News

Two concentrators elected to Phi Beta Kappa Senior 48!

November 28, 2023

Two of our senior concentrators, Dhruv (Gaurav) Goel (Maths & Germanic) and Zach Lech (German & Gov) have been elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Senior 48. Read more about it in the Crimson ! Please join us in congratulating them!

New Book by John Hamilton: France/Kafka -- An Author in Theory

January 23, 2023

While his memory languished under Nazi censorship, Franz Kafka covertly circulated through occupied France and soon emerged as a cultural icon, read by the most influential intellectuals of the time as a prophet of the rampant bureaucracy, totalitarian...

A Terrible Freedom - Rebecca Stewart studies Friedrich Schiller, vulnerability, struggle, and the sublime

April 21, 2022

If the 18th-century German dramatist and aesthetic philosopher Friedrich Schiller were alive today, he might see in the invasion of Ukraine an instance of life imitating art. Referred to by some as the German Shakespeare, Schiller wrote plays about heroes...

The Harvard Crimson: A Foray into German Theater: German 65 takes on ‘(R)evolution’

April 08, 2022

German 65 chose to stage "(R)evolution," a contemporary play inspired by Yuval Noah Harari's “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” By Lisa Parkes Putting on a play is never an easy feat. The weeks leading up to the performance often involve hours of...

Complacency: Classics and Its Displacement in Higher Education - A New Book by John T. Hamilton

April 06, 2022

IN RESPONSE TO PHILOSOPHER SIMON BLACKBURN'S PORTRAYAL of complacency as a vice that impairs university study at its core, John T. Hamilton examines the history of complacency in classics and its implications for the twenty-first century. The philosophies...

Spielraum: Teaching German Through Theater - A New Book by Lisa Parkes

November 03, 2021

(Routledge, 2022) is a sourcebook and guide for teaching German language and culture, as well as social, cross-cultural, and multi-ethnic tensions, through dramatic texts. This book presents a range of theoretical and practical resources for the growing...

Encountering America in the Golden Years of Academic Migration: Reminiscences of a Literary Historian by Karl S. Guthke

July 02, 2021

Karl Guthke, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art and Culture, Emeritus, has published the English-language version of his memoirs, Von Heidelberg nach Harvard: Erinnerungen eines Literaturwissenschaftlers an die Goldenen Jahre der Migration nach...

Festschrift in Honor of Stephen A. Mitchell

June 04, 2021

With a dual appointment in Germanic Languages and Literatures, where he has taught courses in Scandinavian studies since 1980 and in the Committee on Degrees in Folklore & Mythology, which he chairs, Professor Stephen Mitchell is an internationally...

New Book by John T. Hamilton

January 27, 2021

Über die Selbstgefälligkeit (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2021) -- Defined as an excessive pleasure in one’s sense of self-worth, status, and accomplishments, complacency is attacked as a social and political vice, often seen as responsible for routinized...

Judith Ryan on Museum Narration in Sebald's Prose

November 30, 2020

Judith Ryan, Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Research Professor of German and Comparative Literature, has published an essay entitled "Zwischen Zeilen und Zeiten: Museales Erzählen in den Prosafiktionen W.G. Sebalds" in the recently released volume Museales...

American Association of Teachers of German Recognizes Harvard Alumni

November 06, 2020

The American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) has announced the winners of its 2020 awards for "outstanding contributions to the teaching and learning of German in the US." Among this year's recipients are three Harvard graduates. The German...

New Position for Gernot Waldner

September 18, 2020

Warmest congratulations to Gernot Waldner (PhD, 2018) who has just received a six-year University Assistant position for Modern German Literature at the University of Vienna.