The University will recognize the creation of a new Center for German Studies this weekend with a two-day celebration including a panel discussion and lecture by Josef Joffe, editor-in-chief of Die Zeit, a weekly German newspaper.
Chad Wellmon, assistant professor of Germanic languages and literatures, called Joffe “one of Germany’s biggest intellectual organs.” Wellmon said the discussion with Joffe, which will be held at 2:30 p.m. in the Harrison Institute, will include graduate and undergraduate students and will focus on religion and politics in the United States and Germany.
Wellmon also said other events will be held in conjunction with the Center’s opening, including dinners Friday and Saturday nights and a lecture Saturday by Joffe to faculty, students and parents attending Family Weekend.
Wellmon said the new center has been designed as a place for research and undergraduate education in the German cultural tradition, as well as a resource for students who want to study abroad in Germany, regardless of whether they are German majors.
Volker Kaiser, Center for German Studies director and Germanic languages and literatures professor, also emphasized the importance of study abroad programs in Germany and their connection to the center. He said he sought donors interested in creating the interdisciplinary center and noted that some of that money that was raised helped to send five students to study abroad at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena last year.
“[The donors] want to increase our ability [to send] undergraduate and graduate students to Germany to experience and study abroad programs and get to know Germany,” Kaiser said.
The drive to create the Center for German Studies came from the idea of creating an interdisciplinary platform to study German culture, Kaiser added.
“The idea is we wanted to reach out into the U.Va community to promote interdisciplinary contacts between German students and students from other fields in the humanities,” Kaiser said, “especially, for example, [in] history, philosophy, sociology ... but also we decided that we would invite scholars and representatives from other schools as well, for example Darden and the Architecture School.”
Benjamin Bennett, Germanic languages and literatures professor, said his department has wanted to create a center like this for a long time, noting it was a “great accomplishment [for Kaiser] to get the money for this.”
Bennett also said he is a strong proponent of the interdisciplinary nature of the new center.
“The good thing about the center is, first of all, it combines various departments in the university,” Bennett said. “And second, the mandate is wide open — there’s nothing restricting about it, if there are young persons in the University that might have ideas that ... fit with the idea of the center, then the center can be receptive to it. There [are] no restrictions.”
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