DEPARTMENT OF GERMAN

At the end of August, after 2 1/2 years of consturction and renovation, faculty, graduate students, and staff finally moved back into the newly renovated Kresge Hall. The green building (Kresge Hall opens with new green features) is now housing many of the humanities departments from the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences as well as the Multimedia Learning Center. We have modern and comfortable new offices and high-tech classrooms and learning centers to meet with our students, prepare our classes, and teach. The German department is located on the third floor in the north-west corner of Kresge. Come and visit.

Department of German

Kresge Centennial Hall, Room 3-305

1880 Campus Drive

Evanston, IL 60208

Phone: 847-491-7249

Email address: german@northwestern.edu

Students in Northwestern’s German Department will have more opportunities to research and study abroad, thanks to a $250,000 gift from the Friedman-Kline Family Foundation.

On Tuesday, May 17, students and faculty in the German department celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Evening O'Skits, a traditional theatrical event in German. During the Evening O'Skits, students in first- and second-year German performed the best German skits on stage to the delight of an attentive audience. The department would like to congratulate students to their tremendous linguistic achievements - a reflection of the high caliber of students we have and skills and engagement of the German instructors who taught them throughout the year. Well done everybody. 

This year, Study Abroad Director Bill Anthony was present to celebrate the Evening of Skits.  As a former faculty member in the German Department, he founded the annual skit tradition as well as the Mikrolog 30 years ago. Bill Anthony is retiring (read the articles here and  here) this year and the faculty and students would like to thank him for all he has done for the German department. We would not be where we are today without you, Bill Anthony! Vielen Dank. 

Watch a video about this year's event.

Given the centrality of foreign languages to an education in our globalized world, the Forum for Languages and Cultures supports local and global initiatives that offer opportunities for students, faculty and staff in all of our colleges and schools to participate in language and culture-based activities focused on expanding the study of foreign languages and cultures beyond the classroom.

CONSUL GENERAL HERBERT QUELLE

The largest share of Europe’s refugees arrived in Germany in 2015 after Chancellor Merkel said that refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war would be welcome. In December 2015 Angela Merkel pledged to give an extra US $18.5 billion to help displaced persons seeking asylum in Germany, where up to a million refugees have arrived in 2015 and another million is expected to come in 2016. Germany's official representative to the Midwest, Consul General Herbert Quelle will discuss the recent developments in the immigration crisis in Europe and the ways Germany is addressing it.

Professor Joachim Kersten | Wednesday, January 20, 2016 at 4 PM

For decades, there has been an ongoing passionate debate among Germans whether Germany is a country of immigration (Einwanderungsland) or not. This question may sound strange to American ears, especially in the light of the current refugee crisis taking place all over Europe, but once it is put in a broader context, important insights into the development of the German self-image as a whole emerge.

Anna Parkinson was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.  Professor Parkinson received her Ph.D. in German Studies, with a minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, from Cornell University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in German literature, film, and culture. Her research interests include twentieth and twenty-first century German literature and film, psychoanalytic and critical theory, contemporary South African literature and film, literature of migration, gender and queer theory, literary theory, memory studies, genocide studies, translation theory, and media of the Cold War era.  Her first book, titled An Emotional State: The Politics of Emotion in Postwar West German Culture, is forthcoming in Fall 2015 from the University of Michigan Press. Students of Professor Parkinson think she is "super nice and very helpful", "really cares about every student in the class even if this isn't a small seminar class," and "expects a high level of engagement from each student, but you will end up learning a lot."

Professor Parkinson will be on leave in Germany during Winter and Spring quarter 2016.

Katrin Völkner was promoted to Associate Professor of Instruction. Professor Völkner holds a Ph.D. in German Studies from Duke University. She teaches courses in German language, culture and  literature (among others the popular Business German sequence) and she is the director of Weinberg’s Multimedia Learning Center. Her research deals with the question of how new and emerging technologies can support curricular goals. In collaboration with a Computer Science student and MMLC staff, she is currently working on a mobile app (beta) for helping students learn German prepositional verb phrases. Students of Professor Völkner think she is "an enthusiastic, well-organized, and supportive professor" and that she "explains stuff very well, and is always willing to help you out." 

Professor Völkner is on leave in Berlin during the 2015/2016 school year.

Jan Behrs is our new DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Visiting Associate Professor of German from Kiel, Germany.