The Center for German Studies at the University of Virginia
The Department of German, mindful of the long and significant history of transatlantic and German-American relations, is pleased to propose the founding of the Center for German Studies at the University of Virginia. By drawing on the Department’s strengths in cultural and literary studies, the Center will:
- Promote the cooperation of scholars at the University of Virginia whose work touches upon the cultural traditions of German-speaking societies, thus providing a forum for interdisciplinary research and interdepartmental collaboration.
- Provide a significant opportunity for enhanced forms of faculty-student cooperation.
- Generate visibility and recognition for the University of Virginia on a regional, national and international level and seek the logistical and financial support of a wide range of academic and political institutions supporting German Studies.
- Invite scholars, writers, artists, journalists and other professionals from German-speaking countries to visit the University.
- Support and expand current departmental programs for study abroad and academic exchange.
- Provide a social space to develop and support community-centered activities concerned with German Studies.
- Create a forum and resource for teachers of German throughout the State of Virginia.
The Department of German at the University of Virginia has long been a productive and engaging intellectual arena. As part of the German Department Forum, five guest speakers with interdisciplinary research interests deliver lectures that draw faculty and students from a wide range of Departments. Every year the department hosts a Max Kade Visiting Professor, who participates in the German Studies Forum and teaches two courses. The Department has organized a number of international conferences that have addressed timely and far-reaching issues, the most recent devoted to “Perspectives on Europe.” The Department’s graduate students host the nation’s longest running annual German Studies conference. The Department supports an undergraduate German House, where a German graduate student serves as resident staff and organizes discussions, colloquia, film nights and dinners at the Max Kade Deutsches Haus. The student-run German Society organizes numerous German-related activities open to the University and the larger Charlottesville community. In addition to the long-standing and successful Summer Foreign Language Center, the Department offers three programs aimed at spurring the interests of undergraduates in German: “German Express” provides the equivalent of a year of intermediate German in the fall semester to prepare students for advanced study at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena in the spring semester. The UVa J-Term in Berlin takes undergraduates, most with no past German experience, to Berlin for a two-week compact course in January. The German Department has, in cooperation with faculty from various departments, just introduced a new interdisciplinary German Studies Major.
The Center will build on these programs and expand the Department’s range of activities. First, the Center will allow the Department to deepen its research and educational agenda both in terms of the increasingly inter-disciplinary character of research at UVa and in terms of the University’s long-term goal to become more active and visible as an international research center. The Center’s primary focus in this regard will be the organization of conferences, seminars, research grant initiatives, and workshops. The Center will advance and support interdisciplinary projects in the belief that the German intellectual and cultural tradition plays a significant role in the history of the human, natural and social sciences. To this broader purpose belongs a closer collaboration with other university departments and the sustained pursuit of international research initiatives.
Second, the Center will serve as a venue for sharing knowledge about all aspects of German cultural traditions for the University and the entire Charlottesville community, bringing its interests and engagements to a broader Virginia audience. Forms that such public initiatives could take include: joint film screenings with the Virginia Film Festival, workshops with authors and artists in residence, and lectures by major representatives from the private and public sectors.
Finally, the Center will serve as a resource for University faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, and teachers of German in Virginia. It will be a stage for pedagogical initiatives related to the Department’s expertise in Second Language Acquisition. To strengthen its ties to high schools and colleges throughout the state, the Center will build upon its German Outreach Day and seek close cooperation with the Virginia Chapter of the American Association of the Teachers of German (AATG). The Center will support the organizational and financial development of study abroad opportunities in Germany, especially for undergraduates. In conjunction with the University Career Services Center and the alumni network, the Center will also support and encourage undergraduate interest in pursuing career paths in European and German related fields.
In sum, the German Studies Center at the University of Virginia embraces the University’s task to discover, share and implement knowledge. It does so out of the belief that the German intellectual and cultural tradition has great relevance for our understanding of the present and will remain so in the future.