Archive of Past Lectures
Wednesday, May 3rd, 6:45 – 8:45 PM
Philosophy Lecture: "Beauty and the Just State: The Contours of Schiller's on the Aesthetic Education of Man"
By Luke Johnson, M.A., Ph. D. Candidate (University of Georgia) and founder of the Noetic audio lecture series. In English.
Philosophy Lecture: "Beauty and the Just State: The Contours of Schiller's on the Aesthetic Education of Man"
By Luke Johnson, M.A., Ph. D. Candidate (University of Georgia) and founder of the Noetic audio lecture series. In English.
Thursday, March 31st, 6:45 – 8:45 PM
Film Studies Lecture: Das Boot - "The Transnational Blockbuster and Film History"
By Dr. Hester Baer, Associate Professor of German and Film Studies, University of Maryland. In English.
A widely published expert on German film, digital media and contemporary literature, Professor Baer will speak on the pivotal role played by the blockbuster Das Boot in establishing a new production model and aesthetic vision for German film. Opening to worldwide acclaim in 1981, Wolfgang Petersen’s epic World War II adventure film about a submarine in the North Atlantic established new strategies for appealing to global audiences and ushered in a new commercially oriented German-language genre cinema. This talk presents a critical take on what remains – even thirty-five years after its initial release – the most commercially successful foreign language film ever released in North American.
Film Studies Lecture: Das Boot - "The Transnational Blockbuster and Film History"
By Dr. Hester Baer, Associate Professor of German and Film Studies, University of Maryland. In English.
A widely published expert on German film, digital media and contemporary literature, Professor Baer will speak on the pivotal role played by the blockbuster Das Boot in establishing a new production model and aesthetic vision for German film. Opening to worldwide acclaim in 1981, Wolfgang Petersen’s epic World War II adventure film about a submarine in the North Atlantic established new strategies for appealing to global audiences and ushered in a new commercially oriented German-language genre cinema. This talk presents a critical take on what remains – even thirty-five years after its initial release – the most commercially successful foreign language film ever released in North American.
Thursday, December 3, 6:45 – 8:45 PM
Literature/Philosophy Lecture:
Schleiermacher’s The Christmas Celebration: A dialogue (1806)
By Dr. Julia A. Lamm, Associate Professor of Theology at Georgetown University. In English.
One of the early German Romantics, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) was a theologian, philosopher and biblical scholar. He is best remembered as the author of On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799), and for his translation of Plato’s Dialogues. Dr. Lamm will focus on Schleiermacher’s The Christmas Celebration: A Dialogue, which was inspired by a performance given by the blind flute virtuoso, Friedrich Ludwig Dulon (1768-1826), one of the most celebrated musicians of the Classical Era. She will place The Christmas Celebration in its historical context and discuss its significance, explaining how it expands the idea of a Platonic dialogue and reveals an underlying anxiety of whether Christmas bears any historical relation to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
Literature/Philosophy Lecture:
Schleiermacher’s The Christmas Celebration: A dialogue (1806)
By Dr. Julia A. Lamm, Associate Professor of Theology at Georgetown University. In English.
One of the early German Romantics, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) was a theologian, philosopher and biblical scholar. He is best remembered as the author of On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799), and for his translation of Plato’s Dialogues. Dr. Lamm will focus on Schleiermacher’s The Christmas Celebration: A Dialogue, which was inspired by a performance given by the blind flute virtuoso, Friedrich Ludwig Dulon (1768-1826), one of the most celebrated musicians of the Classical Era. She will place The Christmas Celebration in its historical context and discuss its significance, explaining how it expands the idea of a Platonic dialogue and reveals an underlying anxiety of whether Christmas bears any historical relation to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
Saturday, October 10, 10:30 AM – 3:30 PM
“Classical Octoberfest”:
Lecture, lunch, video, and more!
“Remembering Schiller in the 19th century and the Present” - a cultural history of staged 19th century Feiern celebrating Friedrich Schiller.
By Dr. Mary Helen Dupree, Associate Professor of German at Georgetown University. In English.
“Classical Octoberfest”:
Lecture, lunch, video, and more!
“Remembering Schiller in the 19th century and the Present” - a cultural history of staged 19th century Feiern celebrating Friedrich Schiller.
By Dr. Mary Helen Dupree, Associate Professor of German at Georgetown University. In English.
Thursday, April 16, 2015 at 6:45 PM
Literature Lecture:
Streamlining Goethe: Friedrich Schiller's Stage Adaptation of "Egmont"
Lecture by Dr. Kerstin Gaddy, Professor of German and Assistant Dean at the Catholic University of America.
Egmont, Goethe’s drama based on Lamoral, Count of Egmont’s
tragic rebellion against Spanish rule in the Netherlands, did not
meet with critical acclaim when it debuted in1787. The poet and
playwright then asked Friedrich Schiller, his friend and frequent
collaborator, for advice. In 1796, a revised version of the play
incorporating Schiller’s alterations, was performed in Weimar
to great success.
Professor Gaddy will examine how Schiller’s adaptation moved
away from the complexity and musicality of Goethe’s original
script and instead strived for an overall simplification of the
drama, much like a modern screenplay.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015 at 6:45 PM
Literature/Philosophy Lecture:
Brecht and the Bible: Mother Courage and her Children
Lecture by Dr. G. Ronald Murphy, Professor of German, Georgetown University.
Many productions of Mother Courage and her Children fail because they do not get to the heart of this play and its fear of death prevailing over life. Brecht is also sold short when his work is treated simply as an anti-war protest. Professor Murphy will take a careful look at the biblical allusions and the underlying structure, based on the seasonal passage of time, which reveal the feelings that give the play life. (In English)
Father Murphy was born in Trenton, New Jersey, which, as he explains, is widely known to all Trenton scholars as the first American city ever occupied by a German Army -- the Hessians, in 1776. Whether or not that constitutes probable cause, he has always nurtured great interest in and affection for everything German. This culminated in doctoral studies at Harvard and abiding interests in literature that resulted in his work on Bertolt Brecht and Brecht's use of scripture, Brecht and the Bible (Chapel Hill, 1980).
Also fascinated with the origins of things, he turned next to the Heliand, considered the earliest German epic, and produced a definitive study of the author's Germanic spirituality, The Saxon Savior, published in 1989 (Oxford). This was followed by a translation and commentary, The Heliand, The Saxon Gospel (Oxford), which was selected upon publication in 1992 as the alternate choice for the Book-of-the-Month Club.
In the year 2000 Father Murphy published The Owl, the Raven and the Dove: The Religious Meaning of the Grimms' Magic Fairy Tales, (Oxford) an examination of the magic confluence of the Germanic and the Christian in the work of the Brothers Grimm. Then, in 2006, he finished a quest and published the successful results as Gemstone of Paradise, The Holy Grail in Wolfram's Parzival, (Oxford). His most recent book, Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North, (Oxford) was published in October, 2013. It is an examination of the influence of Germanic myth’s great tree, Yggdrasil, in the design of the stave churches of Norway, the Dream of the Rude, Bornholm’s round churches, and other religious artifacts. The book ends with the Christmas tree.
He truly enjoys literature and language, teaching German and sharing the great works of German literature with his students. In his opinion, the whole world turns around God, people, stories, and realization.
Saturday October 18, 2014, 10:30 am - 3:30 PM
Heinrich Heine and Berlin in the 1820s – the Budding Poet as an Active Participant in the Salon and Theater Scene
Classical Oktoberfest: Lecture, Lunch, and Film
Lecture In English by Dr. Elke Frederiksen, Professor of German, University of Maryland, College Park.
Politically and culturally, Berlin had developed into Prussia’s most significant city around 1800, with a vibrant salon culture at its center. The young student Heinrich Heine arrived in Berlin in 1821, where he quickly became an active participant in the famous Rahel Varnhagen Salon.
Following a brief introduction into the cultural context, the lecture will focus on an unpublished manuscript by Heine discovered by Dr. Frederiksen in Krakow, Poland in 1989. In it, Heine defends the actress Auguste Stich (née Düring) against accusations of an extramarital affair, attracting attention as a keen critic of Berlin’s theater scene in 1823. The second part of Dr. Frederiksen’s lecture will discuss Rahel Varnhagen's influence on the young Heine’s literary career as evidenced in his Briefe aus Berlin (1822-27).
Heinrich Heine and Berlin in the 1820s – the Budding Poet as an Active Participant in the Salon and Theater Scene
Classical Oktoberfest: Lecture, Lunch, and Film
Lecture In English by Dr. Elke Frederiksen, Professor of German, University of Maryland, College Park.
Politically and culturally, Berlin had developed into Prussia’s most significant city around 1800, with a vibrant salon culture at its center. The young student Heinrich Heine arrived in Berlin in 1821, where he quickly became an active participant in the famous Rahel Varnhagen Salon.
Following a brief introduction into the cultural context, the lecture will focus on an unpublished manuscript by Heine discovered by Dr. Frederiksen in Krakow, Poland in 1989. In it, Heine defends the actress Auguste Stich (née Düring) against accusations of an extramarital affair, attracting attention as a keen critic of Berlin’s theater scene in 1823. The second part of Dr. Frederiksen’s lecture will discuss Rahel Varnhagen's influence on the young Heine’s literary career as evidenced in his Briefe aus Berlin (1822-27).
Wednesday, September 17, 2014, 6:45 - 8:45 PM
Literature Lecture:
18th Century German Orientalism and the Works of Benedikte Naubert (1756-1819)
Lecture by Dr. Julie Koser, Assistant Professor of German, University of Maryland, College Park.
The “Orient,” as both a geographical region and an exotic myth, has long captivated the German cultural imagination, characterized by an intense, sustained fascination with all things Oriental. Dr. Koser’s talk will begin with a brief discussion of German Orientalism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She will then examine the trope of the “enlightened infidel” or “enlightened heathen” as shown in the fairy tales and historical novels of Benedikte Naubert.
Benedikte Naubert, born Christiana Benedicta Hebenstreit (13 September 1756– 12 January 1819), was a German writer who published anonymously more than 50 historical novels, and is considered a pioneer of the genre in the 1780 & 90's. For more than a decade scholars in Germany and North America have been "rediscovering" Germany's women writers. Dr. Koser is writing a chapter for a forthcoming book entitled "Looking East: Visions of the 'Orient' in the Historical Novels of Benedikte Naubert." The German Historical Novel Since the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Daniela Richter. (In Progress)
This AGS Lecture will be of interest to any student of German literature, scholar or layperson wanting to learn more about early German women writers. Plan now to attend, talk with the speaker and meet other people with similar interests.
Lecture in English.
Literature Lecture:
18th Century German Orientalism and the Works of Benedikte Naubert (1756-1819)
Lecture by Dr. Julie Koser, Assistant Professor of German, University of Maryland, College Park.
The “Orient,” as both a geographical region and an exotic myth, has long captivated the German cultural imagination, characterized by an intense, sustained fascination with all things Oriental. Dr. Koser’s talk will begin with a brief discussion of German Orientalism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She will then examine the trope of the “enlightened infidel” or “enlightened heathen” as shown in the fairy tales and historical novels of Benedikte Naubert.
Benedikte Naubert, born Christiana Benedicta Hebenstreit (13 September 1756– 12 January 1819), was a German writer who published anonymously more than 50 historical novels, and is considered a pioneer of the genre in the 1780 & 90's. For more than a decade scholars in Germany and North America have been "rediscovering" Germany's women writers. Dr. Koser is writing a chapter for a forthcoming book entitled "Looking East: Visions of the 'Orient' in the Historical Novels of Benedikte Naubert." The German Historical Novel Since the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Daniela Richter. (In Progress)
This AGS Lecture will be of interest to any student of German literature, scholar or layperson wanting to learn more about early German women writers. Plan now to attend, talk with the speaker and meet other people with similar interests.
Lecture in English.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014, 6:45 - 8:45 PM
Philosophy Lecture:
Paul Tillich - The Idea of Faith
Lecture by Dr. Martin J. DeNys, Professor of Philosophy, George Mason University.
This lecture will discuss Tillich’s life and some of the key ideas in his philosophical and theological thought. Dr DeNys will focus on Tillich's idea of faith, as an existential concern grounding human life. In relation to this idea
Dr. DeNys will also consider Tillich’s understanding of the symbolic nature of religious language and show how it led him him to propose a reading of the Bible that emphasizes a poetic rather than literal interpretation. Most of all, Paul Tillich explored the necessity of courage to finding meaning posed by some of the decisive events of modern history.
Martin J. DeNys received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Loyola University, Chicago and is a Professor of Philosophy at George Mason University.
Philosophy Lecture:
Paul Tillich - The Idea of Faith
Lecture by Dr. Martin J. DeNys, Professor of Philosophy, George Mason University.
This lecture will discuss Tillich’s life and some of the key ideas in his philosophical and theological thought. Dr DeNys will focus on Tillich's idea of faith, as an existential concern grounding human life. In relation to this idea
Dr. DeNys will also consider Tillich’s understanding of the symbolic nature of religious language and show how it led him him to propose a reading of the Bible that emphasizes a poetic rather than literal interpretation. Most of all, Paul Tillich explored the necessity of courage to finding meaning posed by some of the decisive events of modern history.
Martin J. DeNys received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Loyola University, Chicago and is a Professor of Philosophy at George Mason University.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014 at 6:45 PM
Literature Lecture:
Paul Celan’s Lovers and Muses: Poetry and the Biographical
Lecture by Dr. Peter U. Beicken, Professor and Chair, Department of Germanic Studies, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Maryland, College Park.
Paul Celan (1920-1970), generally considered the most influential European poet after WWII, is most famously known for his Holocaust/Shoa elegy “Todesfuge” (1945, “Death Fugue”). Though a poet’s poet, Celan’s poetry is often erotic, veiling and revealing ardent and conflicted love affairs, notably with Ingeborg Bachmann and others. In Celan’s difficult,
even hermetic poems, the biographical acquires a ‘poetic murmur of the heart’,
pulsating in the dialogic incantations that celebrate love above the abyss.
Literature Lecture:
Paul Celan’s Lovers and Muses: Poetry and the Biographical
Lecture by Dr. Peter U. Beicken, Professor and Chair, Department of Germanic Studies, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Maryland, College Park.
Paul Celan (1920-1970), generally considered the most influential European poet after WWII, is most famously known for his Holocaust/Shoa elegy “Todesfuge” (1945, “Death Fugue”). Though a poet’s poet, Celan’s poetry is often erotic, veiling and revealing ardent and conflicted love affairs, notably with Ingeborg Bachmann and others. In Celan’s difficult,
even hermetic poems, the biographical acquires a ‘poetic murmur of the heart’,
pulsating in the dialogic incantations that celebrate love above the abyss.