News
Whitman Week in Chicago, June 24-29, 2013
Students are invited to apply for the 6th Whitman Week in Chicago - a complete credit-bearing seminar on one of America's most innovative and influential poets, taught by international specialists.
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American Guest Professor in Bamberg
In April 2013, American scholar and writer Tom Whalen will join our institute as international guest professor. He will teach 4 seminars (PS/ HS) on American literature and culture that are open to all students in our BA, MA and Lehramt programs.
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One Week in Paris: American Modernism in the French Capital
During a 5-day exursion, students explored the many connections between American Literature and Modernist Art in Paris during the 'Roaring Twenties.'
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Exploring Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau
Schloss Neuschwanstein and Canada - for the participants of the seminar “Germans in Canadian Literature and Culture” this connection became perfectly clear when they went on a field trip to Southern Bavaria to explore two castles of ‘mad’ king Ludwig II.
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Antrittsvorlesung Prof. Dr. Christine Gerhardt
Am 22.10.2012 hielt Christine Gerhardt, Inhaberin der Professur für Amerikanistik, ihre Antrittsvorlesung an der Universität Bamberg. Zum Vortrag "Disequilibrium Poetics: Migration und Ökologie in der amerikanischen Gegenwartsliteratur" und zum anschließenden Empfang erschienen zahlreiche Studierende und Kolleg/innen.
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Bibliothekstutorien im SoSe 2013
Informationen zu Inhalten, Terminen und Anmeldemodalitäten der verpflichtenden Bibliothekstutorien zu den "Introductions to English and American Literature" sowie zu den Seminaren im Aufbaumodul
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Erste Staatsprüfung (mündlich) an öffentlichen Schulen
Informationen für Studierende, die ihre erste Staatsprüfung ablegen wollen.
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News
Exploring the Castles Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau
By Curtis Middlekauff (Sewanee, Tennessee)
On February 9, 2013, participants of the seminar “Germans in Canadian Literature and Culture” went on a field trip to Southern Bavaria to explore two castles of ‘mad’ king Ludwig II with their teacher Nicole K. Konopka.
Our trip began very early on a wintry Saturday morning. Snow was everywhere and the thermometer had dropped well below zero, but this helped to make our experience all the better, turning the visit to the castles into a bit of a winter dream.
This sort of wintry day also fit very well into our topic of Canadian Literature: many think of Canada as having continuous winter and snow, and the wilderness and greenery we saw on the way to the castles and at the castles themselves, together with the feeling of being slightly far away from major places of civilization were all quite “Canadian” because of Canada’s vast swaths of land.
The castles themselves could be directly related to the first novel we read in our seminar, The Stone Carvers (2001) by Jane Urquhart. The Canadian town in which the story takes place was founded by German immigrants who receive support from the Bavarian King Ludwig II in the 1860s.
In the novel, the King is busy building his castle Schloss Neuschwanstein, and sends aid to the settlers because he is intrigued by the wild environment in which the settlers must live. When we saw the placement of the actual castle Neuschwanstein, it became quite clear that Ludwig liked a natural setting, and the symbolism between this castle stuck up on a mountain and the novel’s great church stuck up in the middle of Canada were also apparent.
Overall, this trip really served to heighten my enjoyment of this class on the intersections between German and Canadian cultures, and, of course, to make my year abroad that much better.
More pictures from the trip:
