Five years ago a group of colleagues from different disciplines came together with a common interest in German Studies as a field pushing boundaries and engaging not only the humanities but also the sciences, economics, and engineering. We envisioned a scholarly forum for truly interdisciplinary research and to explore German Studies in its larger European and transatlantic contexts.

Building on its constituencies and strengths, the Center celebrated its fifth anniversary on ...March 20-21 with a two-day symposium. The program started on Thursday afternoon with a keynote lecture by Professor Peter Uwe Hohendahl (Jacob Gould Schurman Emeritus Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature, Cornell University), on “German Studies, the Humanities, and the American University.”

The symposium continued on Friday (March 21) with talks by, and discussions with, Steven E. Aschheim (Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Intellectual History at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem), Harald Welzer (Professor of Transformation Design at the University of Flensburg), and Lutz Koepnick (Professor of German and Film Studies at Vanderbilt University).

Reflecting the Center’s interdisciplinary perspective, our symposium had the good fortune to draw on commentators from many UVa departments and schools, including: Jennifer Geddes (Religious Studies), Jeffrey Grossman (German and Jewish Studies), Krishan Kumar (Sociology), Joerg Sieweke (Architecture), Manuela Achilles (History and German), Jody Kielbasa (Vice Provost of the Arts), Wesley Harris (Virginia Film Festival Programmer), and Alison Levine (French).