Campus Weeks

2023 Campus Weeks: Germany on Campus | Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany

2023 Campus Weeks: Germany on Campus is an initiative of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Funding university campus events across the US, the initiative invites a closer look at aspects of Germany’s past, present, and future, as well as the US’ connections to Germany. At UNC-CH, three events are bringing our community closer to the study of Germany. We welcome students, faculty, staff, and community members already interested in Germany — as well as those who would like an introduction to the politics, history, and culture of Europe’s biggest economy and a driving force of European integration. Several UNC faculty are contributing expert analysis — scroll for speaker bios.. Those interested in our prior Campus Weeks programs are welcome to scroll to the bottom of the page, where resources, speaker information, and event recordings of previous years are housed.

Film Screening: Paul Robeson: “I’m a Negro. I’m an American.”

September 20 | 5:30pm
Dey Hall Toy Lounge

Join us for a screening of the 1989 documentary, Paul Robeson: I’m a Negro. I’m an American,” followed by discussion, with opening remarks from Dr. Evan Torner, University of Cincinnati.

Paul Robeson (1898–1976) was a unique African American icon. He was the son of a former slave, a singer, a football player, Ivy League scholar, Shakespearean actor and civil rights activist. Robeson was lauded in East Germany as a symbol of internationalism and Socialist solidarity. But on American soil, he was treated like a traitor for his politics and had his passport taken away.

Tips from a Global Recruiter

October 6 | 12:15pm
FedEx Global Education Center 1005

Hear from Nicole Hayworth of Commerce Tools on perspectives working with a German company, job search tips, and the importance of women’s careers in science and technology.

Opuwo!

October 27 | 12:15pm
FedEx Global Education Center 1005

Join us for an evening of poetry and translation with Stefanie-Lahya Aukongo, Black German author and poet, who will speak about her life, growing up between Namibia and Germany, followed by readings in German and English facilitated by Dr. Priscilla Layne, and a Q&A.

Reception to follow in the GEC Atrium.

Exhibition & Presentation: Artifacts as Testimonies: Kristallnacht Collections in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Presentation: November 9 |
Exhibition: October 30 – November 10
FedEx Global Education Center

Hear Steven Luckert, Senior Program Curator in the Levine Institute for Holocaust Education at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. about unique materials and artefacts the museum has related to Kristallnacht. Reception to follow in the GEC Atrium.

Speaker Bios

Stefanie-Lahya Aukongo

Lahya (Stefanie-Lahya Aukongo) is a Black artist, author, poet, curator, multiplicator, singer, teamer, photographer, and activist whose art and work reflect her social realities and identities. Lahya’s life revolves around molecules of reality, (re)arranged lovingly, yet critically, and enveloped in song, painting, collage, performance, photography and_or poetry. Their purpose is healing and/through transformative practices. The Black namibian queer, disabled, neurodiverse, fat Femme intersectionally interwoven and interdisciplinary artist in a dark skinned body who uses poetry and art as a surviving mechanism and a healing communication tool. Every form of Lahyas art has ultimately helped Lahya process the vulnerable experiences as a human at the Center of edge. Lahya knows that the acts of embodying joy and telling the story in their own words is freedom work. It is a way to hold space and take space. Since 2014, Lahya curates and moderates the bimonthly spoken-word event “One World Poetry Night” in Berlin.Lahya’s oeuvre is published in various books and zines. In search of radical social responsibility of the heart and deed, Lahya’s doings are political, collective, and personal. Lahyas works touch upon de:privilege, decolonisation, healing, individual and collective love, softness and vulnerability. Lahya’s pronouns are Lahya and if needed she/her. Lahya’s bed currently resides in Berlin.

For more information, go to www.aukongo.de oder @lahya_aukongo auf IG, FB & Twitter.

Stefanie-Lahya Headshot

Nicole Hayworth

Nicole Hayworth is a 2015 graduate from the Sam Walton School of Business at the University of Arkansas, where she graduated with a major in International Business with a concentration in Leadership and a minor in Mandarin Chinese. She has worked in the recruiting space for eight years in both agency and corporate settings. She is currently the Talent Acquisition Lead for Commercetools, an international technology company valued at $1.9B.

Nicole Hayworth Headshot

Priscilla Layne

Priscilla Layne is Director of UNC’s Center for European Studies and Professor of German and Adjunct Associate Professor of African Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and President of the American Association of Teachers of German. Her book, White Rebels in Black: German Appropriation of Black Popular Culture, was published in 2018 by the University of Michigan Press. She has also published essays on Turkish German culture, translation, punk and film. She recently translated Olivia Wenzel’s debut novel, 1000 Serpentinen Angst, which will be out in June. And she is currently finishing a manuscript on Afro German Afrofuturism and a critical guide to Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun.

Kathleen Shanahan Lindner

Kathleen Shanahan Lindner is Executive Director of the UNC Center for European Studies. She is also Director of Undergraduate Studies and the undergraduate advisor for the major in Contemporary European Studies (EURO). She oversees the TransAtlantic Masters (TAM) program, a dual-MA program in Political Science taught at UNC-Chapel Hill and nine partner institutions in Europe. Ms Lindner manages dayto-day operations of the Center including student recruitment, outreach, events, academic programming, scholarships, fundraising, grant writing, grant management, and financial compliance. Ms Lindner has a BA in International Studies and German from UNC-Chapel Hill and an MA in Trans-Atlantic Studies (TAM) from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Steven Luckert

Steven Luckert is Senior Program Curator in the Levine Institute for Holocaust Education at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. He served for 20 years as the Curator of the Museum’s acclaimed permanent exhibition, The Holocaust, and curated seven other special exhibitions. He has appeared in the following media outlets: CSPAN, CNN, NBC Nightly News, Associated Press, Reuters International, History Detectives, The History Channel, Huffington Post, ZDF (German Television), PBS, Fox, Washington Post, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic Channel, National Public Radio, Newsmax, Telemundo, Iranwire, Al-Hura, The Atlantic, The Forward, Boston Globe, Cox News Service, USA TODAY, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Tass. Steven received his Ph.D. in Modern European History from the State University of New York at Binghamton and has published on German history, the Holocaust and Nazi propaganda.

Steve Luckert Headshot

Evan Torner

Evan Torner defended his dissertation on race representation in East German genre cinema at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2013, and spent 2013-2014 at Grinnell College as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow. He has published several articles pertaining to East Germany, critical race theory, DEFA Indianerfilme, science-fiction, transnational genre cinema, and game studies, as well as co-edited several books. His volume Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media co-edited with William J. White was published with McFarland Publishing in 2012, and he is one of the founding editors of the Analog Game Studies journal (http://analoggamestudies.org). His major projects underway include the Handbook of East German Cinema: The DEFA Legacy, co-edited with Henning Wrage and under contract with Walter De Gruyter, and a monograph entitled A Century and Beyond: Critical Readings of German Science-Fiction Cinema.

Resources

The Holocaust

Timeline of Events | US Holocaust Memorial Museum

World Holocaust Remembrance Center | Yad Vashem

“On Auschwitz” Podcast | Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial & Museum

Previous Grants

2022 Campus Weeks: Germany on Campus | Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany

2022 Campus Weeks: Germany on Campus is an initiative of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Funding university campus events across the US, the initiative invites a closer look at aspects of Germany’s past, present, and future, as well as the US’ connections to Germany. At UNC-CH, three events are bringing our community closer to the study of Germany. We welcome students, faculty, staff, and community members already interested in Germany — as well as those who would like an introduction to the politics, history, and culture of Europe’s biggest economy and a driving force of European integration. Several UNC faculty are contributing expert analysis — scroll for speaker bios. All events will be held in the Nelson Mandela Auditorium at the FedEx Global Education Center. Event recordings will also be posted on this page for those unable to attend. Those interested in our prior Campus Weeks programs are welcome to scroll to the bottom of the page, where resources, speaker information, and event recordings of previous years are housed.

Virtual Film Screening: Becoming Black (2019)

Tuesday, September 20 | 12:00pm EDT
Zoom

Virtual film screening and discussion with filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain; Opening Remarks from Priscilla Layne.

RSVP for September 20

SYNOPSIS

A white couple living in the German Democratic Republic in the 1960s, tells their Black child that her skin color is purely by chance and has no meaning. This is also what the girl prefers to believe, until she accidentally discovers the truth as a teenager.

Years before, a group of men from various African countries is invited by the Government of the GDR to live and study at an Eastern German Union College “Fritz Heckert” in Bernau, a village, close to Berlin. Informal encounters with the local population are not frowned upon. Nevertheless, on the secluded campus love doesn’t escape some GDR citizens and African students, like Sigrid from Leipzig and Lucien from Togo. But Sigrid is already married and has a little boy with Armin. When she falls pregnant with Lucien’s child, it breaks the family apart.

But after a period of separation, the couple decides to stay together and make a fresh start.

The film tracks the elaborate strategies the pair invent to retain a sense of “normalcy” after the birth of their Black child. The child is filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain.

Meeting her stepfather Armin and others from her childhood years, she tracks the silence and denial her parents and the closer surroundings had developed.

In an intimate portrayal but also critical exploration she brings together painful and confusing childhood memories with an examination of social and political implications, that testify a culture of rejection and structural racism. After she discovered the truth about her ancestry it will take many more years, before she decides to embark on a journey to Togo to look for her African family. Together with the movingly encounters with her new found family BECOMING BLACK develops into a reflection on themes such as affiliation, social norms and concepts of family, seen from a very personal perspective.

Film Screening: The Conference (2022)

Thursday, October 13 | 5:30pm EDT
Nelson Mandela Auditorium | FedEx Global Education Center

Film screening and discussion with Paul B. Jaskot and Karen Auerbach; Opening Remarks from Priscilla Layne.

About the Film

On January 20, 1942, high-ranking representatives of the German Nazi regime met in an idyllic villa on the Great Wannsee in the southwest of Berlin for a meeting that went down in history as the Wannsee Conference, because of its scope, fatality and consequences, perhaps the most terrible conference of human history. Present are 15 leading men of the SS, the NSDAP and the ministerial bureaucracy. They were invited by Reinhard Heydrich, head of the security police and SD, to a “meeting followed by breakfast”. The exclusive topic of the approximately 90-minute discussion is what the National Socialists called the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”, the systematic mass murder of millions of Jews from all over Europe. A fictionalized TV film on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the historical event, based on the minutes of the meeting written by Adolf Eichmann.

RSVP for October 13

Thank you to our following co-sponsors: Duke University’s Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Duke University’s Department of German Studies, UNC’s Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, UNC’s Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures, and UNC’s Department of History.

Environmentalism During the Weimar Era

Thursday, October 27 | 5:30 pm EDT
Nelson Mandela Auditorium | FedEx Global Education Center
Public Talk with Paul Dobryden

Join us for a conversation with Paul Dobryden, Assistant Professor in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia, on his new book The Hygienic Apparatus: Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder (2022). Christina Weiler, Teaching Assistant
Professor and German Language Program Director in GSLL as well as President of the North Carolina chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German (NCAATG) through 2024, will moderate the Q&A after the lecture. Dobryden’s study traces how the environmental effects of industrialization reverberated through the cinema of Germany’s Weimar Republic. In the early twentieth century, hygiene encompassed the many attempts to create healthy spaces for life and work amid the pollution, disease, accidents, and noise of industrial modernity. Examining classic films—including The Last Laugh, Faust, and Kuhle Wampe—as well as documentaries, cinema architecture, and studio practices, Paul Dobryden demonstrates how cinema envisioned and interrogated hygienic concerns about environmental disorder.

Reception with refreshments to follow.

RSVP for October 27

Thank you to our following co-sponsors: UNC’s Department of Geography, UNC’s Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures, and UNC’s Institute for the Environment.

Public Film Screening: Zu Weit Weg (Too Far Away, 2019)

Thursday, November 3 | 5:30 pm EDT
Nelson Mandela Auditorium | FedEx Global Education Center
Public Film Screening & Discussion with Jon Lepofsky and Christina Weiler, to be joined by MEET EU Emerging Filmmaker, Vida Skerk

About the Film
12-year-old Ben and his family must leave their village because of the surface lignite mining in
the western region of Germany. Ben has trouble fitting into his new school and equally new
soccer club, while his old friends are already moving on. Then Tariq, a young Syrian, is seated
next to him in school, and the two slowly bond over their shared interests–and shared losses.

RSVP for November 3

Thank you to our following co-sponsors: UNC’s Department of Geography, UNC’s Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures, and UNC’s Institute for the Environment. This event is also made possible by the Goethe-Institut.

Poster Exhibits and Competition

Exhibit: Energiewende

On view in the FedEx GEC
From October 24 through November 7, the “Energiewende” poster exhibit will be on view on the 3rd floor of the GEC, and is also on view on the carousel on the right.

Broadly, the exhibition explores different avenues for transitioning to renewable and sustainable energy sources and practices through social, political, scientific, and economic actions.

Want to find out more? Visit the Energy in Transition – Powering Tomorrow exhibition website organized by the German Federal Foreign Office.

Campus Week Energiewende poster about the climate impact of automobiles

Campus Week Energiewende poster about the climate impact of public transportation forms like buses and trains

Campus Week Energiewende poster about shared mobility and digitization of transportation

Campus Week Energiewende poster about projected population growth and costs

Campus Week Energiewende poster about the climate impact of "smart" energy grids and technologies

Campus Week Energiewende poster about inclusive and large-scale climate adaptation measures worldwide

Campus Week Energiewende poster about limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius

Campus Week Energiewende poster about energy uses and sourcing goals for 2030

Campus Week Energiewende poster about the values behind the energy transition, including equitable economic growth and social justice.

Campus Week Energiewende poster about the intersection of energy access and gender equality

Campus Week Energiewende poster about the possibility of using green hydrogen for hard-to-abate sectors.

Exhibit: The Wannsee Conference and the Persecution and Murder of the European Jews

On view in the FedEx GEC
From September 28 through October 14, “The Wannsee Conference and the Persecution and Murder of the European Jews” poster exhibit will be on view on the 3rd floor of the GEC.
The aim of this exhibition by the “House of the Wannsee Conference – Memorial and Educational Site” is to educate the public about the Holocaust, expose the motives of its perpetrators, and commemorate the victims. The exhibition focuses on processes of persecution and the establishment of the killing machinery of the Nazi state. Who were the
perpetrators? What were their motives? What actions did they take?

In acknowledgement of Yom Kippur, the Wannsee Conference exhibit will be temporarily paused. The exhibit will be taken down before sunset on October 4 and return for viewing on October 6.

View our online Reflection Wall here.

You can find more information about the exhibition at the House of the Wannsee Conference – Memorial and Educational Site (available in English & German).

Student Poster Competition: Climate Change & Sustainability

UPDATED SUBMISSION DEADLINE: October 24 | Exhibit: October 31 – November 11

SUBMIT HERE

The UNC Center for European Studies and Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures invite UNC students of all disciplines and levels to submit posters relating to the theme of Climate Change and Sustainability. Faculty and staff judges will select the top ten posters based on creativity, applicability of the idea, and visual appeal.

We will showcase the top ten posters from the contest and exhibit them in the FedEx Global Education Center (GEC) where the Center for European Studies is located. We will then choose three for a first, second, and third prize. The remaining seven will receive honorable mentions. All top ten entries will receive a copy of Ilija Trojanow’s Cli-Fi novel The Lamentations of Zeno (EisTau, 2011) in English translation.

Posters will be judged by Priscilla Layne, Jon Lepofsky, Kathleen Shanahan Lindner, and Christina Weiler (see bios below).

Student Poster Competition Winning Posters

The following posters have been selected to join the “Energiewende” poster exhibit and will be on view in the atrium of the GEC:

by Hunter Steen

“Despite presenting solid ideas, most informative posters on campus receive almost no attention from busy students. This poster aims to remedy this issue by provoking attention with a garish image of a well-known character. Although such an approach limits the amount of information that can be conveyed, it is guaranteed to prompt discussion regarding composting. Every student is well-aware of the merits of recycling, but very few pay any heed to UNC’s immense composting efforts. More than half of all waste at UNC consists of compostable materials. By providing students with a long-lasting reminder of composting, it is likely that they will be more likely to properly sort their garbage when they throw it away. Although students at UNC are well aware of the importance of recycling, the majority of waste on campus consists of compostable materials. Unfortunately, composting frequently falls to the wayside in discussions regarding campus sustainability. Using a garish image of the well-known character ‘The Annoying Orange’, this poster attempts to draw attention from passerby and spark conversation about composting.”

by Grayson Yount

“My poster is about avoiding fast fashion and gives the viewer tips and resources to collect clothing ethically and sustainably.”

by Paul Fullwood

“The poster is classic beach ad, but for Chapel Hill, hinting at the rising sea levels that could result in many coastal communities ending up under water.”

Speaker Bios

Karen Auerbach

Karen Auerbach is Associate Professor of History and Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat Scholar in Jewish History at UNC-Chapel Hill. Professor Auerbach’s research focuses on the social history of Polish Jews in the nineteenth and twentieth century, especially issues relating to Jewish integration, urban life, and the evolution of Polish Jewish identifications. Her first book, published in 2013, is a microhistory of Jewish families who were neighbors in an apartment building in Warsaw after the Holocaust, exploring the reconstruction of communities and identifications in postwar Poland. She is currently researching the history of Jewish publishers of Polish books in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, in particular their involvement in Polish cultural, social and political circles, as well as information networks and the history of Yiddish in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust. Auerbach’s teaching focuses on modern Jewish history, East European Jewish History and the Holocaust.

Paul Dobryden

Paul Dobryden received his doctorate in German Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2014. In 2016 he moved to Charlottesville, where he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia. He has written widely on Weimar cinema and culture in journals such as Studies in European Cinema, Colloquia Germanica, Modernism/modernity, and The German Studies Review (forthcoming). His research focuses on cinema’s intersections with modern conceptions of health and environmental transformation in early twentieth century Germany. His book The Hygienic Apparatus: Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder (Northwestern University Press) was published in May 2022.

Paul B. Jaskot

Dr. Jaskot is a Professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University. He teaches courses on architectural history, modern architecture and urban planning, and German art with a particular emphasis on National Socialist Germany. In addition to his teaching, Jaskot is also the Co-Director of the Digital Art History & Visual Culture Research Lab (formerly, the Wired! Lab). His scholarly work focuses on the political history of Nazi art and architecture as well as its postwar cultural impact. He is the author of The Architecture of Oppression: The SS, Forced Labor, and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy (2000) as well as The Nazi Perpetrator: Postwar German Art and the Politics of the Right (2012). He has co-edited Beyond Berlin: Twelve German Cities Confront the Nazi Past (2008) as well as New Approaches to an Integrated History of the Holocaust: Social History, Representation, Theory (2018). In addition, he was a founding member of the ongoing Holocaust Geography Collaborative exploring the use of GIS and other digital methods to analyze the spatial history of the Holocaust. He contributed co-authored essays to their volume, Geographies of the Holocaust (2014), the first book to address the analysis of Holocaust spaces with GIS. Currently, he is continuing his collaborative work in an NEH-funded analysis of the spaces of the Nazi ghettos of Occupied Europe as well as a solo-researched project on the history of the construction industry in Germany, 1914-1945. From 2014-2016, Jaskot was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC). He was also the President of the College Art Association (2008-2010), and he is currently President of the National Committee for the History of Art (2020-2024), the US affiliate to the International Committee of the History of Art (CIHA).

Ines Johnson-Spain

Ines Johnson-Spain is an independent German/Togolese filmmaker based in Berlin. She studied Sciences of Religions at Freie Universität Berlin (FU) and was a guest student for Fine Arts and Painting at University of Arts Berlin. She worked for many years as a scenic painter and in various positions of the art departments of national and international film productions. (e.g. Peter Greenaway The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Anders Thomas Jensen Men and Chicken, Lana Wachowsky Sense8, Andrej Swjaginzew Die Verbannung). Johnson-Spain teaches scenic painting at Film University Babelsberg. Since 2002 she develops and realizes her own documentary film projects. Her work focuses on intimate portraits that explore the notion of self and affiliation. More recently she directed the film „L‘Esprit de Madjid“, about a young gay man from Togo who is a follower of Voudou and relates to himself through his spirits. The autobiographical film „Becoming Black“ is her first feature length film. Biography and photo courtesy of her website becomingblack.de

Priscilla Layne

Priscilla Layne is Associate Professor of German and Adjunct Associate Professor of African Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and President of the American Association of Teachers of German. Her book, White Rebels in Black: German Appropriation of Black Popular Culture, was published in 2018 by the University of Michigan Press. She has also published essays on Turkish German culture, translation, punk and film. She recently translated Olivia Wenzel’s debut novel, 1000 Serpentinen Angst, which will be out in June. And she is currently finishing a manuscript on Afro German Afrofuturism and a critical guide to Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun.

Jon Lepofsky

Jon Lepofsky International Education Program Coordinator for UNC’s Center for European Studies and Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography. At CES, he facilitates K-12, Community College, and MSI/HBCU programming. His courses focus on globalization and urbanization, including a course on environmental justice in urban Europe, and his publications examine community economic development as well as environmental education. He earned his PhD in Geography from UNC along with a Graduate Certificate in Cultural Studies. He earned his BA in Metropolitan Studies from New York University.

Kathleen Shanahan Lindner

Kathleen Shanahan Lindner is Interim & Executive Director of the UNC Center for European Studies. She is also Director of Undergraduate Studies and the undergraduate advisor for the major in Contemporary European Studies (EURO). She oversees the TransAtlantic Masters (TAM) program, a dual-MA program in Political Science taught at UNC-Chapel Hill and nine partner institutions in Europe. Ms Lindner manages dayto-day operations of the Center including student recruitment, outreach, events, academic programming, scholarships, fundraising, grant writing, grant management, and financial compliance. Ms Lindner has a BA in International Studies and German from UNC-Chapel Hill and an MA in Trans-Atlantic Studies (TAM) from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Christina Weiler

Christina Weiler is Teaching Assistant Professor and German Language Program Director in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures. Her research focuses on German literature, culture, and philosophy of the long eighteenth century in a comparative and interdisciplinary framework. Particularly, she is interested in metaphor studies, philosophy of nature and the senses, and environmental studies. She has published on J.G. Herder, Novalis, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and German film. After serving as Vice President from 2021-2022, she is now President of the North Carolina chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German (NCAATG) through 2024.

Resources

The Wannsee Conference & the Murder of the European Jews

Timeline of Events | US Holocaust Memorial Museum

World Holocaust Remembrance Center | Yad Vashem

“On Auschwitz” Podcast | Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial & Museum

Climate Change & Die Energiewende

Graphics Explaining Climate Finance | HEINRICH-BÖLL-STIFTUNG

Climate Action Tracker | New Climate Institute

The German Energiewende | Federal Foreign Office

Energiewende | Deutsche Welle

Climate Impacts Germany | Umwelt Besamt

National Climate Policy | Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservancy and Nuclear Safety

Germany & Challenges of Decarbonization | Brookings Institute

“”The Bill” Short Film | Prod. Peter Wendel”

2021 Campus Weeks — Time to Act | Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany

2021 Campus Weeks — Time to Act is an initiative of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Funding university campus events across the US, the initiative invites a closer look at aspects of Germany’s past, present, and future, as well as the US’ connections to Germany. At UNC-CH, three events are bringing our community closer to the study of Germany. We welcome students, faculty, staff, and community members already interested in Germany — as well as those who would like an introduction to the politics, history, and culture of Europe’s biggest economy and a driving force of European integration. Several UNC faculty are contributing expert analysis — scroll for speaker bios. Our panel discussions are all virtual events (RSVPs below), and our Film Screening will be held in the Nelson Mandela Auditorium at the FedEx Global Education Center.

Bubbles floating over a crowd in front of the Berliner Tor

Germany, the EU, and the Energiewende; toward a more just and sustainable Europe

Friday, September 24 | 12:00pm EDT
Virtual panel featuring UNC Professors Jonathan Lepofsky and Greg Gangi

Europe continues to lead the way in mitigating global climate change through decarbonization, transitions to renewable energy, and related shifts towards sustainability. From the EU-level European Green Deal, to the vast array of policies and practices within individual municipalities across Europe, European leaders and residents are reimagining a sustainable future at multiple levels of governance and civil society. This has only increased as stakeholders across the private and public sectors work to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Additionally, the focus on Europe’s environmental sustainability in the midst of a global climate crisis increasingly includes a stress on making Europe more socially inclusive and expanding economic opportunity for all. Indeed, documents such as the European Commission’s Cohesion Policy and the New Leipzig Charter (adopted at the recent Informal Ministerial Meeting on Urban Matters) highlight, Europe’s sustainable development should be built upon a foundation of cities and regions which are not just green and blue, but also productive and just. However, despite significant innovations and progress towards environmentally sustainable development, such efforts have not always lead to greater environmental justice or equity for all Europeans (sometimes even exacerbating already existing disparities). This panel will examine the examples, opportunities, and challenges emerging from Europe’s on-going efforts to mitigate climate change and foster a more green, productive, and just Europe.

Access the recording of “Germany, the EU, and the Energiewende” on YouTube.

The German Elections 2021 and the End of the Merkel Era: What´s Next?

Friday, October 8 | 12:00pm EDT
Virtual panel with Professors Christiane Lemke, Dominic Nyhuis, Helga Welsh, and Konrad Jarausch along with a special guest speaker from the German Embassy – Markus Teglas

The 2021 German elections will have far-reaching consequences for domestic politics as well as for the future of Europe. The weakness of traditional mainstream parties, including the Social Democrats but also the CDU, the rise of the Greens and the challenge from the far-right leave prospects for the next coalition government uncertain. The following questions will be addressed: How do we explain the decline of major parties? What is behind the rise of the Greens and which role will they play in the future? What is the most likely government coalition and which direction will the new government follow? What is the impact of the elections on Europe and the European Union? What is left from Angela Merkel´s legacy?

Access the recording of “The German Elections 2021 and the End of the Merkel Era” on YouTube.

Film Screening: Climate Refugees

Wednesday, November 3 | 5:30pm EDT
Nelson Mandela Auditorium | FedEx Global Education Center

Film screening and discussion from Program Director for Environmental and Energy Policy Nora Löhle of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, TransAtlantic Masters student Neil Doughty, and EURO major Cassandra Alvariño.

About the Film

Climate Refugees highlights the human plight of climate change with a focus on the intersection of overpopulation and lack of resources.
Climate Refugees is a 2010 film directed by Michael P. Nash, winner of the Social Change Global Institute Filmmaker of the Year Award. Climate Refugees was screened at the U.S. Senate and House, The Pentagon, The Vatican, and the United Nations COP15 climate summit in December 2009 in Copenhagen. Learn more about the film here .

Speaker Bios

Greg Gangi

Greg Gangi is the associate director for education and serves as a clinical assistant professor at the UNC Institute for the Environment. He is also a senior lecturer in the curriculum in environment and ecology. Experiential education is something Gangi believes is crucial for students’ development. He has led various trips that has provided students with experiential education opportunities, including to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Galapagos Islands, Siberia, St. John, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. In addition to leading trips for students, in collaboration with the Center for Sustainable Enterprise at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, he coordinates the UNC Clean Tech Summit, which brings together professionals in business, policy and academia from across the state and region for discussions, workshops, mentoring and networking to foster leadership and growth in the southeast’s clean tech industry. Gangi is concerned with the broad scope of the relationship between the environment and society. By training, he is a tropical ecologist with a strong interest in conservation and sustainable development. He is also interested in public policy and international studies and has taught a number of courses in these fields. Gangi also holds a membership with the Ecological Society of America.

Jon Lepofsky

Jon Lepofsky is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned his BA in Metropolitan Studies from New York University and his PhD in Geography at UNC, along with a Graduate Certificate in Cultural Studies. His empirical and theoretical work on urban economic geography and community development has been published in a range of journals, including Community Development Journal, Ethics, Place & Environment, Health & Place, Journal of Environmental Studies & Sciences, Urban Affairs Review, and Urban Studies. He has also authored entries for the Encyclopedia of Human Geography and the Encyclopedia of Geography. Such work has examined urban citizenship and the politics of community. His current courses focus on geographies of globalization as well as environmental justice in urban Europe.

Konrad Jarausch

Konrad H. Jarausch is the Lurcy Professor of European Civilization in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Jarausch has written or edited about forty books in modern German and European history. Starting with Hitler’s seizure of power and the First World War, his research interests have moved to the social history of German students and professions German unification in 1989/90, with historiography under the Communist GDR, the nature of the East German dictatorship, as well as the debate about historians and the Third Reich. More recently, he has been concerned with the problem of interpreting twentieth-century German history in general, the learning processes after 1945, the issue of cultural democratization, and the relationship between Honecker and Breshnew. Some notable publications include: Out of Ashes: A New History of Europe in the Twentieth Century (Princeton University Press, 2015), Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front (Princeton University Press, 2011), “Das stille Sterben…”: Feldpostbriefe von Konrad Jarausch aus Polen und Russland (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2008), Gebrochene Wissenschaftskulturen: Universität und Politik im 20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010), and Shattered Past: Reconstructing German Histories (Princeton University Press, 2002). Professor Jarausch is co-founder of the UNC Center for European Studies as well as the Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam (ZZF).

Headshot of Konrad Jarausch.

Christiane Lemke

Christiane Lemke is Professor of Political Science and Director of International Relations and European Studies at the Institute of Political Science at Leibniz University Hannover. Professor Lemke has been very involved in Center for European Studies teaching, research, and conferences for many years. She has been teaching in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Transatlantic Masters (TAM) program for over a decade and has been a recurring DAAD Visiting Scholar to UNC since 1988. In addition to her current position, Christiane Lemke, from 2010-14, held the Max Weber Chair at New York University. Professor Lemke received her Ph.D. from the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences at the Free University in Berlin and went on to earn her Habilitation Venia legendi in Political Science from the same institution. Professor Lemke has been a visiting scholar at a number of US institutions over the years as she has maintained her permanent faculty positions in Germany. She has taught courses at UNC-Chapel Hill, Stanford University, Harvard University, and Suffolk University. In addition, while on a leave from the University of Hannover from 2006 to 2007, Professor Lemke served as the Director of State Parliament, Lower Saxony. Professor Lemke’s academic areas of expertise include: European Politics, Democracy and Governance in the EU, Transatlantic Relations, Comparative Politics and Political Theory, and American Politics. She is the author/editor of numerous books and articles, including: Internationale Beziehungen: Grundkonzepte, Theorien und Problemfelder, 4th ed. (International Relations: Concepts, Theories, and Key Issues, 2018); Germany Today. Politics and Policies in a Changing World, 2018; Europäische Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik (European Foreign and Security Policy, 2010), Menschenrechte und Migration (Human Rights and Migration, 2009).

Headshot of Christiane Lemke.

Nora Löhle

Nora Löhle is the Program Director for Energy and Environment at the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America, which fosters transatlantic dialogue in support of a low carbon economy agenda, with a particular focus on renewable energies. She is particularly interested in ecological and just transition processes and the role that digitalization and new technologies can play as a catalyst for ecological transformation.

Having worked at the Foundation’s headquarters in Berlin, its regional office in Baden-Württemberg, and the EU office in Brussels, Nora has profound experience in green political work. Prior to joining the Foundation’s North America office, Nora spent three years in the German parliament. As an advisor for a Green party MP, she worked on economy, energy and digital policies. Before, she worked for a consultancy in Berlin, advising ministries and companies on energy issues.

Nora holds an M.A. in Political Science, Public Law and Criminal Law from Eberhard Karls University Tübingen. She also studied at the Universities of Konstanz, Antwerp and Mannheim.

Dominic Nyhuis

Dominic Nyhuis is Visiting DAAD Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Nyhuis received his PhD from the University of Mannheim for a project on the link between district preferences and candidate communication in German elections. His research on European and German politics focuses on party politics, legislatures, and subnational politics. With a background in quantitative methods, he is particularly interested in how the digital transformation changes research practices in the social sciences. To this end, he has worked on the automated collection of large-scale web data, as well as tools for the analysis of text and video data. Professor Nyhuis currently teaches undergraduate European Studies and Political Science majors as well as students in the TransAtlantic Masters Program.

Headshot of Dominic Nyhuis.

Markus Teglas

Markus Teglas serves since August 2021 as Minister Counselor in the Political Department at the German Embassy in Washington, DC. His responsibilities include transatlantic relations and U.S. domestic policy. Prior to that, he was Chief of Staff for the Minister of State for Europe in the Federal Foreign Office. He joined the Federal Foreign Service in 2013. From 2008 to 2013 he worked as Chief of Staff in the German Bundestag.

Markus Teglas holds a M.A. degree in European Studies (M.E.S.) from the Viadrina-University in Frankfurt/Oder and a M.A. degree in Philosophy and Musicology from the Free University Berlin. He has also worked as editor in various German publishing houses.

Helga A. Welsh

Helga A. Welsh is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. Her publications have focused on the history and politics of the former East Germany, German unification, transitional justice, the reform of higher education in Germany, and democratization processes in Central and Eastern Europe. She has published a book on denazification in the former East Germany and co-edited a book on German unification. Her most recent book (co-authored with Christiane Lemke) is Germany Today. German Politics and Policies in a Changing World (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018). Her articles have appeared in journals such as Comparative Politics, European Journal of Education, Europe-Asia Studies, German Politics, German Politics and Society, and West European politics. She is one of the editors of “German History in Documents and Images,” a project administered by the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. She served as co-editor of German Politics from 2014-2018.

Resources

Photo of the German Federal Council in Berlin.

The 2021 German Elections

Election Results | Deutsche Welle

Poll Tracker | The Guardian

Election Coverage | Deutsche Welle

Election Coverage | The Economist

How do German Elections Work? | Handbook Germany

Political Campaigning in Germany | Brandon Bohrn, Bertelsmann Foundation

“The Evolution of Germany’s Political Spectrum” on YouTube | Brandon Bohrn, Bertelsmann Foundation

“How to Build a Governing Coalition in Germany” on YouTube | Brandon Bohrn, Bertelsmann Foundation

Climate Change & Die Energiewende

Photo of solar panels and a blue sky with white fluffy clouds. Graphics Explaining Climate Finance | HEINRICH-BÖLL-STIFTUNG

Climate Action Tracker | New Climate Institute

The German Energiewende | Federal Foreign Office

Energiewende | Deutsche Welle

Climate Impacts Germany | Umwelt Besamt

National Climate Policy | Federal Minstry for Environment, Nature Conservancy and Nuclear Safety

Germany & Challenges of Decarbonization | Brookings Institute

“”The Bill” Short Film | Prod. Peter Wendel”

Sophie Scholl & the White Rose

Image of Sophie Scholl, Photographer Unknown | Source: 1938: Robert M. Zoske: Sophie Scholl. Es reut mich nichts. Porträt einer Widerständigen. Propyläen, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-549-10018-9, p. 224 — Photographer Unknown | Source: 1938: Robert M. Zoske: Sophie Scholl. Es reut mich nichts. Porträt einer Widerständigen. Propyläen, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-549-10018-9, p. 224

Profile on Sophie Scholl | National WWII Museum

Sophie Scholl | Jenny Hill, BBC

The White Rose Opposition movement | US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Holocaust Resistance: The White Rose – A Lesson in Dissent | Jacob G. Hornberger

“”The Story of Sophie Scholl & the White Rose”| Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany”

2020 Campus Weeks — Building Tomorrow | Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany

2020 Campus Weeks — Building Tomorrow is an initiative of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Funding university campus events across the US, the initiative invites a closer look at aspects of Germany’s past, present, and future, as well as the US’ connections to Germany. At UNC-CH, three events are bringing our community closer to the study of Germany. We welcome students, faculty, staff, and community members already interested in Germany — as well as those who would like an introduction to the politics, history, and culture of Europe’s biggest economy and a driving force of European integration. Four UNC faculty are contributing expert analysis — scroll forspeaker bios. Our lecture, film screening, and panel discussion are all virtual events.

The German flag flies in front of the Reichstag in Berlin with part of the building and dome visible behind the flag.

Thirty Years of German Unification

Friday, September 4 | 12:30pm ET
Featuring Christiane Lemke, with remarks from Konrad Jarausch

Prof. Dr. Christiane Lemke discussed the political, social, and economic implications of unification based on her years of research and teaching. In addition, she also provided a personal perspective on studying, teaching, and living in West Berlin, Leipzig, and Potsdam, and then becoming a full professor in Hannover in 1996. She addressed the following questions: What is the significance of unification in the collective memory? How has unification changed politics and German political parties? Are there still differences between the East and the West? And how is unified Germany viewed by its neighbors?

Access the recording of “Thirty Years of German Unification” on YouTube.

Film Panel: Datsche

Tuesday, September 22 | 6pm ET
Featuring Priscilla Layne and Dominic Nyhuis

For those who RSVP’ed, a link to the film was provided a week before the panel, so participants could view the film individually. A $5 GrubHub voucher was provided to the first 30 RSVPs. See Datsche Film Panel RSVP page for details.

Datsche provides a modern look at diversity and migration in Germany, as well as insight into cultural differences between the US and Germany.

Access the recording of “Film Panel: Datsche” on YouTube.

About the Film

Datsche is a 2018 German film directed by UK citizen Lara Hewitt alongside an international team, including professionals from Germany, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Italy, Nigeria, Portugal, and the US. The film has been selected for showing at festivals including the Snowdance Independent Film Festival, Anchorage International Film Festival, DC Independent Film Festival, and Achtung Berlin Film Festival. Synopsis: When Val, an unemployed New York actor, arrives at a garden allotment outside of Berlin to spend the summer at his dead grandfather’s ‘datsche’ – his summer house – he is faced with a wild garden, a large rule book, an interfering garden allotment president and Adam, a refugee who has been denied asylum in Germany and has been hiding in the datsche attic. And when Val invites some unusual strangers to stay at the datsche, the dream of a peaceful German life is threatened. This film provides a modern look at diversity and migration in Germany.

Germany’s Leadership in the EU Today

A look at Germany’s EU Presidency, its response to COVID-19, and its role in the fight against racism

Friday, November 13 | 12:30pm ET
Featuring Christian Jetzlsperger, Priscilla Layne, Christiane Lemke, and Dominic Nyhuis

On July 1, Germany assumed the Presidency of the Council of the EU with a plan of “going green”. Germany is currently being analyzed and praised for its response to COVID-19, with its very low death rate, while working to keep the economy going. And Germany is quite a diverse country yet anti-immigrant sentiment is present. How is Germany addressing all of these issues? The panelists addressed questions including: How has Germany’s EU presidency gone? What has Chancellor Merkel accomplished? What has Germany done correctly regarding COVID-19 and why have they been so successful? At a time when the protests in the US surrounding anti-Black racism are catching on in Germany, how has Germany responded? How are other EU countries looking to Germany as a positive example?

Promotional flyer for November 13 2020 event on Germany's EU leadership.

Speaker Bios

Konrad Jarausch

Christian Jetzlsperger

Christian Jetzlsperger currently serves as Minister Counselor and Deputy Head of the Political Department of the German Embassy in Washington, DC. He previously headed the Division for Stabilization Policy within the newly created Directorate-General for Crisis Prevention, Stabilization, Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, and Humanitarian Assistance at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. Christian Jetzlsperger joined the Federal Foreign Service in 2003 and has since served at the German Embassies in Albania (2004-2007) and Afghanistan (2009-2011). From 2011 to 2013, he was Deputy Head of Mission at the German Representative Office in Ramallah, and between 2013 and 2014, Head of Political Section and Chargé d’affaires a.i. at the European Union Delegation in Yemen. Christian Jetzlsperger holds an M.A. in history and political science from Ludwig Maximilians-Universität in Munich. Before joining the foreign service, he worked as assistant professor at the Universities of Bonn and Erfurt; from 2003 to 2004, he was a research fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

Priscilla Layne

Priscilla Layne is Associate Professor of German in the Department of German and Slavic Languages and Literatures; and Adjunct Associate Professor of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Layne has guest lectured at Tübingen University and at the University of Bremen. Professor Layne focuses on sci-fi, cinema, and Black culture in Germany and Europe. Her first book, White Rebels in Black: German Appropriation of Black Popular Culture was published in 2018 by the University of Michigan Press. She is also the co-editor of the volume Rebellion and Revolution: Defiance in German Language, History and Art (2008). She is currently working on a monograph, Out of this World: Afro-German Afrofuturism. She held a Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin in fall 2018. She has published articles on German film, literature, translation and music in German Studies Review, the Women in German Yearbook and Colloquia Germanica. Professor Layne is on the Board of the German Studies Association and Vice President of the American Association of Teachers of German.