May 3, 2021

In spring 2021, we hosted a series of conversations with contemporary writers titled “Archives of Migration: The Power of Fiction in Times of Fake News.” Organized jointly by Professors Deniz Göktürk and Elisabeth Krimmer (University of California, Davis, German Program), this series has been supported by the German Consulate General San Francisco and co-sponsored by the German Historical Institute Pacific Regional Office, and the Institute for European Studies at UC Berkeley. The series will be continued in fall 2021.   Engaging in conversation with writers who bring diverse perspectives to questions of societal polarization and the power of poetic imagination,…

March 2, 2021

The conference “Traveling Forms: Global German Studies” (held February 19-20, 2021) focused on the circulation of cultural and medial forms on a global scale. Spanning a theoretical spectrum from translingual to ecocritical and postcolonial approaches, the contributions sought to expand the field of German Studies in exciting and urgent ways. How can we understand transnational processes of remediation and resignification? What audiences are addressed and mobilized by traveling forms and for what purposes? What are the possibilities and limitations of transcultural encounters? How can we overcome eurocentrism in our own research practices? And how can we imagine more just futures in face…

August 19, 2020

July 29, 2020

April 8, 2020

It is my pleasure to congratulate Adam Nunes, Kumars Salehi, and Jonas Teupert, our  2020 recipients of the Outstanding GSI Award. These GSIs have shown dedication, skill and creativity in their teaching and this honor is a formal recognition by the Graduate Division. Please join me in congratulating them!

December 8, 2019

CLAIRE KRAMSCH AND LIHUA ZHANG TO RECEIVE THE MLA’S KENNETH W. MILDENBERGER PRIZE FOR THE MULTILINGUAL INSTRUCTOR: WHAT FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS SAY ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE AND WHY IT MATTERS   New York, NY– 4 December 2019 – The Modern Language Association of America today announced it is awarding its thirty-fifth Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize to Claire Kramsch, of the University of California, Berkeley, and Lihua Zhang, of the University of California, Berkeley, for their book The Multilingual Instructor: What Foreign Language Teachers Say about Their Experience and Why It Matters, published by Oxford University Press. The prize is awarded for an outstanding…

November 16, 2019

The Berkeley German Department is pleased to announce a call for papers for the 28th Annual Berkeley German Studies Conference.  Please send submissions to berkeleygermanconference@gmail.com by December 31, 2019.

November 1, 2019

The Department invites applications for multi-year doctoral fellowships in all areas, including cross-disciplinary studies. In cooperation with the Center for Jewish Studies we also offer support for students working on German-Jewish topics. In addition, we are very proud to announce the newly established Sunrise Foundation https://german.berkeley.edu/news-events/news/ Fellowship in German Film and Media. To apply, please click here https://german.berkeley.edu/graduate/prospectives/

October 24, 2019

Das Anliegen dieses Bandes ist es zu klären, wie Praktiken und Konzepte der Integration komisch in Frage gestellt werden, aber auch, wie das Komische als Grenzphänomen sozialer und kultureller Übereinkünfte in Erscheinung tritt. Ausgangsthese ist, dass das Komische stillschweigend gemachte Annahmen darüber, welches Wissen und welche Werte von allen geteilt werden sollten, thematisch werden lässt. Aus anthropologischer, soziologischer, linguistischer und literaturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive versuchen die Beiträge dieses Bandes die Komik der Integration in den Blick zu nehmen – und dadurch Aufschlüsse über die kulturellen Grund­lagen von Integration zu gewinnen.

September 27, 2019

We are grateful to the Sunrise Foundation for the establishment of a new Fellowship in German Film & Media. The Sunrise Foundation for Education and the Arts has a central mission in the promotion of German film and media. It recently sponsored the reconstruction and distribution of several classic silent films (Das alte Gesetz 1923 and Die Stadt ohne Juden 1924) and has supported the academic study of German cinema through workshops and seminars.