News & Events

The German Department offers an array of events throughout the year for students, faculty, and guests. Keep up with all our news and events here.

Latest News

We hope this message finds you all doing as well as possible under the circumstances, and that you and your loved ones are healthy and safe. As you probably know by now, all of the German Department's courses will be taught remotely during fall 2020, winter 2021, and spring 2021. We know that online teaching and learning is not ideal: in-person instruction is central to our department's mission and identity, and we're eager to return to it as soon as we can. But at this point we need to prioritize the health and safety of students, faculty, and staff, as well as the larger New York community, particularly keeping in mind how different communities disproportionately bear the brunt of this pandemic. We learned a lot in the move to distance learning in spring 2020, and we're committed to making this academic year a meaningful one for everyone. Please reach out to the department chair if you have any questions or concerns. We are here for you. Nothing in our lives is quite the way we want it to be at the moment, and there's little we can do about it. But we promise to do everything we can to make this year the best it can be for our community.

Congratulations to Afsana Rahman, Agnes Li, Kieran Weaver, Risa Chen, and Yulia Severynenko, the winners of our inaugural German Fairy Tales photo contest. Check out their winning photos at https://huntercollege68.padlet.org/nmerolle/FairyTalePhotoContest2. Thanks to the Presidential Initiatives for Student Engagement for supporting the contest.

Congratulations to German students Cindy Nunez del Arco and Amilcar Dasilva on their acceptance to the Ronald McNair Scholars Program! The program is designed to provide select college students with research and scholarly activities and effective preparation for doctoral study. Wir gratulieren, Cindy und Amilcar!

Past Events:

The Hunter College GERMAN DEPARTMENT is proud to co-sponsor a virtual talk by CAROL KAHN STRAUSS

"THE EROSION OF THE RULE OF LAW IN NAZI GERMANY"

Hosted by the GERMAN ACADEMIC EXCHANGE SERVICE (DAAD)

Thursday, October 22 at 2 PM Eastern

CAROL KAHN STRAUSS received her BS from Columbia University and her MS from Hunter College, CUNY. She was born in New York; her father had been the president of the district court in Dortmund, Germany when the Nazis expelled him from his post in 1934. She has worked with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Hudson Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the 20th Century Fund. As Executive director of the Leo Baeck Institute, she gabe the Leo Baeck Medal to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2010. In 2005 she was given the German Federal Order of Merit by Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, and in 2015 was presented the Commander's Cross of the German Federal Order of Merit by Consul General Brita Wagener. Carol Kahn Strauss will be introduced by Consul General David Gill.

Links to further reading/viewing:

"A World Beyond the Wall," an exhibition at the German Consulate General New York through November 2019
An overview of November 9 in German history from The Local
"Life on both sides of the Berlin Wall," a recent video from The Guardian
"A Peaceful Revolution," a multimedia brochure from the German Consulate General New York
"The Fall of the Berlin Wall in Photos," from the New York Times, November 9, 2019
"Germany has been unified for 30 years. Its identity is still not," from the New York Times, November 8, 2019
"In place of Berlin's Wall now stands a barrier of sullen resentment," from The Guardian, November 10, 2019
The German miniseries Tannbach (English: Line of Separation) is available with English subtitles on PBS and Amazon.
The ZDF television series Preis der Freiheit is available online.

Remembering Ernst Toller (1893-1939): Exiles and Refugees between Europe and the US

With support from the DAAD, the Max Kade Foundation, the Ernst-Toller-Gesellschaft, the Austrian Cultural Forum, and the administrations of Hunter College and Mary Immaculate College, we were proud to host the international conference "Remembering Ernst Toller (1893-1939): Exiles and Refugees between Europe and the US," on May 30-June 1, 2019.

The spring of 1919 saw the brutal end of the Bavarian soviet republic that had emerged as part of Germany's November Revolution. Twenty years later, on May 22, 1939, Ernst Toller, one of the leaders of that revolution and republic, committed suicide at the Mayflower Hotel in New York, where he was living in exile from Nazi Germany. To commemorate these anniversaries we organized this conference on German-speaking exiles in New York and the United States, and their legacy for today's exiles and refugees. For more information, see https://www.ernst-toller.de/tagung-new-york-city/.

10th Annual Festival Neue Literatur

The 10th annual Festival Neue Literatur will take place from March 29-31, 2019, bringing to New York contemporary writers from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and the US. This year's theme is "In Memory We Trust." We are very proud that Hunter German major Sean Crisp will participate in the "Words With Writers" event on March 29! The event is free of charge but an RSVP is required. Click on the links above for more details.

"Facing Fears and Furies: The Unexpurgated Brothers Grimm" by PETER WORTSMAN