiments in the German educational elite. While most historians maintain that the denazification of German universities failed miserably, his research suggests that the process constituted one of the crucial factors for the development of democracy in Germany. In his dissertation, he examines how Munich University, as an institution of higher education, became democratized and how the professors' teaching, behavior, and mentality were affected by this change.
STEFAN W. WIECKI has been a Ph.D. student in the Comparative History department of Brandeis University since 2001. He defended his dissertation proposal in 2003 and since then has done several months of research in archives in Munich, Berlin, and College Park, Maryland. He participated in the Washington Semester Program at American University in Washington, D.C. between August 2000 and May 2001. While in Washington, he worked as a research assistant at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, which is part of the National Defense University. His work there focused on the lessons that could be learned from the Kosovo peace keeping mission. From October 1997 to July 2000 he studied history and political science at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Among his main interests was the study of the transatlantic connection between Germany and America from the end of the Second World War to today. During his time in Berlin, he worked part-time as a freelance journalist for the Berliner Morgenpost. From July 1995 to June 1997, Stefan was in the German Army and was engaged in peace keeping missions in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. He worked there as editor for different military newspapers, which reported on the progress of peace and democratization in the former Yugoslavia.
JEWISHFILM.2005:
From Auschwitz to America and Israel
March 31-April 10, 2005
In This Year's Jewish Film Festival at Brandeis, there are a number of films that might interest you, especially "Metallic Blues" (April 2 at 8pm) and "Dance of Death (April 3 at 7pm).
Please visit http://www.jewishfilm.org for more details.
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POSTPONED to FALL 2005:
"Confronting World Hunger: The Responsibilities of Mature Democracies and Global Institutions"
Conference with RAY OFFENHEISER, Oxfam America
Wednesday, March 23
Time and Place: TBA
Jewish-German Dialogue with YAACOV GUTERMAN
Tuesday, April 5
6- 8pm
Place: TBA
Brandeis German Film Evenings
All movies with English subtitles! TV lounge in The Village. FREE pizza!
Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 9pm
Der Untergang (Downfall)
by Oliver Hirschbiegel
Wednesday, September 28, 2005, 9pm
Good Bye, Lenin
by Wolfgang Becker
Wednesday, October 19, 2005, 9pm
Die Ehe der Maria Braun (The Marriage of Maria Braun)
by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Wednesday, October 26, 2005, 9pm
Männer
by Doris Dörrie
Wednesday, November 2, 2005, 9pm
Das Boot
by Wolfgang Petersen
Wednesday, November 16, 2005, 9pm
Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire)
by Wim Wenders
Wednesday, November 30, 2005, 9pm
Lola rennt (Run Lola Run)
by Tom Tykwer
TUESDAY, December 6, 2005, 9pm
Die Feuerzangenbowle (in German with NO subtitles)
by Helmut Weiss (after a novel by Heinrich Spoerl)