Department Hosts 29th Annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference on “Traveling Forms”

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 of ongoing environmental devastation and racism? The case studies discussed these questions across geographical spaces, from Chile to China, from India to Nigeria, and in different historical settings. Broadening the scope of German Studies in this way, the contributions also highlighted what travels back to the German speaking world when we follow its cultural and medial forms across national borders.