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 2023 Conference, Die ewige Wiederkehr des Vampyrs / The Eternal Return of the Vampire, will be held on March 3 and March 4, 2023.
Die ewige Wiederkehr des Vampyrs / The Eternal Return of the Vampire
Friday, March 3
9:45am - 7:00pm
AB West Wing
Screening of Blutsauger (dir. Julian Radlmaier)
Followed by Q&A
Keynote: Laurence Rickels, "Verwahrlosung"
Saturday, March 4
10:00am - 2:00pm
AB West Wing
Keynote: Elisabeth Bronfen, "Vampire Virus - Reading Nosferatu as a Pandemic Narrative"
The 2022 Conference, Stimmen: Voices, was held on March 3 and March 4, 2022
Stimmen: Voices
This hybrid conference was held both in person and via Zoom.
Thursday, March 3, 2022
10am - 2pm
AB 4052 (Comp Lit Seminar Room), and via Zoom
Panel I - 10:15am - 11:50am
Aida Feng (Yale University): “Crafting Voices: Translating Polyvocality in YokoTawada’s ‚Etüden im Schnee’ (2014)”
Augustus Haines (University of Tennessee): “Deutsch für Alle: Narratives of German Language-Learning in Khider and Tawada”
Christiane Fischer (Rutgers University): “The Interstices of Language: Translation in Yoko Tawada’s ‚Das nackte Auge’”
Panel II - 12:20pm - 1:40pm
Hevin Karakurt (Universität Basel): “Narrative Polyphony–Performances of Kurdish Identity in German Contemporary Literature”
Nate Wagner (Columbia University): “Translating Sound: Polyphony and the Contemporary German Novel”
Friday, March 4, 2022
9:30am - 1pm
AB 4190 (French Seminar Room), and via Zoom
Keynote Address 9:45am - 11:00am
Anna Baar (Austria): reading from her novel ‚Die Farbe des Granatapfels’
Panel III 11:15am - 12:35pm
Anna Schwarzinger (Universität Innsbruck): “Becoming Human by Facing the Other: Loss and rediscovery of language. An animal-guided reading of contemporary German literature”
Svenja Engelmann-Kewitz (Universität Dresden): “‚Das sage ich nicht laut, das bleibt meiner inneren Stimmevorbehalten’: Voice and Narration in Ilija Trojanow’s‚EisTau’”
The 2022 conference wasorganized by Elisabeth Oberlerchner and Nicole Uberreich.
The 2021 Conference, Ecstasy, was held virtually on March 4 and March 5, 2021
Ecstasy – Ekstase – Rausch
Keynote address: Wayne Kostenbaum (Graduate Center, City University of New York)
"How to Become a German Romantic Song"
March 4, 2021, 12:00 - 1:30pm EST
Graduate Student Panel Discussions
March 5, 2021, 12:15 - 4:30pm EST
Panel 1, 12:15 - 2:15pm
Thomas Wallerberger: “Confining the Ecstatic Stranger and Refugee: From Nosferatu's Shadow to Albert Drach's Zwetschkenbaum”
Eliza Doyle: “My Favorite Monument” (selections from multimedia e-book)
Arielle Friend: “Ecstasy and Endoscopy in Unica Zürn’s Das Haus der Krankheiten”
Daniel Shussett: "Contradictory Elements and Partial Objects: Dostoevsky and Deleuze & Guattari on the Self, Madness, and Salvation"
Panel II, 3:00 - 4:30pm
Camilo Andrés Hoyos: “Eckhart's Becoming Nothing and Laozi's Non-Self: Two Concepts Pointing Towards an Understanding of Equanimity”
Amanda Horowitz: “Our Monica, Ourselves” (in-progress play reading)
Nicole Überreich: "‘Some of these femininists go too far.’ Pitfalls of Female Empowerment in Margaret Atwood's ‘Bluebeard's Egg’”
2021 Conference was organized by Christiane Fischer and Arielle Friend.
The 2018 Conference, Shock, was held on September 21, 2018, and coordinated by Eva Erber. The keynote address was given by Prof. Uwe Wirth (Gießen) and titled Poetic Paperwork: Cut and Paste as Grafting. For the full program, please click here.
The 2017 Conference, Apocalyptic Narratives, was held on April 15, 2017 and coordinated by Anna Mayer and Janine Wahrendorf. The keynote address was given by Prof. Eva Horn, University of Vienna, and titled Last Men: Functions of Apocalyptic Thought ni the Modern Age. Click here for a full event program: Apocalyptic Narratives
The 2015 Conference, Economic Hi$tories, was held on April 24-25, 2015 and coordinated by Stefanie Populorum and Carlos Gasperi. The keynote address was given by Prof. Fritz Breithaupt, University of Indiana, Bloomington. Prof. Henry Sussman, Charlotte M. Craig Distinguished Visiting Professor at Rutgers University and professor of German at Yale University, delivered a guest lecture.
The pdf 2014 Conference (1.67 MB) , Intermediality and Intermedial Narratives in the German-Speaking World, was held on Friday, April 18, 2014 and coordinated by Damianos Grammatikopoulos and Sascha Hosters. Professor Henry Sussman from Yale University was the keynote speaker.
The 2013 Conference, Representing Women in the Cinema of Josef von Sternberg, was held on Friday, May 3, 2013 and coordinated by Christina Mandt and Susan Doose. Professor Barbara Kosta from the University of Arizona, Tucson, spoke, and the event was supported by the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies.
The pdf 2012 Conference (347 KB) , A Quiet Powerful Presence: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Role of Silence In and Beyond Literature, Art and Film, was held on March 30, 2012. It was coordinated by Sascha Hosters and Veronika Jeltsch.
The 2011 Conference, Die Stadt: The Writing of Urban Spaces in the German Speaking Context, was held on Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 10:00 am at German House. It was coordinated by Katrin Polak-Springer and Simona Sivkoff.
The 2009 Conference, Minority – Identity: Selfhood and Nationhood in the Hapsburg Empire and Beyond was held on Friday, February 27, 2009. It was coordinated by Devin O'Neal and Rebecca Steele.
The 2008 Forum, (Un)ruly Pleasures in German Culture, was held on Friday, March 28, 2008. It was coordinated by Christophe Kone, Mareen Fuchs and Shambhavi Prakash.
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. It was coordinated by Juljana Gjata and Katrin Polak-Springer.
The 2006 Conference, entitled Heimat: Utopia or Reality? Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Search for Heimat and National Identity was held on March 3, 2006. It was coordinated by Rebecca Steele and Julia Feldhaus.
The document 2005 Conference (50 KB) was a bit different. 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.
The image 2004 Conference (81 KB) was entitled "Beyond Oedipus: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Father," and coordinated by graduate student Kai Diers.
