By James Andersen University of Oregon Firelight dances among raucous figures, casting long twisting shadows into the smoky heights of the hall. The din of laughter echoes out into the night, resounding beneath the high-gabled roof. Warriors line the benches, finely bestowed with golden rings glinting. They hail their chieftain, sitting proud in his high-seat, …
By Ellen Robison University of Wisconsin–Madison Author and scholar Reza Aslan argues that “literature offers not just a window into the culture of diverse regions, but also the society, the politics; it’s the only place where we can keep track of ideas.”[1] Though Aslan lives and writes in the 21st century, this understanding of literature …
By Siri Block St. Olaf College I. Introduction Norway has long been established as a nation of peace; they award the Nobel Peace prize, settle conflicts between feuding nations, and act as a social progressive model for Western Europe. Despite its status as a philanthropic global leader, Norway has recently received criticism for strict immigration …
Klaus L. BerghahnAugust 5, 1937 – November 1, 2019 Klaus Berghahn was born in Düsseldorf, Germany, the youngest of five children of Wilhelm and Anna Berghahn. Klaus came of age in the aftermath of WWII, and his experiences during that time were formative. As a child he would do cartwheels for pennies and he played …
“With the global turn of societies, nations, and countries to adopt an inward gaze fueled by exclusionary policies and politics, our unique collaboration in Berlin—though small—in a non-competitive, friendly, supportive, and engaging atmosphere may indeed serve as an example for the ways in which we, the new generation of academics, can challenge the silos of …
Leighty Hanrahan is not your average UW-Madison student. As a triple-majoring Honors student and recipient of multiple undergraduate fellowships, she has not only set her sights high, but is reaching those heights with her most recent academic undertaking. Leighty’s Senior Honors Thesis project titled Facts within Fiction within Art: German Literary and Artistic Responses to the …
Melissa Azari received a Mellon-Wisconsin Fellowship for the Fall 2019 semester from the Graduate School of UW-Madison. Melissa is a PhD candidate in the Slavic program of GNS. Her dissertation explores auditory and musical themes in Russian poet and dissident Natalya Gorbanevskaya’s pre-emigration poetry (approx. 1956-1975). The Mellon-Wisconsin Fellowship competition is designed for dissertators in …
The Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic wishes to extend condolences to the family and friends of our program’s alum Dieter Kowalski who died in the Sri Lanka bombings on Easter Sunday. Dieter Kowalski who was from the Milwaukee area earned a BA in German Studies and International Relations in 2001. In the spirit of …
Brandy E. Wilcox, a Ph.D. candidate in the German program, will present at this year’s Pop Culture Conference at DePaul University in Chicago on May 4th. Under the theme “A Celebration of Disney,” Brandy will join scholars and enthusiasts across many fields with her two talks, the first of which, “Across the Sea, Not Under …
Lucian Rothe, a Ph.D. candidate in the German program, presented his research on “Linking Imagined and Actual Social Spaces: Attributed Stereotypes of Native Speakers with Respect to Foreign Language Choice” at this year’s AAAL Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. This annual conference organized by the American Association for Applied Linguistics is one of the most comprehensive …