Conferences
Forthcoming conferences
Previous conferences
Forthcoming Conferences
Previous Conferences
ERP Conference: "Lessons from the North Atlantic Financial and Economic Crisis"
D
ecember 13 - 15, 2012, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Supported by the German Program for Transatlantic Encounters (Transatlantic Program) financed from ERP (European Recoery Program) funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi)
The conference is organized in close cooperation with Prof. Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden of the Center for European Economic Research in Mannheim and is meant to address the three intertwined upheavals that have coalesced into a grave economic and financial crisis of the North Atlantic world: (1) the housing bubble that burst around 2007; (2) the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing imbalance in the world financial system; and (3) the mushrooming sovereign debt that threatens to implode the Euro. We plan to look at both the economic and the historical and cultural underpinnings of the crisis and will attempt to draw some preliminary lessons for future transatlantic cooperation in the field of finance and economics. The conference will provide a unique opportunity to share and discuss different perspectives from both sides of the Atlantic.
Enjoy Jazz Symposium: "Lost in Diversity: Ein transatlantischer Dialog zur gesellschaftlichen Relevanz des Jazz"
November 8/9, 2012, Heid
elberg Center for American Studies
In cooperation with Enjoy Jazz / Generously supported by BASF SE
Program
Press Release
Final Report
During the 2012 Enjoy Jazz Festival, distinguished experts, artists, and journalists will meet at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) to look at the diversity of jazz in Europe and the United States. They will discuss the social relevance of the genre on both sides of the Atlantic, similarities and differences of European and American jazz, and their effects on our societies. On the occasion of the initiation of the UNESCO World Jazz Day this year, the participants of the symposium will try to explore the political dimensions of a genre that was seen as the epitome of freedom in the 1960s and trace transatlantic reciprocities. With this symposium, the HCA, in cooperation with Enjoy Jazz, attempts to establish a venue where intellectual curiosity and musical zest will feel equally at home.
This symposium was conceptualized by Christian Broecking and is generously supported by BASF SE.
ERP Conference: "From Pentagon Papers to WikiLeaks: A Transatlantic Conversation on the Public’s Right to Know"
May 10 - 12, 2012, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Supported by the German Program for Transatlantic Encounters (Transatlantic Program) financed from ERP (European Recoery Program) funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi)
In 1822 James Madison wrote that “a popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both." In Madison’s day, the challenge was publishing such information. Today it is far more access to such information. This conference will explore the multiple barriers to an informed citizenry and the ways in which first and foremost the press but also other activists have challenged those barriers.
Conference: "Marginalized Masculinities and the Nation: Global Comparisons, 1800-1945"
March 15-17, 2012, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Historical scholarship has long established the inextricable interrelationship between gender and the nation. Feminist scholars in particular have demonstrated how male nationalists incorporated women as symbolic, cultural, and biological reproducers of the nation into their “imagined communities.” Most studies on the subject tend to focus on the tensions between women’s inclusion in nationalist discourse and their exclusion from political decision-making. Others have explored women’s active role in nation-building projects. Despite scholars’ insistence on the relational character of gender, however, masculinity continues to be neglected by scholars of gender and the nation. If masculinity is addressed, historians either overstate the cohesion of interests among men or focus exclusively on hegemonic models of manhood and the corresponding perpetuation of the nation-state and patriarchy.
This conference seeks to provide a fresh perspective on the interrelationship between gender and the nation by focusing on the role of marginalized masculinities in nation-building processes between 1800 and 1945. During that period, the emergence of particular forms of masculinity coincided with the founding of modern-nation states. Scientific racism, Imperialism, eugenics, and other forms of exclusion and subjugation became part and parcel of these gendered nation-building processes. Seeking to detect similarities/dissimilarities and continuities/discontinuities across space and time, the conference includes papers on North- and South America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, all of which shed light on the history of the interrelationship between marginalized masculinities and the nation in the nineteenth and first part of the twentieth century.
The conference organizers believe that the constructed character and function of manhood in people’s attempts to create “imagined communities” during that period cannot be fully comprehended if the exclusive focus of analysis is the subjugation of women or their resistance to and complicity in that subjugation. Concentrating exclusively on hegemonic masculinity in these processes seems similarly narrow. To understand hegemonic notions of masculinity and the nation, we need to explore the tensions and interrelationships between these dominant concepts and their margins. Studying the history of gender and the nation from the perspective of marginalized masculinities means focusing on the conflicts among competing concepts of manhood as well as on the differences between them. Far from being one ideologically monolithic bloc, men’s access to and interest in nation-building power varies considerably according to race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, etc. The conference focuses on these various fragmentations and their role in the creation, expansion, consolidation, and decline of nations around the globe.
Conference "Religion and the Marketplace in the United States"
October 6-8, 2011, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
As decided at the 2010 meeting of the European Association of American Studies in Dublin, the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), in cooperation with the American Studies Network (ASN), will host a conference entitled “Religion and the Marketplace: New Perspectives and New Findings.” The HCA will host the conference on October 6-8, 2011, as part of Heidelberg University’s 625 anniversary celebration.
This international and interdisciplinary conference aims to investigate and explain how the conditions of the marketplace have determined, influenced, and limited American religion in the past and present. Given the prominence of the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses in the American constitution, a broad-based ‘competition for souls and purses’ has historically helped define the contours of religion in America. This conference will build upon previous insights while probing further into the complex relationship between religion and the marketplace along the lines described below.
We invite scholars in American Studies and related fields (geography, history, law, literature, media studies, political science, religious studies, theology, etc.) to submit paper abstracts for this conference. Individual paper abstracts (200-250 words) should be specifically directed at one (or more) of the panel topics included in the CFP. Abstracts must be received by March 31, 2011. Participants will be notified by May 1, 2011. All questions and submissions should be sent electronically to: djunker@hca.uni-heidelberg.de.
We especially desire participation from European scholars working in these fields, but welcome submissions from all around the world. The HCA will cover travel expenses (economy), lodging and meals for conference participants.
ERP Conference:
"Zeitenwende 9/11? Eine transatlantische Bilanz 10 Jahre danach"
September 9-11, 2011, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Supported by the German Program for Transatlantic Encounters (Transatlantic Program) financed from ERP (European Recoery Program) funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi)
More information: 9/11 Conference Website
ERP Conference: "Energy Policy and Energy Security - Transatlantic Perspectives"
May 27 and 28, 2011, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Supported by the German Program for Transatlantic Encounters (Transatlantic Program) financed from ERP (European Recoery Program) funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi)
Conveners:
Dr. Karen Smith Stegen (Jacobs University Bremen)
Dr. Martin Thunert (HCA, Universität Heidelberg)
Administration: Rebecca Zimmermann (HCA, Universität Heidelberg)
The Heidelberg Center for American Studies, with the generous support of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, will host a workshop on Energy Policy and Energy Security - Transatlantic Perspectives. You are cordially invited to attend.
The workshop will address the following questions and issues: What are the likely future approaches of the US/Canada and of Germany/Europe to energy policy in general and to energy security in particular? As both the US and Europe are currently confronting similar energy and environmental dilemmas, such as increasing demand; decreasing indigenous production; fewer worldwide resources, 75% of which are owned by foreign governments; and climate change, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels for energy, they would benefit from converging strategies and transatlantic cooperation. But, despite some efforts to strengthen cooperation, such as the creation of the EU-US Energy Council in November 2009, the differing priorities and interests of the two parties may pose challenges. It is these challenges that the workshop intends to explore.
ERP Conference:
"Think Tanks and Foundations in the Transatlantic World – Past, Present and Future"
December 3-4, 2010, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Supported by the German Program for Transatlantic Encounters (Transatlantic Program) financed from ERP (European Recoery Program) funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi)
Think tanks and foundations can be important non-state players in global and national politics. Next to governments, parliaments and representatives of corporate interests, non-governmental study and discussion groups, think tanks and foundations have become important players in the transatlantic world. Think tanks and foundations organize transatlantic dialogues and try to contribute to the preparation of the decision-making process of national governments as well as of trans- and supranational bodies in the Atlantic world. Our conference will scan these actors and their activities on both sides of the Atlantic as wells as in different policy areas, analyze their role in transatlantic relations and evaluate some of their more recent contributions to transatlantic dialogue.
The conference has three objectives: Our first objective is to provide a thorough analysis of the role of think tanks and foundations on both sides of the Atlantic. Second, we would like to examine the role of think tanks, foundations and related non-state actors in transatlantic relations past, present and future. Third, we will discuss and evaluate actual contributions (policy statements, position papers etc.) of selected think tanks and foundations on transatlantic issues. In addition, we will ask two keynote speakers with extensive experience in transatlantic relations to reflect on the role of civil society organisations like the media and non-state actors in transatlantic relations.
To achieve our objectives, we have to chosen two formats for the conference: on day one and in the morning of day two we will assemble panels with experts on think tanks and foundations from both sides of the Atlantic. On the afternoon of the second day, we will conduct an open expert think tank on the past and future of transatlantic relations based on an assessment of recent inputs from think tanks and foundations on transatlantic issues.
Bosch Foundation Archival Seminar for Young Historians 2010:
"American History in Transatlantic Perspective"
September 6-17, 2010
German Historical Institute, Heidelberg Center for American Studies, University of Chicago
Conference "Toward an International History of Lynching"
June 4-6, 2010, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Conference organized by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research (HIS), the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), and the University of Heidelberg’s Transcultural Studies Research Group “Radical Nationalism and Gender in the United States, Germany, and Japan.”
Press Release
Program
Conference Report
Conference "Transatlantic Alliances and Networks in a Global Context"
April 30 - May 1, 2010, University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM)
The conference is part of an HCA-UWM-led international research project that explores the Transcultural Atlantic as a realm of crosscultural interaction throughout the period of the Cold War and beyond. More precisely, it investigates various processes of transatlantic networking and community-building in the realms of business, academia, the media, popular culture, government, the military, and elsewhere. The project is neither limited to diplomatic history and political science studies dealing with alliance politics nor to cultural studies that have long focused on the construction of national identities. Instead, it aims at synthesizing both research areas, thus trying to arrive at a fuller understanding of processes of transatlantic community-formation since 1945. By covering a broad period of time, it will be possible to trace changes in the culture of different, sometimes competing communities in the Atlantic realm – to highlight continuities and ruptures; to show the effects of increased flows of goods, services, information, ideas, and identities; and to reassess the impact of major historical developments throughout the era of the Cold War, not least its unexpected end.
UNESCO History Conference: "UNESCO and the Cold War"
March 4-5, 2010, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
The International Scientific Committee for the UNESCO History Project >
Conference "Transcultural Perspectives on Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Twentieth Century"
February 26-27, 2010, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Dr. Simon Wendt (Universität Heidelberg), Brian D. Behnken (Iowa State University) > more
EU-Marie Curie Conference and Training Series: Workshop "Arenas of Contestation"
February 18-20, 2010, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Dr. Martin Klimke (HCA), Dr. Joachim Scharloth (Universität Zürich), Dr. Kathrin Fahlenbrach (Universität Halle)
> more
ERP Conference: "Cultures of Transatlanticism: The Impact of Lawmakers and Judges"
February 4-6, 2010, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Supported by the German Program for Transatlantic Encounters (Transatlantic Program) financed from ERP (European Recoery Program) funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi)
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Harnisch, Prof. Dr. Manfred Berg
Conference "Arnold Schwarzenegger: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf
Körper und Image"
September 18-20, 2009, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
Dr. Michael Butter, Dr. Patrick Keller und Dr. Simon Wendt > more
Interview with Michael Butter (.mp3 / SWR2 Journal am Mittag, 14.7.2011)
Symposium "Modernization and Intellectual Authority in US Literary Culture, 1750-1900"
July 2-5, 2009, IWH, Heidelberg University
Prof. Dr. Günter Leypoldt, Prof. Dr. Dietmar Schloss > more
Conference "Black Diaspora and Germany Across the Centuries"
March 19-21, 2009, German Historical Institute (GHI), Washington DC
Dr. Martin Klimke, Dr. Mischa Honeck, Dr. Anne Kuhlmann-Smirnov > more
Conference "1968 in Japan, Deutschland und den USA: Politischer Protest und Kultureller Wandel"
March 4-6, 2009, Japanese-German Center, Berlin
Wolfgang Brenn (Japanese-German Center, Berlin), Martin Klimke (GHI); Yoshie Mitobe (Meiji University, Tokyo), Joachim Scharloth (University of Zurich/ University of Freiburg), Laura Elizabeth Wong (Harvard University / HCA) > more
EU-Marie Curie Conference and Training Series:
"Confronting Cold War Conformity: Peace and Protest Cultures in Europe, 1945-1989"
August 18-25, 2008, Charles-University Prague, Czech Republic
Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Charles-University Prague, Czech Republic > more
Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies GAAS
(DGfA – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien)
May 15-18, 2008, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
GAAS > more
EU-Marie Curie Conference and Training Series: “European Protest Movements since the Cold War: The Rise of a (Trans-)national Civil Society and the Transformation of the Public Sphere”
Heidelberg University, Heidelberg Center for American Studies > more
International Conference “Global Dimensions of Racism in the Modern World: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives”
July 12-14, 2007, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
International Conference “State and Market in a Globalized World: Transatlantic Perspectives”
October 5-8, 2006, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
