Rebellion and Revolution: Defiance in German Language, History and Art
16th Annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference University of California, Berkeley

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Friday, March 7

5:00-6:00 pm. Reception in the German Library, 5337 Dwinelle Hall (Level E)

6:00-8:00 p.m. Film Screening in B4 Dwinelle Hall (Level A): Peter Zadek’s “Ich bin ein Elefant, Madame” (1968)

Saturday, March 8 – 370 Dwinelle Hall (Level F)

8:00-8:30 a.m. Coffee and Pastries

8:30-8:45 a.m. Introductory Remarks (Priscilla Layne and Melissa Etzler)

Panel I: REVOLUTION AND FAILURE

  • 8:45-9:10 a.m. Thomas Brady (University of California, Berkeley): “1525 and All That: The German Peasants’ War in Modern Memory”
  • 9:10-9:35 a.m. Dayton Henderson (University of California, Berkeley): “Exploring the Importance of a Failed Revolution: Alfred Döblin’s Karl und Rosa”
  • 9:35-10:00 a.m. Matthias Buschmeier (Universität Bielefeld): “When Revolutionists become too German – Suicidal Neoclassicism in Wilhelm Speyer’s Drama Der Revolutionär (1918) and Revolutionary Rigidity in Brecht’s Die Maßnahme (1930/31)”

10:00-10:20 a.m. Break

Panel II: RHETORIC AND REVOLUTION

  • 10:20-10:45 a.m. Jeffrey High (California State University, Long Beach): “Schiller’s Declarations of Independence”
  • 10:45-11:10 a.m. Christoph Kleinschmidt (Macalester College): “Rhetorik der Revolte. Zur Rolle des Manifests in Naturalismus, Expressionismus und Dadaismus”

11:10-11:30 a.m. Break

Panel III: VIOLENCE AND ANARCHY

  • 11:30-11:55 a.m. Molly Loberg (California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo): “Looting in Weimar Berlin: Acts of Desperation, Crime or Politics?”
  • 11:55 a.m.-12:20 p.m. Seth Howes (University of Michigan): “Skinhead and Stasi: The GDR Neo-Nazi Problematic and Impossible Rebellions”

12:20-1:35 p.m. Lunch

Panel IV: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

  • 1:35- 2:00 p.m. John Alexander Williams (Bradley University): “The Body Demands Its Rights: Socialist Nudism in the Weimar Republic”
  • 2:00-2:25 p.m. Michael Schuering (University of California, Berkeley): “Years of Fear: The Church, the Bomb, and Nuclear Energy in West Germany”

2:25-2:45 p.m. Break

Panel V: GENDERED REBELLION

  • 2:45-3:10 p.m. Martin Blawid (Università degli Studi di Cagliari): “Rebell mit eiserner Hand. Rebellion und hegemoniale Männlichkeit in Goethes Götz von Berlichingen”
  • 3:10-3:35 p.m. Julie Koser (University of Maryland): “Rebellious Bodies: The Human Form as the Site of Social and Political Conflict in the Works of Heinrich von Kleist”

3:35-3:55 p.m. Break
4:00-5:00 p.m. Keynote: Andreas Gailus (University of Minnesota): “Language Unmoored: Signs and Revolution in Kleist’s ‘The Betrothal in St. Domingue'”

5:00-7:15 p.m. Dinner Reception

Sunday, March 9 – 370 Dwinelle (Level F)

9:20-9:50 a.m. Coffee and Pastries

Panel VI: STUDENT MOVEMENTS AND THE LEGACY OF ’68

  • 10:00-10:25 a.m. Martin Klimke (German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.): “Between Berkeley and Berlin, San Francisco and Frankfurt: The Transatlantic Protest Networks of ‘1968’ and their Historical Legacy)
  • 10:25-10:50 a.m. Patricia Melzer (Temple University): “Rebellion from the Inside: (State) Power and the Body as Locus of (Feminist) Political Subjectivity in the RAF Hunger Strikes”
  • 10:50-11:15 a.m. Elliot Neaman (University of San Francisco, California): “Nationalism and Anti-Semitism in the Rhetoric of 1968; a Perspective Forty Years Later”
  • 11:15-11:40 a.m. Elliot Neaman and Hajo Funke (Freie Universität Berlin): “Mein 1968”

11:40 a.m.-12:25 p.m. Roundtable discussion

12:25 p.m.-12:30 p.m. Closing Remarks

Sponsored by: Department of German, DAAD, Goethe Institute, San Francisco, Graduate Assembly, Doreen B. Townsend Center, Department of Comparative Literature