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Calendar of Events
The German Department sponsors and co-sponsors lectures and visits by writers, artists, filmmakers and scholars, in addition to organizing weekly meetings of the German Table, the annual Study Away Programs Orientation, and activities arranged by the teaching fellow and individual faculty members.
In April 2009, Nicholas Vazsonyi will visit the department, give a public lecture and work with students in German Studies Seminar. He is the author of the book Richard Wagner: Self-Promotion and the Making of a Brand, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.
German Study-Away Programs Orientation Meeting
October 27, 2009: 
6:30 - 8:00 p.m. Pinette Dining Room - Thorne Hall
Come listen to the stories of students who have studied abroad in places such as Freiburg, Berlin, Munich, Tübingen and Vienna!
German Table
The German Table meets weekly on Tuesdays between 5:30 and 7:15 PM in the Pinette Dining Room in Thorne Hall.
Events and Speakers
The German Department actively sponsors outside speakers on topics related to courses being taught or issues of current importance. In 2007-2008, we hosted two guests:
Katrin Sieg
April 10, 2008
Katrin Sieg led lively discussions in two German courses during her visit and gave a lecture entitled "Native Informants, Muslim Gender and Islamofascism in Europe," which examined contemporary representations of Muslim women. Sieg's visit was co-sponsored by Gender & Women's Studies, Gay & Lesbian Studies, Sociology/Anthropology and Religion. Sieg is an Associate Professor in the German Department and teh BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of three books: Exiles, Eccentrics, Activists: Women in Contemporary German Theater, 1994; Ethnic Drag: Performing Race, Nation, Sexuality in West Germany, 2002; Choreographing the Global in European Cinema and Theater, 2008, and has published in the areas of feminist and critical race studies, modern German theater and performance, and postcolonial European studies.
Peter Eisenman
November 6-7, 2007
The internationally reknowned architect Peter Eisenman spoke to the Bowdoin community about his controversial design for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which was dedicated in May 2005 in Berlin, Germany. Mr. Eisenman is the founder and the principal architect of Eisenman Architects in New York City, as well as the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Professor of Achitecture at Yale University. In addition to the Memorial in Berlin, a vast undulating field of concrete pillars that has become one of the most significant commemorative sites in Germany, Eisenman's award-winning designs include the Wexner Center for Visual Arts & Fine Arts at the Ohio State University and the Arizona Cardinals' stadium. His firm is currently working on several large-scale housing and cultural projects in southern Europe and North Africa. In addition to his lecture on the evening of November 6, Mr. Eisenman also visited Steven Cerf's course on "The Literary Imagination and the Holocaust" on November 7, where he continued to answer questions about the Memorial. The German Department was pleased to host Mr. Eisenman as part of the college's year-long celebration of "Visual Arts in the 21st Century." His visit was made possible by generous funding from the Office of the Dean for Academic Affairs and was supported by faculty from the Visual Arts, Art History and History departments.
Other recent highlights include visits by performance artist Esther Dischereit (2007) and Austrian writer Lillian Faschinger (2004), a visit by the German Consul General (2006), a reading by German author Otto Emersleben during Berlin week in 2004, and visits by filmmakers Frank Beyer (2002) and Wolfgang Kohlhaase (2004). In the fall of 2005, the German Department co-sponsored a lecture by Bettina Mathes on the European "Headscarf-Debate" [Kopftuchdebatte] and a visit by filmmaker Amie Siegel.
