Building Bridges: International Conference on

Transcultural German Studies

Brücken schlagen: Internationale Lessing Konferenz

Lessing 2000

March 29-31, 2007
The University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona USA

click here for pdf version of the program

Wednesday, March 28, 2007 (Guests arrive at the Sheraton Four Points Plaza Hotel)

7:00 Informal Evening Social (Four Points Bar/Restaurant) (Cash Bar)

DAY 1 (Thursday, March 29, 2007)

Breakfast at Hotel

SESSIONS I: AT AND BETWEEN THE BORDERS

(Meeting in the Ventana Room, 4th Floor, Student Union Building, Main Campus)

9:00 – 9:30 Welcome

Mary Wildner-Bassett, Head, Department of German Studies, University of Arizona
Charles Tatum, Dean, College of Humanities, University of Arizona
George Davis, Provost, University of Arizona
Erwin Tschirner, Dean of the Faculty of Philology, University of Leipzig
Wolfgang Albrecht, Klassik Stiftung Weimar
Steven Martinson and Renate Schulz, Co-Organizers of the Conferences, University of Arizona

9:30 – 11:00
(Ventana Room)

Common Session 1: Zu einer Begriffsbestimmung der transkulturellen German Studies/ Defining Transcultural German Studies

Chair: Mary Wildner-Bassett (University of Arizona)

Renate Schulz (University of Arizona): “Language-, Culture-, and Transcultural German Studies: Where Do They Meet?”

Steven Martinson (University of Arizona), “Transkulturelle German Studies, mit einer Notiz zur Bildung transkultureller Mentalitäten”

John McCarthy (Vanderbilt University)
“Lessing, Transkulturalität und die europäische Öffentlichkeit”

11:00 – 11:30
Break

11:30 – 12:30 (Presidio Room)

Common Session 2: Deutsch als Fremdsprache aus transkultureller Perspektive

Chair: Renate Schulz (University of Arizona)

Claus Altmayer (University of Leipzig): “Kulturstudien im Fach Deutsch als Fremdsprache aus transkultureller Perspektive”

Mary Wildner-Bassett (University of Arizona): “Die Sozialökologie des transkulturellen Lernens”

12:30 – 2:00 Lunch (Ventana Room)

A Tribute to Walter Sokel
(University of Virginia, Emeritus)

Introduction: Thomas Kovach (University of Arizona)

Walter Sokel:
“Growing Up Toward the Holocaust.
Childhood and Youth in Vienna Between the Wars”

2:00 – 3:30

(Presidio Room)

1. Lessing I

Chair: John McCarthy
(Vanderbilt University)

Wolfgang Albrecht (Klassik Stiftung Weimar)
“Neue Bestimmung des Menschen. Einaufklärerischer Diskurs zur Lessingzeit und 200 Jahre später”

Dieter Fratzke (Kamenz) “’Wirkungen…vermöge der Gattung” (Lessing). - Literaturmuseale Objekte als Erkenntnis-Quellen und Kommunikationsmittel”

Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer (University of München) “Markante Signale der Bühnenrezeption Lessings um 2000 – Jubiläen und 11. September. Emilia, Philotas, Nathan”

(Copper Room)

2. Transcultural German Language/Literary Studies

Chair: Mary Wildner-Bassett
(University of Arizona)

David Smith (East Carolina University)
“The Integrality of Loss to Linguistic Identity”

Silke Lipinski (University of Arizona)
“Routineformeln in Lernwörterbüchern—Gute Nacht oder Gute Besserung”

Ingo Peters (Chulalongkorn University, Thailand)
“The Three Investigators (DieDrei ???) and Their German Success”

3:30-4:00 Break

4:00 – 5:30

(Copper Room)

3. Lessing II

Chair: James van der Laan
(Illinois State University)

Monika Nenon (University of Memphis)
“The Question of Friendship in Lessing’s Early Comedies”

Nicholas Rennie (Rutgers University)
“Hybrid Iconoclasms: Lessing’s Laocoön, Freud’s Moses”

Beate Allert (Purdue University)
“Lessing’s Contribution to Eighteenth-Century Discourses on Color"

(Presidio Room)

4. Visual Culture

Chair: Barbara Kosta
(University of Arizona)

Ann Schmiesing (University of Colorado)
“Lessing and Chodowiecki”

Eleanor ter Horst (Clarion University)
“Walls and Bridges: Fatih Akin’s ‘Im Juli’ and ‘Gegen die Wand'”

Kamakshi Murti (Middlebury College)
“To Veil or Not to Veil: Germany and Islam”

5:30 – 6:30 ( Presidio Room)

Common Session 3: Roundtable
Developing and Implementing Programs: The Arizona – Leipzig Joint Ph.D. Program in Transcultural German Studies

Erwin Tschirner (University of Leipzig), Charles Tatum (University of Arizona)
Mary Wildner-Bassett (University of Arizona). Steven Martinson (University of
Arizona), and Thomas Kovach (University of Arizona)

7:00 Dinner (Ventana Room)

Special Event: The Cinematography of Fatih Akin
“Im Juli” (2000)
Commentator and Discussion Leader: Barbara Kosta (University of Arizona)

DAY 2 (Friday, March 30, 2007)

Breakfast at Hotel

SESSIONS II: NEGOTIATING BORDERS

7:30 – 8:45 (La Cholla, Student Union Bldg.)
Lessing Society Executive Board Business Meeting and Breakfast (closed meeting)

9:00 – 10:30

(Copper Room)

5 .Literary-Cultural Perspectives

Chair: James van der Laan
(Illinois State University)

Matt Erlin (Washington University)
“Aesthetic Autonomy and Commercial Ideology: The Case of Karl Phillip Moritz”

David Chisholm (University of Arizona)
“The City in Early Twentieth-Century Poetry and Prose”

Nina Berman (Ohio State University)
“Translation and Literary History”

(Presidio Room)

6. Transcultural, Transnational and Transdisciplinary Studies

Chair: Kathrin Maurer
(University of Arizona)

Bernd Fischer (Ohio State University)
“Transkulturelles Verstehen”

Barbara Kosta (University of Arizona)
“Transnationalism and German Cinema”

Douglas Cremer (Woodbury University)
“Transdisciplinary Studies in an Architectural Setting”

10:30 – 11:00 Break

11:00 -12:30

(Copper Room)

7. Jewish-German Studies I

Chair: Astrid Klocke
(Northern Arizona University)

Thomas Kovach (University of Arizona)
“Walser’s Ausschwitz: Guilt or Burden?”

Carsten Schapkow (University of Oklahoma)
“German Jews as Cultural Mediators and the Iberian-Sephardic Example”

Thomas Fox (University of Alabama)
“Stephan Hermlin’s Negotiation of German/ Jewish/ Communist Identity”

(Presidio Room)

8. Germans and the Southwest

Chair: David Chisholm
(University of Arizona)

Meredith McClain (Texas Tech University)
“Karl May and Heinrich Schmitt: Legend and Reality of the Llano Estacado”

Peter Ecke (University of Arizona)
“’Apachen’ und ‘Ulzana’: How East Germans Imagined the Southwest in Two Westerns”

Albrecht Classen (University of Arizona)
“Transcultural Encounters: German Jesuit Missionaries in the Primería Alta”

12:30 – 2:00 Lunch (Ventana Room)

Richard Schade (University of Cincinnati), Executive Secretary of the Lessing Society
and Managing Editor of the Lessing Yearbook
“Guten Appetit—Herr Lessing!”

2:00– 3:30 (Ventana Room)

Common Session 4: Lessing 2000

Chair: Wolfgang Albrecht (Klassik Stiftung Weimar)

Wilfried Barner (University of Göttingen)
“Lessing und die Minderheiten—in der Perspektive von heute”

Monika Fick (University of Aachen)
“Lessings Laokoon zwischen Diskursanalyse und Präsenzdebatte.
Mit einem Seitenblick auf Emilia Galotti “

Manfred Beetz (University of Halle)
“Lessing in der anthropologischen Forschung
der letzten Dezennien des 20. Jahrhunderts”

3:30 – 4:00 Break

4:00 - 5:30

(Copper Room)

9. Between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam: Spirituality in the German Eighteenth Century
(Arno Schilson in Memoriam)

Chair: Willi Goetschel
(University of Toronto)

Daniel Cyranka (University of Halle)
“’Gehet hin und leset euren Lessing, den wir Spiritisten stolz den unseren nennen!’ Lessings Wirkung in der modernen Esoterik”

Barbara Fischer (University of Alabama)
“Jedem seinen Nathan: Zur triumphierenden Differenz von ‘Jud, Christ und Muselmann”

Peter Foley (University of Arizona)
“England’s Struggle with German Rational Theology: The Long Arm of Lessing’s Pantheism Controversy”

(Presidio Room)

10. Transcultural German Language Studies

Chair: Erwin Tschirner
(University of Leipzig)

Olaf Bärenfänger (University of Leipzig)
“Kommunikatives Gedächtnis, kollektives Gedächtnis und transkulturelle German Studies”

Helena Knapp (Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico)
“Die Bedeutung von Deutsch als Fremdsprache in Mexiko”

Shrishail Sasalatti (Jawaharal Nehru University, India)
“Deutsch-Transnational: Herausforderungen und Chancen: eine außereuropäische Perspektive aus Indien”

6:00 Cash Bar (Sheraton Four Points Plaza Hotel Convention Center)

7:00 Dinner (Sheraton Four Points Plaza Hotel Convention Center)

A Tribute to Karl S. Guthke
Kuno Francke Professor of German Art and Culture, Harvard University

Introduction: Steven D. Martinson

Karl S. Guthke:
“Global versus Humanistic Bildung in the Age of Goethe:
The Emergence of a New Concept of Education”

DAY 3 (Saturday , March 31)

Breakfast at Hotel

SESSIONS III: THROUGH AND BEYOND BORDERS

9:00 – 10:30

(Copper Room)

11. Jewish-German Studies II

Chair: Astrid Klocke
(Northern Arizona University)

Sandra Dillon (University of Oregon)
“Paradoxes in Audacious Metaphors in Paul Celan’s ‘Todesfuge’ and Nelly Sachs’s ‘O die Schornsteine’”

Petra Fiero (Western Washington University)
“Barbara Honigmann als Brückenschlägerin zwischen den Kulturen”

Martin Kagel (University of Georgia)
“Holocaust Grotesque: George Tabori’s The Cannibals”

(Presidio Room)

12.Transculturality in the Eighteenth-Century

Chair: Steven Martinson
(University of Arizona)

Casey Hayes (University of Arizona)
“Johann Gottfried Herder’s View of Culture and the Concept of Transculturality”

Christian Lindemann (University of Arizona)
“The Context of Identity: Eighteenth-Century Portraiture of the German-Speaking World”

James van der Laan (Illinois State University)
“The Transcultural Textures of Goethe’s Faust”

10:30-11:00 Break

11:00-12:30

(Copper Room)

13. Transculturality and the Nineteenth Century

Chair: Albrecht Classen
(University of Arizona)

Kathrin Maurer (University of Arizona)
“Through Panoramic Eyes: The ‘Other ’in Women’s Travel Narratives in the Nineteenth Century”

Stan Landry (University of Arizona)
“Bridging the Confessional Divide: Ecumenism in Nineteenth-Century Germany”

Susan Crane (University of Arizona)
“Dolf Sternberger’s 1930s-Nineteenth Century”

(Presidio Room)

14. Transcultural Perspectives in German Language, Literature, and Culture

Chair: Herb Rowland
(Purdue University)

John Alexander (Arizona State University)
“Pickelhering: Transcultural Intersections in German Drama of the Seventeenth Century?

Peter Goßens (University of Münster)
“Lessings Universalismus: Weltbürgertum und Kosmopolitismus in der globalisierten Weltliteratur”

Willi Goetschel (University of Toronto)
“Three Transcultural Paradigms: Lessing,Goethe, Heine”

12:30 – 2:00 Lunch (Redington Room)

A Tribute to Egon Schwarz

Introduction: Thomas Kovach (University of Arizona)

Egon Schwarz:
“Sprachen fürs und im Exil”

2:00- 2:30 Concluding Remarks and Closing of the Conferences

Erwin Tschirner, Dean of the Faculty of Philology, University of Leipzig
Mary Wildner-Bassett, Head, Department of German Studies, University of Arizona
Steven Martinson and Renate Schulz, Co-Organizers of the Conferences, University of Arizona

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