Fourth West Coast Germanists’ Workshop: Global Germany
Nov 04, 2022 - Nov 05, 2022
Workshop at the University of California, San Diego | Conveners: Frank Biess (University of California, San Diego), Ulrike Strasser (University of California, San Diego), and Sören Urbansky (GHI Washington, Pacific Office Berkeley)
Call for Papers
We are inviting graduate students, postdocs, and faculty in the Western United States and Western Provinces of Canada who do research in fields of German history and culture studies to join us at the fourth West Coast Germanists’ Workshop at the University of California, San Diego on November 4 & 5, 2022. The workshop comprises paper presentations, a teaching panel, and informal gatherings to network and exchange ideas. The workshop seeks to provide a forum for discussing key conceptual, methodological, and historiographic issues in the research of German history and culture in different periods.
This year’s theme, “Global Germany,” invites reflection on the many ways in which Germany has been and remained connected to the world. We do not seek to privilege any specific form of connection but invite contributions to a wide variety of themes, including but not limited to migration, trade, (post-)colonialism and imperialism, German diasporas, cultural exchanges and knowledge transfers.
We aim to address the predicament of Germanists in the West, indeed our unique geographic challenges – our distance from Europe and from each other – and also the particular opportunities and possibilities for doing German history and German studies in places with abundant resources from German émigrés and thriving German expat communities in the arts, business, and technology. We also consider the potential benefits of our more distant gaze and the intellectual stimulation of seeing Germany and Europe from perhaps a more global, Pacific perspective.
Interested participants should use our online portal to register for the workshop by September 11, 2022. Individuals interested in presenting a paper at the workshop should also include a one-paragraph proposal and a brief CV. Please contact Heike Friedman (friedman@ghi-dc.org) if you have problems submitting your information online. Papers will be pre-circulated prior to the meeting and should be made available by October 15. Thanks to the support of the German Historical Institute Washington, the DAAD, and UC San Diego, we will be able to subsidize participation in this workshop. Priority will be given to paper presenters, graduate students, and anyone in need of financial assistance.