Past Events

Extracurricular events such as lectures and lecture series, talks, and panel discussion are a fundamental part of the North American Studies Program. In the past 16 years the Program has organized and sponsored some 500 lectures, talks, and readings. Among them were events with authors, including Louis Begley, Ernest Gaines, Yann Martel, Rosary O’Neill, and Joy Harjo, talks by American and Canadian ambassadors to Germany and lectures by scholars including Walter Benn Michaels (University of Illinois, Chicago), Paul Lauter (Trinity College, Hartford, CT), Robyn Wiegman (Duke University), Heinz Ickstadt (Freie Universität Berlin), Anna Everett (University of California, Santa Barbara), Maria Diedrich (Universität Münster), Deborah McDowell (University of Virginia), Alan Trachtenberg (Yale University), John Higham (Johns Hopkins University), Gerald Vizenor (University of California, Berkeley), Stephen E. Ambrose (University of New Orleans), Ian Radford (University of Toronto), Paul Spickard (University of California, Santa Barbara), Gareth Griffiths (University of Western Australia, Perth), George Elliot Clarke (University of Toronto), Will Straw (McGill University), and Pamela Church Gibson (London College of Fashion), among many others.

Contributions from the lecture series “America Under Attack: Der 11. September 2001 – Folgen, Fragen, Hintergründe” (winter term 2001-2002) were published as Der 11. September 2001: Fragen, Folgen, Hintergründe, ed. Sabine Sielke (Frankfurt: Lang, 2002).

Contributions from the lecture series “Gender Matters: Geschlechterstudien an der Universität Bonn” (summer term 2003) were published as Gender Talks: Geschlechterforschung an der Universität Bonn, ed. Sabine Sielke and Anke Ortlepp, Transcription 1 (Frankfurt: Lang, 2006).

Contributions from the lecture series „New York, New York! Exkursionen in einen Raum zwischen Traum und Trauma“ (summer term 2004) will also be published in the series Transcription (Frankfurt: Lang, 2012).


Conferences and Symposia

Engaged in transdisciplinary research and teaching, the North American Studies Program has over the years organized a wide range of interdisciplinary conferences and symposia, among them the 37th Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies (“American Capital Cities”), the 2nd conference of the Southern Studies Forum of the European Association for American Studies, two conferences in cooperation with the University of North Carolina on “Concepts of Regionalism” and “Space: Place, Environment and Landscape,” several interdisciplinary German-Canadian symposia, including “Ecology and Sustainability: Canadian Perspectives” (2002), “Film Across the Borders: Zooming in on Canadian Cinema" (2004), "Canadian Popular Cultures: Tune in on Canadian Music" (2004), “Canada and Cultures of Innovation” (2005), “Attention! Provocations on the Culture of Canadian Visual Forms” (2008), "Organic Material: the Many Threads of Canadian Book History" (2009), and "Complicating Canada" (2010). It has also hosted two conferences, “Positioning American Studies” (2005) and “New Americanists” (2006), of the research network The Futures of (European) American Studies, which is funded by the German Research Council.

In October 2007, the North American Studies program together with the Forum für Frauen-und Geschlechterforschung organized the interdisciplinary symposium ”Verschleierungstaktiken: Strategien eingeschränkter Sichtbarkeit und Täuschung in Natur und Kultur.” For more information see www.verschleierungstaktiken.de Contributions from the symposium were published as Verschleierungstaktiken: Strategien von eingeschränkter Sichtbarkeit, Tarnung und Täuschung in Natur und Kultur, ed. Anne-Rose Meyer and Sabine Sielke, Transcription 5 (Frankfurt: Lang, 2011).

Work evolving from the conference on “The Body as Interface: Dialogues Between the Disciplines” (2003) was published as The Body as Interface: Dialogues Between the Disciplines, ed. Sabine Sielke and Elisabeth Schäfer-Wünsche, Schriftenreihe Amerikastudien (Heidelberg: Winter, 2007).

Past Lecture Series

Lecture Series Summer Term 2011

Wednesday, 27 April 2011 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • Room B, IAAK
Prof. Dr. Barbara Hedderich (Dep. of Economics, Hochschule Ansbach)
"Homo Oeconomicus – Streifzug durch die Geschichte eines Entscheidungsmodells"

Wednesday, 4 May 2011 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • Hörsaal 17, IAAK
Prof. Susan Strasser (Dep. of History, University of Delaware|John F. Kennedy-Institut, FU Berlin)
"Woolworth to Wal-Mart: Mass Merchandising and the Changing American Culture of Consumption"

Tuesday, 17 May 2011 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • Conference Room, IAAK
Vera Grant, M.A. (W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University)
"New Thoughts on an Old Occupation Zone: The Aesthetics of Propaganda, Race, and
Fraternization on the Rhine, 1918-1923"

Thursday, 26 May 2011 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • Hörsaal 17, IAAK
Prof. Dr. Christina von Braun (Dep. of Cultural Studies, Humboldt-Universität Berlin)
"Der menschliche Körper als 'Goldstandard' des Geldes"
[POSTER]

Monday, 6 June 2011 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • Hörsaal 17, IAAK
Prof. Kristin Hoganson (Dep. of History, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign|LMU München)
"Buying Into Empire: American Consumption at the Turn of the Twentieth Century"

Tuesday, 28 June 2011 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • Conference Room, IAAK
Dr. Todd Carmody (Dep. of English, UC Berkeley|Excellence Cluster "Languages of Emotions", FU Berlin)
"'Days with Paul Robeson': Spirituals, Solidarity, and the East German Archive"

Tuesday, 5 July 2011 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • Conference Room, IAAK
Dr. Hannes Bergthaller (Dep. of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Chung-Hsing University, Taiwan)
"Wars on Bugs: Cold War Ecology in the Works of Robert Heinlein, William S. Burroughs,
and Rachel Carson"

Martin Luther King Day Lecture 2011

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Simon Wendt (Universität Frankfurt)
“‘This nonviolent stuff ain’t no good. It'll get ya killed’:
Armed Self-Defense and the Civil Rights Movement”
Thursday • 20 January 2011 • 6:00-8:00 pm
HS XVII, IAAK

Columbus Day Lecture 2010

Prof. Dr. Anke Ortlepp (Amerika-Institut, LMU München)
“Staging Gender, Staging Class: Airtravel, Architecture, and Design in the Postwar Period”
Thursday • 14 October 2010 • 6:00-8:00 pm
Festsaal, Hauptgebäude

Summer Semester 2010

Tuesday, April 20 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • HS 11, Hauptgebäude
Associate Prof. Dr. Steve Estes (History Department, Sonoma State University)
“The History of Southern Music and American Race Relations” – with guitar!

Tuesday, April 27 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • HS 17, IAAK
Prof. Dr. Robert Marc Friedman (History Department, University of Oslo)
“Science, History and the Stage: Remembering Miss Meitner”
Lecture and staged reading, starring Imke Pannen (Lise Meitner), David Schumacher (Otto Hahn),
and Oliver Möller (Manne Siegbahn)! DOWNLOAD FLYER

Tuesday, May 18 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • HS 11, Hauptgebäude
Prof. Dr. Sharon Lattig (Department of English, New Jersey City University)
“The Orphic Mind: Toward a Neuroscientific Theory of the Lyric”

Tuesday, June 8 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • Festsaal, Hauptgebäude
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Carl Djerassi (Department of Chemistry, Stanford University)
“Wissenschaft im Theater: eine liaison dangereuse” DOWNLOAD FLYER

Tuesday, June 22 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • HS 17, IAAK
Prof. Dr. Sandra H. Petrulionis (Department of English and American Studies, Penn State)
“Transcendental Radicals: The Antislavery Movement in Thoreau’s Concord” ABSTRACT

Tuesday, July 6 • 6:00 – 8:00 pm • HS 11, Hauptgebäude
Prof. Dr. Charles Altieri (Department of English, UC Berkeley)
“How We Can Develop the New Rhetoric that Contemporary American Poets Seem to be Seeking” DOWNLOAD FLYER

Winter Semester 2009-10

Wednesday, 28 Oct. 2009 | 6:00-8:00 pm | Festsaal (Hauptgebäude)
Columbus Day Lecture 2009
Prof. Gerald Jaynes (Department of Economics, Yale University)
“Race Relations in the United States: Intergroup Dynamics During the Obama Era”
For more information, please click here.

Tuesday, 1 December 2009 | 6:00-8:00 pm | Room A (IAAK)
Prof. Jane Feuer (Dept. of English, University of Pittsburg/Universität Tübingen)
"Town Meetings of the Imagination: Northern Exposure and Gilmore Girls"
For more information, please click here.

Tuesday, 8 December 2009 | 6:00-8:00 pm | HS XVII (IAAK)
Prof. Katherine Donohue (Dept. of History, Central Michigan University/Universität Bochum)
"The Political Odyssey of F. J. Schlink: Capitalism, Communism, and Consumerism in the 1930s"
For more information, please click here.

Wednesday, 23 December 2009 | 12:00-2:00 pm | HS XVII (IAAK)
Prof. Dr. Gunther Hirschfelder (Institut für Germanistik, Vergleichende Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft)
"Weihnachten auf dem Weg in die Zukunft"

Tuesday, 12 January 2010 | 6:00-8:00 pm | HS XVII (IAAK)
Prof. Dr. Heinz Ickstadt (John F. Kennedy-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin)
"New York as Cultural Space"

Thursday, 14 January 2010 | 6:00-8:00 pm | Room TBA
Prof. Paul Lauter (Department of English, Trinity College)
"The Market and the Cathedral: Immigration, Identity, and Conflict"

Tuesday, 19 January 2010 | 6:00-8:00 pm | Festsaal (Hauptgebäude)
Martin Luther King Day Lecture
Prof. Dr. Norbert Finzsch (Historisches Seminar, Universität Köln)
"David Walker and the Fight against Slavery"

Tuesday, 2 February 2010 | 6:00-8:00 pm | Festsaal (Hauptgebäude)
Panel Discussion
"Frauen im Kunstbetrieb"

Additionally, a series of film screenings was offered (in cooperation with the English Department Film Society), including such classics as "King Kong," "Manhattan," "Taxi Driver," and "Gangs of New York".

Summer Semester 2009

Ringvorlesung des Forums Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, Universität Bonn
"Perfekte Tarnung? Warnen, Tarnen, Täuschen in Natur und Kultur"
Sommersemester 2009, (meist) Donnerstag 18 - 20 Uhr c.t., HS 5, Hauptgebäude
For more information, please click here.

Dienstag, 12.05.2009 | 18.00-20.00 Uhr c.t. | Festsaal, Hauptgebäude
Panel Discussion (in Kooperation mit ICE, Wirtschaftförderung Bonn/Rhein-Sieg)
“Frauen als Existenzgründerinnen: selbständig im oder nach dem Studium“
mit Jessica Andermahr (Soziologin und Gründerin von Sprachkultur: Kommunikation & Training),
Kerstin Stuhr (Geografin und Gründerin des Beratungsbüros Creates), Johanna Velasco (Studentin und Gründerin des Apfelbaum Verlags), Anita Halft
(Existenzgründungsberatung für Frauen, Wirtschaftsförderung des Rhein-Sieg-Kreises) und
Gertrud Hennen (Existenzgründungsberatung für Frauen, Wirtschaftsförderung der Stadt Bonn).
Moderation: Prof. Dr. Sabine Sielke, Universität Bonn

Dienstag, 19.05.2009 | 18.00-20.00 Uhr c.t. | Konferenzzimmer, Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Keltologie
Sophia Komor, M.A. (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Hamburg)
"Screaming Silence, (Un)Veiling Violence: Will Eno's Dramatic Art"
For more information, please click here.

Dienstag, 14.07.2009 | 18.00-20.00 Uhr c.t. | HS 17, Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Keltologie
Prof. Dr. Bernd Greiner (Institut für Sozialforschung, Hamburg)
“Die USA in Vietnam – Ursachen und Folgen entgrenzter Gewalt”
For more information, please click here.

Donnerstag, 23.07.2009 | 18.00-20.00 Uhr c.t. | HS 5, Hauptgebäude
Dr. Michael Butter (Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies, Universität Freiburg)
“Entführt, missbraucht, indoktriniert: antikatholische Verschwörungstheorien und amerikanische Literatur – von Maria Monk bis Dan Brown”
For more information, please click here.