The German Studies Seminar presents Alexander Sorenson, speaking on "For Love of the World: Rilke's Ecology of Praise and Transience." Professor Sorenson (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2019) teaches German and Comparative Literature at Binghamton University. His research and teaching interests center upon interdisciplinary themes and issues related to the environmental humanities, such as the interface between philosophy, literature, art, and the history of science. His first book project, The Waiting Water: Order, Sacrifice and Submergence in German Realism, is forthcoming with Cornell University Press in the Signale series, and he is also in the early stages of a second research project about the concept of “sacramental ecology” in the long 19th century. Along with recently published articles derived from this newer work (on the poetry of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff and Rainer Maria Rilke, in Literature & Theology and Forum for Modern Language Studies, respectively), his essays have also appeared in The German Quarterly, German Life and Letters, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. The Seminar is sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center.