Winter 2008 Newsletter UW GERMANICS LETTER FROM THE CHAIR teaching this year and with the university there, a you will be able to read program that brought us INSIDE THIS ISSUE: about their research up- Detlef Kremer for part of fall dates in this newsletter. quarter (please see the in- 2-3 Faculty Updates Manfred Bansleben re- terview with him in this tired before the summer. newsletter). Several books New Publication 4 But if you think that that penned by our faculty have means that he is now come out recently or are in Honors and Graduates 4 staying home attending to the making and we are start- Dear friends and colleagues: his house and garden you ing a series that will feature Detlef Kremer 5 are mistaken! He is back one recent publication per teaching part-time and, with newsletter in depth. This fall Those of you who receive 5 some help from students we are starting with Jane Donors monthly updates via our and colleagues, continues in Brown’s career book “The electronic newsletter know his role as language coordi- Persistence of Allegory.” Upcoming Events 6 that I have returned to the nator. Hellmut Ammerlahn Applications for our popular chairship from a year-long will retire next spring and “Spring in Vienna” program sabbatical. I had a wonder- also plans to return for part- are out. This year we are ful time staying home, read- time teaching. We are just opening the program to all ing books on environmental having too much fun doing students who wish to learn criticism (more about that in German regardless of prior my faculty blurb) and doing what we love to do. some traveling to attend knowledge. conferences and read pa- Eric Ames is in Berlin this pers. While returning to the fall where he is leading a In this newsletter you will job from such a long break student group from our also find a calendar of is always a shock, it also Comparative History of events and outreach activi- has its rewards in that I get Ideas program. They will all ties such as the Frye Art to see everyone more often return to UW at the end of Museum’s public lecture and work with the new stu- the year with movies that series “Connections and dents. We really do have a they made in Berlin and I Contexts” and the “Wine & fabulous program and it is a cannot wait to see them! We Wisdom” gatherings. The sheer pleasure and privilege are planning to feature Germanics Board continues to be associated with this some of these works in an to be actively engaged in The Department of Germanics con- unit. The acting chair from event next year, so stay building community aware- gratulates the Seattle region’s new last year, Rick Gray, is now tuned (if you are not yet ness and making sure the Honorary Consul of the Federal Re- public of Germany, Petra Walker (l), enjoying his well-deserved receiving monthly electronic Department has the neces- shown here discussing Germanics sabbatical and just returned updates and would like to sary financial means to suc- Board activities with Board Chair from a visit to Germany pur- join the Germanics mailing ceed in its mission. Many Rosemarie Anderson in the Lowenfeld suing research on a new list, write me an email and I thanks to our volunteers Library. project in Marbach. Thank will make sure your name is and donors. With best you, Rick, for standing in for added). Richard Block will wishes for the holiday sea- me last year and postponing be teaching in Münster in son I send fond greetings, your sabbatical. the spring of 2008 in the context of our student and faculty exchange program Sabine Wilke Otherwise, everyone is [email protected] Page 2 Winter 2008 FACULTY UPDATES Eric Ames European literary art tale delivering a paper at Eric Ames is in ("Kunstmärchen"). Berlin fall the MLA in 2007, leading December a foreign-study on Heine's program, Charles Barrack and Joe "Florentine which is co- Voyles Nights" as the censored chapter sponsored by Voyles and Barrack are work- in Goethe's "Italian Journey." Germanics and ing with the editor of Slavica Comparative in completing the editing proc- Rick Gray History of ess on their book on Proto- I'm on leave for the year, and Ideas (CHID). Indo-European and the earli- The topic of spent 7 weeks this fall at the est attested Indo-European Literaturarchiv Marbach, work- this year's languages. program is ing on a new project on the "Cinema / contemporary author W. G. Se- City / Memory," Diana Behler bald--whose Nachlass and li- brary are in the archive in Mar- and it gives My work recently has dealt bach. While in Germany I gave a students the with Friedrich Nietzsche, one lecture at a conference in Jena opportunity to create their essay on "Nietzsche in Amer- entitled “Kritische Parabase: own "Berlin films." In spring ica" pub- Schlegel, Nietzsche und die 2008, Eric will be teaching a lished in kulturkritische Philologie, oder graduate seminar on the Friedrich Wie man mit dem Hammer films of Werner Herzog, and Nietzsche-- philologiert.” The conference co-teaching with Jane Brown Zwischen was entitled “Trans- a new course on film and Musik, zendentalpoesie oder opera. Eric's book on the Philoso- Dichtkunst mit Begriffen - consummate German show- phie und Friedrich Schlegel und Friedrich man, Carl Hagenbeck, will be Resesenti- Nietzsche,” sponsored by the published in 2009 by the ment, an- Institute for Philosophy, University of Washington other a review article on the Universität Jena, and Kolleg Press. book Nietzsche and the Ger- Friedrich Nietzsche, Weimar. I man Tradition, and an essay also lectured at the Uni Münster on "Feminist Receptions of (Germanistisches Institut) on Hellmut Ammerlahn the Philosophical Style of “Ökonomische Romantik: Hellmut Friedrich Nietzsche" to appear Währungsnationalismus bei Ammerlahn shortly in Schriften aus dem Johann Gottlieb Fichte und read a pa- Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche. I Adam Müller." My book manu- per at the am now editing my English script, Money Matters: Econom- interna- translation of Ernst Behler's ics and the German Cultural tional con- book Unendliche Perfekti- Imagination, 1770-1850, was ference bilität dealing with European Podcasts of Germanics’ accepted for publication with "Inventions romantic authors who em- the UW Press, and an edited of the Imagi- braced an optimistic vision of Lecture Series and book from the conference 2 nation," an ever progressing better- years ago in Weimar, in col- Readings are available superbly ment of humankind. organized by laboration with Klaus Vieweg, at http:// Rick Gray and three col- just appeared. Its title: Hegel leagues from other UW de- Richard Block und Nietzsche: Eine literarisch- depts.washington.edu/ partments. Its title: "The Me- I spent the summer in Italy philosophische Begegnung phistophelian, the Therapeu- researching my next project (Weimar: Bauhaus-Universität, uwgerman/community/ tic, and the Playfully Creative which considers why sexuality 2007). Otherwise, I'm just en- Imagination in Goethe's Later becomes the essence of all joying my time off and looking podcasts.html Oeuvre." During his last sab- secrets and thus character in forward to getting started on a batical quarter and after his the 19th and 20th centuries. new project. retirement from full-time I am also interested in how teaching at the end of the same-sex attraction becomes Steffi Guenther 2007-08 academic year, he both the embodiment of that My research and teaching inter- will continue his research on transformation of thought but ests include 19th and 20th Goethe and on the North- also its undoing. I will be UW Germanics Page 3 FACULTY UPDATES century German literature and parzer-Lektüren as well as which marked the end of my cultural studies, women writ- other 19th and 20th century decade-long preoccupation ers, and women and gender Austrian writers these days. with issues that have to do studies. I also have a great Her most recent Grillparzer- with the German colonial interest in literature peda- essay, published by the imagination, particularly as it gogy. Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift relates to Africa and the Pa- für Literaturwissenschaft und cific. A related project is the Our popular Spring in Vi- enna Program is now open In Spring Quarter I taught a Geistesgeschichte, examines edition (in collaboration with a to all students wishing to seminar on Turn-of-the- the conservative political vi- colleague from Anthropology) learn German, regardless Century Literature in Berlin, sion of a lesser-known resto- of a special issue of the of prior knowledge. Contact Munich and Vienna, in which ration play. She gave talks on “Journal of Pacific History” on Stephanie Welch (206- we studied the literary devel- the rhetoric of authorship and “Narrating Colonial Encoun- 543-4580) for information. opment of this period in its genealogy in Grillparzer’s ters: Germany and the Pacific historic, societal and aes- oeuvre at the German Studies Islands.” A paper on indige- thetic context, as reflected in Meeting in San Diego and on nous laughter and its repre- the prose, drama and lyrics of the theme of seduction and sentations sent me around Arno Holz, Johannes Schlaf, queer plotting in Grillparzer the world to Canada, Scot- and Stifter at the MALCA con- land, and Hawaii. And my first ference in Edmonton this two essays on eco-critical spring. An essay on Stifter topics appeared as the result and the plague will appear in of my new preoccupation with Oxford German Studies environmental topics at the (presumably 2008). Inspired borderline of colonial studies. by contemporary movie cul- My new hero is Alexander von ture, she organized a panel Humboldt who, I believe, is at on “Femininity, Power, and the forefront of ecological Robert Musil, Arthur the Pearls: Queens in the thinking.