American, European scholars dissect Cultures of Reconstruction with help from Humboldt Foundation

March 22nd 2011
Arts & Humanities
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German
Berlin-Adlershof in December 1952: The first TV program in the GDR goes live. The picture shows the camera man capturing the announcement. (Photo courtesy of Bundesarchiv, Berlin)

In late 2010, the Department of German and the Center for German and European Studies hosted a three-day Humboldt Conference on "Kulturen im Wiederaufbau" (Cultures of Reconstruction).

The conference drew scholars from America and Germany who work in the fields of literature and media studies came to present new insights on Germany’s reconstruction phase after World War II.

The conference  revealed surprising similarities in attitudes, mentalities, and common interests despite the ideological opposition between the political, social, and economic systems in the two parts of the divided country during the Cold War.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables more than 1,900 researchers from all over the world to spend time researching in Germany each year. It maintains a network of some 24,000 Humboldt Alumni from all disciplines in 130 countries worldwide, including 44 Nobel Prize winners, and creates opportunities for intellectual exchange. The Department of German has hosted a number of postdoctoral Humboldt fellows.

Department of German organizers Sabine Mödersheim and Marc Silberman and research fellow Henning Wrage are all "Humboldtians," too.

Combining the Humboldt ideal of scholarly exchange with the UW’s reputation in European Studies, its excellent research conditions and outstanding faculty is clearly a recipe for success!

For more information on the Humboldt-Foundation, please see http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/home.html