News

Even though you don’t know him, you may already feel a type of familiarity with author Marc Degens: he writes with a self-deprecating humour common in Canada, and he would also fit right in with our local startup culture.

An accomplished writer, Degens has published four novels, numerous other books, and had regular columns in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (The New York Times of the German-speaking world).

The Waterloo Centre for German Studies is once again offering travel grants to students from any faculty who will be travelling to Germany, Austria, or German-speaking Switzerland for study between May 1, 2016 and April 30, 2017. Deadline is very soon: February 1st. Grant amounts vary from $500-$1,500 each year.

Students who are considering applying for an exchange but have not yet done so are still encouraged to apply for the scholarship, since funds are not transferred until we’ve received confirmation that the student has been accepted to the program.

The Waterloo Centre for German Studies and the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies are hosting a reading by German author Michael Götting. He'll read from his premier novel, Contrapunctus (English: Counterpoint). The reading will take place on January 26 at 4:00 p.m.

Since the summer of 2015, members of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies have been working on a book tentatively titled The Germans of Waterloo Region. The first round of editing is almost complete, and the second drafts are starting to come in.

The book is based on interviews conducted between August 2013 and March 2015 with immigrants from German-speaking Europe and/or their children. Participants ranged in age from 28 to 94.

As 2015 comes to a close, 2016 opens up a special anniversary for the City of Kitchener. One hundred years ago, residents of the City of Berlin adopted the name of a British lord and Secretary of State for War during World War I. The name change was wrought with conflict brought on by the social and political environment of World War I.

This year's Jakob-&-Wilhelm Grimm Lecture, The Birth of Homeopathy out of the Spirit of 1800: Medicine as Cultural History, was a huge success, with standing room only by the time the lecture began.

If you weren't able to make this year's lecture, catch it online. Enjoy!

After 18 months of talking with 126 German immigrants and/or their children here in Waterloo Region, work has now begun on a book for the community, tentatively entitled Germans of Waterloo Region.

German filmmaker Marc Bauder is coming to uWaterloo next week to talk about the creation of Lichtgrenze, an art installation commemorating the 25th​ anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Read more about the event at the Daily Bulletin and visit the WCGS's event page.

Award-winning German director Maria Speth will be visiting the University of Waterloo tomorrow, April 21st. Read more about her upcoming visit.

This event is co-represented by the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo and the Goethe-Institut. Maria Speth is a guest of the Goethe-Institut.