Department Events

Dalia Grinfeld: “Openly Jewish and Queer in Germany: A Possible Path?”

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Dalia Grinfeld, Assistant Director of European Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in Berlin, Germany, will host a talk and Q&A about  “Openly Jewish and Queer in Germany: A Possible Path?”

Based in Berlin, Ms. Grinfeld manages ADL’s programs in Europe and supports European Jewish communities in their advocacy efforts. Earlier, she worked as a Policy Advisor for the Council Presidency of the European Union. She is actively involved in women’s rights and health issues, LGBTQI inclusion and innovative democracy. Her academic background is in Political Science and Jewish Studies, which she studied at the University of Heidelberg, Buenos Aires and Herzliya.

To REGISTER please click HERE

We will sent out the Zoom link a day prior to the event to all who have registered on the above link.

For more information, please contact Iris Bork-Goldfield or Thorsten Wilhelm.

This event is sponsored by the German Embassy in Washington D.C. and the German Studies department.

Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange

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Juniors and seniors, join us for this information session to learn how you can spend a year in Germany after you graduate!

PRESENTER: Melissa Leung ’16, Majored in Economics, College of East Asian Studies (Chinese and Political economy), and Pre-med. Leung is currently working for IBM as a public sector consultant.

Read more about Melissa Leung ’16.

Wy Ming Lin ’16  also participated in this program and had this to say: I majored in German Studies and Neuroscience and Behavior. After Wes, I wanted to do something with both majors, so what better way to combine the two than by moving to Germany and pursuing some research opportunities? That’s exactly what I did through the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals where I had the chance to spend a year in Leipzig. I did an internship at the Max Planck Institute there and worked with some amazing and brilliant neuroscientists who convinced me to keep studying in Germany. Currently, I am doing my MA in Tübingen and plan on continuing on with a PhD in Germany!

German Symposium-Meaningful Presence: Lived Experience (Erlebnis) and Representation

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Thursday, February 15

5:00-7:00 p.m. at Russell House, 350 High Street

Keynote Lecture by David Wellbery (University of Chicago): “’Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön.’ Image as Dramatic Motivation”

Moderator: Martin Bäumel (Department of German Studies, Wesleyan University)

Friday, February 16 

The following events will take place at the Center for the Humanities, 95 Pearl Street, Room 106

9:30 a.m.-1:10 p.m. Epistemologies

9:30-11:10 a.m. Conceptualizing Presence; Moderator: Daniel Smyth (College of Letters, Wesleyan University)

9:30-10:20 a.m. Aleksandra Prica (Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill): “Signatura rerum. On Presence and Method”

10:20-11:10 a.m. Ethan Kleinberg (Center for the Humanities, Wesleyan University): “The Sourcery of the Text: Chladenius and the Historico-Theological Presence of the Past”

11:10-11:30 a.m. Coffee Break

11:30 a.m. – 1:10 p.m. Knowing Oneself, Knowing the World

Moderator: Julia Goesser Assaiante (Department of German Studies, Trinity College)

11:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m. Michael Meere (Department of Romance Languages & Literatures, Wesleyan University): “Imagining the Self, Inventing the Other: Representation and Presence in Montaigne’s Essays and Travel Journal”

12:20-1:10 p.m. Kirk Wetters (Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University): “Presence and Absence in Georg Forster’s Voyage Round the World”

1:10-2:30 p.m. Lunch Break

2:30-7:00 p.m. Technologies

2:30-4:10 p.m. The Presence of the Ephemeral; Moderator: Ulrich Plass (Department of German Studies, Wesleyan University)

2:30-3:20 p.m. Marco Aresu (Department of Romance Languages & Literatures, Wesleyan University): “Aurality and Corpus in Medieval Italian Literature”

3:20-4:10 p.m. Gabriel Trop (Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill): “The Aesthetics of the Paradox”

4:10-4:20 p.m. Coffee Break

4:20-7:00 pm Presence Techniques; Moderator: Stephanie Weiner (Department of English, Wesleyan University)

4:20-5:10 p.m. Jocelyn Holland (Department of Germanic & Slavic Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara): “Die Kunst des Fügens: Materials, Techniques, Schemas”

5:10-6:00 p.m. Courtney Weiss Smith (Department of English, Wesleyan University): “The Echo Historians: Prosody and Natural History in Eighteenth-Century England.”

6:00-6:10 p.m. Break

6:10-7:00 p.m. Natasha Korda (Department of English, Wesleyan University): “Gyno Ludens: Puppenhäuser and the Gendered Phenomenology of Play”

Saturday, February 17 

9:30 a.m.-3:20 p.m. Sociability

10:20 a.m.-12:20 p.m. Aesthetics and Ethics; Moderator: Roger Mathew Grant (Department of Music, Wesleyan University)

10:20-11:10 a.m. Frauke Berndt (Deutsches Seminar, Universität Zürich): “A.G. Baumgarten’s Epic Voice”

11:10-11:30 a.m. Coffee Break

11:30-12:20 Dorothea von Mücke (Department of Germanic Languages, Columbia University):  “The Presence of the Poet and The Enlightenment’s Author Function”

12:20-1:40 Lunch Break

1:40-3:20 p.m. Visualizing Social Cohesion; Moderator: Natasha Korda (Department of English, Wesleyan University)

1:40 -2:30 p.m. Michael Armstrong (Department of Romance Languages & Literatures, Wesleyan University): “Master Mistresses on the 17th-Century Spanish and English Stage: Actresses, Boy Actors, and the Proto-History of Screwball Comedy”

2:30-3:20 p.m. Joel Lande (Department of German, Princeton University): “Goethe’s Many”

3:20-3:45 p.m. Closing Remarks

Organized by the Department of German Studies and the Center for the Humanities, with generous support from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), the Thomas and Catharine McMahon Memorial Fund, the College of Letters, the Center for the Study of Public Life, and Academic Affairs.