Friday, March 5
2pm Welcome, registration, opening remarks
2.30pm Panel I: Eugenics and the Science of Degeneration
- Hanna Engelmeier (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin)
- “Poetics of Othering in Carl Vogt’s Über die Mikrocephalen oder Affenmenschen”
- T.J. Checkley (University of Texas, Austin)
- “The Formation of Certainty: How Likelihoods Gave Way to Certainty in the Narrative of Eugenics”
- Susanne C. Knittel (Columbia University)
- “Souvenirs of Fascism: Eugenics, Memory, and Power in Post-War Italy”
Moderator: Kári Driscoll
4.30pm Coffee
5pm Panel II: East and West
- Jane Freeland (Carleton University, Ottawa)
- “‘Man lebt ja nur einmal’: Desire, Decadence and Degeneration in Slatan Dudow’s Frauenschicksale”
- Jan Kiepe (Universität Erfurt)
- “(Self-)Disciplinary Actions to Create ‘New Man’: SED Cadres’ Perceptions and Practices of a ‘Socialist Moral’”
- Matthew Cornish (Yale University)
- “Un-Imagining the Nation: Frank Castorf’s The Devil’s General”
Moderator: Alexis Radisoglou
7pm Dinner
8.30pm Keynote address
- Prof. Jennifer Kapczynski (Washington University)
- “Going Viral”
Saturday, March 6
10am Breakfast
10.30am Panel III: Sex, Bodies, and the Threat to Masculinity
- Jens Elberfeld (Universität Bielefeld)
- “‘Körperliche Renaissance der Juden’ or: From Degeneration to Regeneration: The Body Politics of the Jewish Gymnastic Movement in the Wilhelmine Empire”
The conference will be held 301 Philosophy Hall on March 5, and at Columbia University Deutsches Haus, 420 West 116th Street, on March 6, 2010.
This event has been made possible through the generous support of the Graduate Student Advisory Council (GSAC), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Columbia University Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures.
This event is free and open to the public.
Nicholas Walter Baer (University of California, Berkeley)
“Difference in Decline: Richard Oswald’s Anders als die Andern (1919) and the German National Symbolic”
Stefan Wünsch (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin)
“The Incident of Dr. Abenhausen and the Decline of Masculinity at the Berlin Vice Squad Police”
Todd Michael Goehle (SUNY, Binghamton)
“Overcoming Late-Capitalism’s Urban Jungle: Ein Mann sieht rot and the Reassertion of Traditional Masculinity”
Moderator: Johanna Urzedowski
1pm Lunch Break
2.30pm Panel IV: Doom—Chaos—Extinction
- Tim Sparenberg (Cornell University/Humboldt Universität, Berlin)
- “‘Die Entropie des Menschen’: The Heat Death of the Community in Hermann Broch’s Die Schlafwandler”
- Harry Todd Craver (University of Toronto)
- “The Siren Song of Pessimism: Siegfried Kracauer on the Cultural Uses of Untergang”
- Noemi Yoko Molitor (Emory University)
- “Birthrate-Debates as a Construction Site of National (Non-)Belonging in Germany”
Moderator: Tim Albrecht
4.30pm Coffee
5pm Panel V: Nostalgia—Authenticity—Decline
Dominik Schrey (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
- “The Blue Flower in the Land of Digitality or: Nostalgia for the Analog in Digital Culture”
- Till Krause (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen)
- “‘Ich könnte kotzen, wenn...’: The Perception of Declining ‘Authenticity’ and Quality in the Editorials of German Punkfanzines”
- Raysh Weiss (University of Minnesota)
- “Klezmer in Modern Germany: A Cultural Resurrection”
Moderator: Tyler Whitney
7pm Closing remarks
Dinner & reception to follow
