The Charlotte M. Craig Distinguished Visiting Professorship is a position filled each spring by a renowned professor in German Studies. The professorship has been funded since 1998 by a generous annual gift from Dr. Charlotte M. Craig. As a result of her generosity, the German Department has welcomed a distinguished faculty member from schools foreign and domestic each spring semester to teach a graduate course, an undergraduate course, and to deliver the ever-successful annual Craig Lecture.

The professors who have held the position of Charlotte M. Craig Distinguished Visiting Professor are listed below.

Biographies of the past Craig Professors can be found by clicking on each name.

The Rodig Lecture Series is dedicated to the memory of the late Dr. Oscar R. Rodig, Jr., and is generously funded by an annual gift from Mrs. Lillian Rodig Maxwell. Each semester, the German Department hosts a scholar for a campus visit that includes a public lecture, a seminar presentation, and informal meetings and meals with students and friends of the department. The past and upcoming Rodig lecturers are listed below.

Professor David E. Wellbery (University of Chicago)

Professor Robert C. Holub (University of California, Berkeley)

Professor Martin Jay (University of California, Berkeley)

Professor Judith Ryan (Harvard University)

Professor Ritchie Robertson (Oxford University)

Professor Eric Santner (University of Chicago)

Professor Benjamin Bennett (University of Virginia)

Sabine Hake (University of Pittsburgh)

Professor Eric Rentschler (Harvard University)

Professor Tony Kaes (University of California-Berkeley)

In 2004, the German Department launched the highly successful Brown Bag Lunch lecture series. The series, organized by Professor Martha Helfer, provides an informal forum for faculty and students to present work in progress. Attendance at these events was high throughout the year, as the German Studies community at Rutgers enjoyed "food for the mind and food for the body."

Look for upcoming Brown Bag Lunch lectures on the event calendar.

By bringing different groups together, the conference furthered contacts and connections between teachers and curricula. To further promote this communication, teachers were invited to bring colleagues from different disciplines or departments. The day’s events were held in the Teleconference Center of Alexander Library, and all who attended were provided with lunch and Professional Development certificates.

Drama and Poetry Declamation Contest

As part of the High School and Community Outreach program, James DeAngelo also coordinates an annual Drama and Poetry Declamation Contest for middle and high school students, as well as a Poetry and Essay Contest.

For more information about High School & Community Outreach, click here.

Each year, the graduate students of the German Department organize a conference on a topic relevant to German Studies. Graduate students and scholars from across the U.S. and Germany attend these conferences and present their work.

The 2008 Conference, (Un)ruly Pleasures in German Culture, will be held on Friday, March 28, 2008.

The 2007 Conference was entitled Violence: A Necessary Evil? Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Means and Ends of Violence in German Film, Literature, and Fine Arts.

The 2006 Conference, entitled Heimat: Utopia or Reality? Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Search for Heimat and National Identity was held on March 3, 2006.

2006 Coordinators Julia Feldhaus and Rebecca Steele

Professor Eric Jarosinski, commentator, with the members of a panel discussion in the 2006 conference

On February 25, 2005, members of the German Studies community from Rutgers and other universities gathered for a multidisciplinary conference entitled Ostalgie: Commemorating the Past or Evading the Present? Cultural Representations of Post-Communist Europe and The Politics of Remembering the Good Old East. The conference opened with a presentation by Professor McFalls of the University of Montreal and also featured guest writer Ingo Schramm, who read one of his stories and spoke about his experiences in divided Germany. Graduate students and scholars from Rutgers and other universities in the U.S. and Germany took part in three panel discussions. The commentators for the panels were Rutgers Professors Fatima Naqvi, Belinda Davis, and Stephen Bronner. Federica Franze, a Rutgers graduate student in German, was the conference coordinator.

Professor Fatima Naqvi, commentator, with the members of a panel discussion including Rutgers graduate student Julia Feldhaus (2005 Conference)

In April 2004, Rutgers graduate students hosted a conference entitled "Beyond Oedipus: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Father," coordinated by graduate student Kai Diers.