Philip Boehm ’80 receives the Kurt and Helene Wolff Translation Prize

Philip Boehm favorite portraitsOur alumnus Philip Boehm ’80 has been awarded the Kurt and Helen Wolff Translation Prize for his translation of Gregor von Rezzori’s An Ermine in Czernopol, published in 2012 by the New York Review of Books. The award will be conferred by the German Consul General on June 3 in Chicago; Krishna Winston will be delivering the laudatio.

Earlier this year Philip Boehm has also been awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship to assist in his work as a dramatist and translator.

“I am continually struck by new overlaps between staging drama and translating prose. In both cases I first listen to the original voice or voices before attempting any re-creation, and my experience working with actors has taught me the importance of keeping a text alive, and of preserving its energy as it travels from one culture to another, whether on the page or in the theater. It is this fundamental awe of language that steers me from one project to the next.”

German Ladies Make Movies III – When We Leave – April 16, 6:30 PM – Powell Cinema

The third and last movie in our German film series for this semester is When We Leave (Die Fremde), Germany 2010, directed by Feo Aladag, with Sibel Kekilli, Nizam Schiller, Derya Alabora. 119 min.

A young German woman of Turkish descent flees a difficult marriage by moving to Berlin, but her fight for more freedom and independence causes strife within her family. Introduced by Katja Straub, Visiting Assistant Professor of Film Studies

Trailer

German Movie Night II – Run Lola Run – April 2, 6:30 PM – Powell Cinema

 

The second movie in our film series in the crime thriller Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt), Germany 1998. Dir: Tom Tykwer, with Moritz Bleibtreu, Franka Potente. 81 min.

The film begins with Lola receiving a phone call from her distraught boyfriend Manni, a small-time criminal, who lost 100,000 marks belonging to his crime boss. Manni fears for his life. Can Lola help?  Introduced by Leo Lensing, Professor of German Studies & Film Studies.

More information…

 

 

 

 

German Ladies Make Movies I – Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland – Februray 26th, 6:30PM Powell Cinema

Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland is the first movie in our spring film series. Hüseyin Yilmaz came to Germany from Turkey in 1964, and later brought his wife and children. With warmth and a sense of humor, his granddaughter recounts their family history during a family vacation back home in Turkey. An uplifting, funny film about heritage and intercultural family life. Directed by Yasemin Samdereli, 95 min., Germany 2011  Introduced by Iris Bork-Goldfield, Professor of German Studies.More Information and Trailor

Kaffee & Kuchen

Join us for another Kaffeestunde

at the German House at 65 Lawn Avenue

Friday, February 22 from 5-6:30 p.m.

Talk German and learn more about living in the German House

while enjoying a cup of coffee and some cake.

Krishna Winston Translates Günter Grass’s From Germany to Germany

Krishna Winston, the Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature, is the translator of Günter Grass’s From Germany to Germany, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

In January 1990, just months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Günter Grass made two New Year’s resolutions: the first was to travel extensively in the newly united Germany and the second was to keep a diary, to record his impressions of a historic time. Grass takes part in public debates, writes for newspapers, makes speeches, and meets emerging politicians. He talks to German citizens on both sides, listening to their bewilderment and their hopes for the future. Ideas for stories take root—his novels The Call of the Toad and Too Far Afield.

From Germany to Germany is also a personal record. Grass reflects on his family, remembers his boyhood, and comments on the books he is reading, the drawings he is making, and the sumptuous meals he cooks for family and friends. The picture that emerges—not only of the two Germanys struggling for a single identity but of a changed world after the end of the Cold War—is engrossing, passionate and essential for anyone who wants to understand Europe’s new leading nation.

Jan. 25, 2013 by 

Krishna Winston to Attend Günter Grass Translators Gathering in Germany

Krishna Winston, the Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature, will attend a translators working meeting with Günter Grass Feb. 10-14 in Lübeck, Germany. Grass, 85, is novelist, poet, playwright, artist and sculptor. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999.

Prof. Winston has translated several of Grass’s works, including his 1990 diary, From Germany to Germany, which was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in November 2012.

This will be her fourth meeting with Grass and fellow translators. The group will focus the discussion on Grass’s poetry, autobiographical writings and artwork.

“It’s a pretty special thing when translators can sit down with the author for several days and hear from him directly what they should pay attention to, what was in his mind when he wrote certain passages, and what  historical, political, literary, or other background they may need in order to get the translation right,” Winston said.

Grass maintains an office in a historic building immediately adjacent to the GG Haus, a museum dedicated to literature and the visual arts, with a special emphasis on Grass’s work in both areas and on other artists with multiple talents.

Jan. 25, 2013 by 

Peter Handke in America

Friday, December 7th, 6:30 p.m. Deutsches Haus at New York University, 42 Washington Mews New York, NY 10003

Please join the German House in New York City for a discussion with Fatima Naqvi (Rutgers University), Christoph Bartmann (Goethe Institut NYC), Klaus Kastberger (University of Vienna), Heike Polster (University of Memphis), Krishna Winston (Wesleyan University), and Thorsten Carstensen (The Indiana University School of Liberal Arts).

Peter Handke in America is an important theme for understanding the writer’s work. Because of his life-long fascination with America, Handke was among the first German-speaking writers of his generation to present a positive image of the United States against the anti-imperialist aversions of the European 1968-movement. Particularly in his early work, scholars have traced his fascination with writers such as John Ford, Walker Percy (whom he also translated), as well as the blues, New York City, the image of the “Native American” and with the beauty of the American landscape. His 1971 novel Short Letter, Long Farewell makes his fascination with the United States the central motif. Handke also lived in New York (after lengthy travels through Alaska), where in 1979 he wrote his important novel The Long Way Round. In his film Three American LPs, he co-produced with Wim Wenders, many of these themes can also be clearly identified. More information

You can watch some of the discussion on Youtube.

William C. Donahue, “Domesticating the Holocaust: Our Twisted Love Affair with Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader.”

William Donahue, Professor of German and Professor of Literature as well as a member of the Center for Jewish Studies and the Center for European Studies at Duke University, will discuss new research on the reception of the Holocaust for a work in progress and for Holocaust Lite, the recently published German translation of his book Holocaust as Fiction. Bernhard Schlink’s “Nazi” Novels and Their Films. Holocaust in Fiction is “the first scholarly study to probe the ‘Schlink phenomenon’ and to analyze its profound role in coming to terms with the Holocaust. Donahue dissects the seductive, transnational appeal of his work and the ways in which popular culture more generally has contributed to the success of Germany’s normalization campaign” (Todd Samuel Presner).

Tuesday, November 13, 2012 at 7:30p.m. Downey 113

Sponsored by German Studies and Jewish & Israel Studies

STUDY IN BERLIN

 

Meet Jochen Wohlfeil, Adjunct Associate Professor of the Practice in German and Resident Director of  Duke in Berlin

Jochen Wohlfeil, usually omnipresent in Berlin as Director of Duke University’s academic program there but in residence in Durham this semester, will give a presentation on Duke in Berlin and discuss student life in Germany’s greatest city.

Monday, November 12

4:30p.m – 5:30p.m. in Fisk 210

Hören und Diskutieren

Das German Studies Department lädt ein zu zwei Vorträgen von GRST Majors

Freitag, den 9. November um 14.00 Uhr in Fisk 404

 

Mari Jarris

“A Contemporary Critique of Metaphysics:

Adorno’s Nietzschean Analysis of Astrology.”

&

Katie Dean

“‘Überfrau’ oder Opfer?

The Liminal Characterization of Women in 19th Century German Drama.”

Die Vorträge sind auf Englisch, die Diskussion auf Deutsch und Englisch.