Representing one-fourth of the population, German-Americans constitute the largest ethnic element, according to the U.S. Census, with well over 60 million people claiming German heritage. In twenty-six states, they comprise at least 20 percent of the population, and in five states they number more than 50 percent-important statistics in understanding the role played by German-Americans in U.S. history. The German-American Experience provides a comprehensive record of the essential facts in the history of this group, from its first U.S. settlements in the seventeenth century to the present. Beginning with "The Age of Discovery," this volume explores the earliest contacts between America and Germany, immigration and settlement patterns of Germans, foundations of German-American community life, their major involvement in the American Revolution, and the role German-Americans played in our Civil War. Both world wars are chronicled, including the anti-German sentiment and the internment of German-Americans during both wars. The revival of German heritage and the renaissance of German-American ethnicity since the 1970s is surveyed, along with recent events, including the impact of German unification and the 1990 census. The author also analyzes German-American influences on agriculture, industry, religion, education, music, art, architecture, politics, military service, journalism, literature, and language. In addition, he comments on prominent German-Americans, German names, sister cities, historical statistics, and much more.

A psychoanalytic approach focuses on central acts of perception and the role of vision as key to the formation of identity in Goethe. The impact of visuality on the act of writing is examined in this study and new interpretations of his most important works emerge through analysis of subject formation within a Lacanian framework.

Traditions and Transitions: Curricula for German Studies is a collection of essays by Canadian and international scholars on the topic of why and how the curriculum for post-secondary German studies should evolve. Its twenty chapters, written by international experts in the field of German as a foreign or second language, explore new perspectives on and orientations in the curriculum. In light of shifts in the linguistic and intercultural needs of today’s global citizens, these scholars in German studies question the foundations and motivations of common curriculum goals, traditional program content, standard syllabus design, and long-standing classroom practice. Several chapters draw on a range of contemporary theories—from critical applied linguistics, second-language acquisition, curriculum theory, and cultural studies—to propose and encourage new curriculum thinking and reflective practice related to the translingual and cross-cultural subjectivities of speakers, learners, and teachers of German. Other chapters describe and analyze specific examples of emerging trends in curriculum practice for learners as users of German. This volume will be invaluable to university and college faculty working in the discipline of German studies as well as in other modern languages and second-language education in general. Its combination of theoretical and descriptive explorations will help readers develop a critical awareness and understanding of curriculum for teaching German and to implement new approaches in the interests of their students.

Post-war Germany has been seen as a model of 'transitional justice' in action, where the prosecution of Nazis, most prominently in the Nuremberg Trials, helped promote a transition to democracy. However, this view forgets that Nazis were also prosecuted in what became East Germany, and the story in West Germany is more complicated than has been assumed. Revising received understanding of how transitional justice works, Devin O. Pendas examines Nazi trials between 1945 and 1950 to challenge assumptions about the political outcomes of prosecuting mass atrocities. In East Germany, where there were more trials and stricter sentences, and where they grasped a broad German complicity in Nazi crimes, the trials also helped to consolidate the emerging Stalinist dictatorship by legitimating a new police state. Meanwhile, opponents of Nazi prosecutions in West Germany embraced the language of fairness and due process, which helped de-radicalise the West German judiciary and promote democracy.

Goethe's play Stella caused so much turmoil in Germany that it was retracted from the stage. This new translation provides an introduction exploring the reception of the play in Germany and England and scholarly interpretations of the play as well as a detailed appendix. A useful resource for students, teachers, and scholars alike.

Second volume of the biennial publication of the Duke German Jewish Studies Workshop, making available important new research and considering the definition and development of the field of German Jewish Studies. Nexus is the official publication of the biennial German Jewish Studies Workshop at Duke University, the first ongoing forum in North America for German Jewish studies. It publishes innovative research in German Jewish Studies and serves as a venue for introducing new directions in the field, analyzing the development and definition of the field itself, and considering the place of German Jewish Studies within the disciplines of both German Studiesand Jewish Studies. Additionally, it examines issues of pedagogy and programming at the undergraduate, graduate, and community levels. The second volume of Nexus presents a special forum section on the controversial German Jewish religious historian Hans-Joachim Schoeps (1909-80), including contributions by Julius H. Schoeps, Hans J. Hillerbrand, Eric M. Meyers, Laura Lieber, Noah B. Strote, and Paul Reitter, as well as cutting-edge essays thathighlight important new developments in the field of German Jewish Studies. Contributors: Nick Block, Abigail Gillman, Anton Hieke, Hans J. Hillerbrand, Martin Kagel, Richard S. Levy, Laura Lieber, Eric M. Meyers, Andrea Reiter, Paul Reitter, Julius H. Schoeps, Noah B. Strote, Karina von Tippelskirch. William C. Donahue is Bishop-MacDermott Family Professor of Germanic Languages & Literature, and Professor, Program in Literature andJewish Studies, Duke University. Martha B. Helfer is Professor of German and an affiliate member of the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

This new account of early Cold War history focuses on the emergence of a bipolar structure of power, the continuing importance of the German question, and American efforts to create a united Western Europe.

The contributions in this volume present cutting-edge theoretical and structural analyses of issues surrounding German-language islands, or "Sprachinseln," throughout the world. The individual topics of study in this volume focus on various aspects of these German-language islands such as (but not limited to) phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of these languages under investigation. Collectively, the body of research contained in this volume explores significantly under-researched topics in the fields of language contact and language attrition and illustrates how this on-going research can be enhanced through the application of formal theoretical frameworks and structural analyses.

This book reflects recent scholarly and theoretical developments in media studies, or Medienwissenschaft. It focuses on linkages between North America and German‐speaking Europe, and brings together and contextualizes contributions from a range of leading scholars. In addition to introducing English‐language readers to some of the most prominent contemporary German media theorists and philosophers, including Claus Pias, Sybille Krämer and Rainer Leschke, the book shows how foundational North American contributions are themselves inspired and informed by continental sources. This book takes Harold Innis or Marshall McLuhan (and other members of the “Toronto School”) as central points of reference, and traces prospective and retrospective lines of influence in a cultural geography that is increasingly global in its scope. In so doing, the book also represents a new episode in the international reception and reinterpretation of the work of Innis and McLuhan, the two founders of the theory and study of media.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Germans exhibited a widespread cultural passion for tales and representations of Native Americans. This book explores the evolution of German national identity and its relationship with the ideas and cultural practices around “Indianthusiasm.” Pervasive and adaptable, imagery of Native Americans was appropriated by Nazi propaganda and merged with exceptionalist notions of German tribalism, oxymoronically promoting the Nazis’ racial ideology. This book combines cultural and intellectual history to scrutinize the motifs of Native American imagery in German literature, media, and scholarship, and analyzes how these motifs facilitated the propaganda effort to nurture national pride, racial thought, militarism, and hatred against the Allied powers among the German populace.