American Association of Teachers of German

The Department of German Studies at the University of Arizona is implementing a joint Ph.D. program in Transcultural German Studies with the University of Leipzig in the fall semester 2006. To launch this new program the department is hosting an international conference on Transcultural German Studies on March 28-30, 2007. Proposals for papers on any aspect of transcultural German studies are invited. The conference will co-convene with an International Lessing Conference ("Brücken schlagen: Lessing 2000). Co-chairs of the conference are Steve Martinson and Renate Schulz.

The practice of Transcultural German Studies takes seriously the idea that culture is embedded in language. This inherently interdisciplinary area of study is essentially comparative, contrastive, and critical in nature. The new field of inquiry investigates and seeks to foster understanding of the complex nature of the interrelationships between language, literature, and culture in global communities where German is spoken, that is, both within and outside of the German-speaking countries of Europe.

Possible topics related to Transcultural German Studies include, but are not limited to the following: interrelationships between German language, literature, and culture; interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity; applied linguistics and the study of transcultural German studies; transnational writing; holocaust literature and Jewish-German relations; strategies for the teaching of German literature, language, and culture from a transcultural perspective; globalization, regionalism, and transcultural German studies; job opportunities for students of transcultural German studies; academic institutions and the study of (transcultural) German studies; cultural "margins"; minority literature; the relationship between the particular and the general, contingency and the whole; sites of German culture outside of the German-speaking countries; transcultural German cyberculture.

Submit proposals to: Steven D. Martinson (TGS Conference), Department of German Studies, LSB 301, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 USA. For email inquiries: Steve Martinson, martinso@u.arizona.edu and/or Renate Schulz, schulzr@u.arizona.edu. Deadline for receipt of proposals: October 15, 2006. Proposals should be no longer than one page. Those selected for participation will be contacted as soon as a decision has been made.