The Waterloo Centre for German Studies hosted this international conference at the University of Waterloo. It brought together scholars from North American and European universities whose research investigated various facets of the post-secondary curriculum for teaching and learning German as a foreign and/or second language and culture.
The potential new influences on the discipline of German are many and varied. New digital technologies, the information economy, globalization and multiculturalism, altered international spheres of influence, the changing manner of communication, the internationalization and corporatization of universities, the rise of cultural studies especially in the English-speaking world, second language acquisition research, and critical applied linguistics are just a few of the current external and internal influences. As a result, many traditionally widespread ideas and approaches in German post-secondary curricula have recently been challenged.
German Studies in the 21st century has to acknowledge a very different geo-political situation, a new generation of students with different expectations, and an advanced and far more complex understanding of its subject matter—German language, culture, and history. The conference provided a forum for discussing the challenges of current transitions and their impact on German curricula and made a major contribution to the global discussion about the learning and teaching of German language and culture at university.
The three keynote speakers were
- Claire Kramsch – Professor of German at the University of California, Berkeley,
- Alice Pitt – Dean of the Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto, and
- Dietmar Rösler – Professor of German as a Foreign and Second Language, Justus-Liebig Universität, Gießen, Germany.
Selected papers from this conference have been published with Wilfrid Laurier University Press as part of the WCGS German Studies book series. Centre member Barbara Schmenk, conference co-chair with John Plews, Saint Mary’s University, headed the local organizing team of members of the WCGS Applied Language Studies research group.