The start of a new academic year is an exciting period. Here is just a sample of what we have been up to in the first few weeks.
BBC Radio 3
Dr Seán Williams is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3. Here are his latest piece:
BBC Radio 3 - Free Thinking, Thomas Mann
Would he condemn Hitler? That's the question novelist Thomas Mann was continually asked, after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929 following novels such as Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain. Colm Toibin's new novel The Magician details the differences of opinion between Mann and his brother, and the way his children were part of a bold and experimental younger generation of writers. Anne McElvoy brings Colm Toibin, Sean Williams and Dr Erica Wickerson together for a discussion about Mann's life and writing and the pressure put upon writers to make a public stand on topical issues.
You may also enjoy his BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Staycationing in the style of abroad, in which Williams goes on the journey of Swissophilia since the start of the 19th century. With Professor Patrick Vincent from the University of Neuchâtel and travel writer Nick Hunt.
Katherine Calvert successfully completes PhD thesis on German woman writers
On 15 October 2021 Katherine Calvert successfully completed her PhD Viva on female writing in the Weimar Republic (1919-33). Katherine is the winner of the 2020 Sylvia Naish Lecture Prize, which is open to all research students in the field of Germanic studies at UK universities. Her PhD thesis analyses motherhood as a prominent theme in women’s fiction and non-fiction writing from the Weimar Republic. Her supervisor was Dr Caroline Bland.
German-Speaking Herbstwanderung
Staff members Franziska Auer, Caroline Bland, and Giles Harrington with SLC students doing German as well as German Erasmus students went on a Wandertag in the Peak District, which gave them a terrific opportunity: Deutsch zu sprechen, andere kennenzulernen und frische Luft zu schnuppern. We were quite lucky too with the weather on 17 October 2021. Keep an eye out for our next wander dates.
Prof Henk de Berg delivers Y12 and Y13 German Taster Session
National Socialism was not just just an evil ideology -- it was an evil ideology that had to be sold to the German people. The lecture, “Hitler’s Bathing Trunks and the AfD’s Bikini: Populist Propaganda in Germany”, looks at the way in which the Nazis painted a picture of Hitler as both man of the people and saviour of Germany. The populist principles underlying this marketing strategy are then explored further through a compare-and-contrast with some election posters used by today's right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland party.
This taster session gives you an insight into studying German at university.
It will take place on Tuesday 16 November 2021, 3.45pm - 5.15pm. Remember to book a place.
Off the Shelf is Sheffield's best known Festival of Words. This year OTS celebrates its 30th anniversary. Dr Henriette Louwerse represents Germanic Studies at the Festival with a podcast and a debate:
Events Alive at 5.45: Is the national story in crisis?
From 21 October for 8 weeks
What is the story of the nation we want to tell ourselves and the world? Can we “retain and explain” national heroes and symbols or is it time to embrace a thorough rewriting of history? In this talk Henriette will take the Netherlands as an example of a nation striving and struggling to find a new language to discuss its colonial past and the legacy of slavery.
24 October 4pm
This event explores the importance of re-writing Dutch colonial stories from new perspectives and the art of translating them. Surinamese-Dutch author Tessa Leuwsha’s novel, Plantation Wildlust, is set in Suriname in the early twentieth century. It depicts the power structures following the abolition of slavery. Leuwsha is “keen to present different role models to depart from victimhood.” She is joined by David McKay, translator of We Slaves of Suriname. Written in 1934 by author and activist, Anton de Kom, this is the first history of Suriname from an anticolonial point of view.
