Five-Year Reviews

                                                         

On behalf of the Faculty of Arts, I am delighted to provide this letter to confirm the Faculty' s ongoing support for the Waterloo Centre for German Studies. I would like to acknowledge the Centre and its director and members for their success in stimulating excellence in academic research, supporting the next generation of researchers and research users through small grants and awards, sponsorships and their recently launched book prize, and in mobilizing public interest through their outreach efforts. It has used its endowment wisely by supporting faculty and students, and by mounting events and bringing in speakers that collectively have helped to integrate and inspire a wider community of scholars and supporters.  The Grimm Lecture series is an excellent example of the Centre's commitment to engagement: key scholars from across the humanities and social sciences delivering wide-ranging talks that touch upon big questions and speak to scholars from many disciplines as well as the interested public.

The Waterloo Centre for German Studies to the University of Waterloo has consistently and with great effect advanced the cause of leading edge research and dissemination, and has been instrumental in giving our researchers the impact and profile they deserve . It exemplifies our commitment to internationalization, interdisciplinarity, and experiential education.

I enthusiastically recommend that Senate Graduate and Research Council renew WCGS's mandate for five year term.

Dr Douglas M Peers, FRHS Dean of the Faculty of Arts Professor  of History

Executive Summary

The Waterloo Centre for German Studies was founded and approved by Senate for five years in 2004. Most of its operations are based on a privately funded endowment. The original fundraising goal of $3 million was reached in December 2008 as part of the Campaign Waterloo through the tireless efforts of the WCGS Founding Director, David John. The Centre was approved by Senate for a further five years in spring of 2009.

The Centre’s first mandate is research. During the report period 2009-14, the WCGS became an infrastructure for collaborative and transdisciplinary research in German applied linguistics, cultural studies, and history.

• Through the increased involvement of current and former graduate students and collaboration with scholars at other universities, the Centre’s membership of researchers tripled.

• Five research groups were established, which significantly enriched the collaborative research activities of the WCGS.

• We organized two major international and a number of smaller national and international conferences and colloquia and supported the conferences of the Canadian Association of University Teachers of German and the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics—especially as part of the Congress 2012 of the Humanities and Social Sciences—and the international Austrian Studies Association.

• We established the WCGS German Studies book series with Wilfrid Laurier University Press. John H. Smith, Diefenbaker Memorial Chair in German Literary Studies, became the series editor, and an international editorial board includes eminent scholars in history, linguistics, and literary studies. Three books were published:

• (2012) Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria. Film and Media Studies Series. Mueller, Gabriele and James M. Skidmore, editors. The book is the outcome of a conference under the Centre’s auspices.

• (2012) Liberty is Dead: A Canadian in Germany, 1938. Wegenast, Franklin Wellington. Derry, Margaret, editor. The book is a first publication of prominent German-Canadian lawyer and writer Wegenast and his analysis of the Third Reich in 1938.

• (2013) Traditions and Transitions. Curricula for German Studies. Schmenk, Barbara and John Plews, editors. This book discusses university curricula in German Studies and came out of a WCGS conference on learning German as a second/foreign language.

• Two volumes—based on recent Centre-hosted conferences on the history of the German Democratic Republic and Austrian Studies—are in preparation.

• In 2013, we began the ambitious Oral History Project (OHP) for which we are recruiting and interviewing German immigrants in Waterloo Region. The OHP involves six professors and 20 graduate students of the Centre. So far, we have completed 40 interviews, and we have over 30 participants waiting to participate. The interviews are being recorded for an electronic text corpus to be used by researchers in applied linguistics, cultural studies, and history. In addition to this research tool, a book depicting and synthesizing the stories of migration and acculturation in the historical context of the twentieth century will be produced.

• Centre members continued to be active researchers: theses and dissertations were completed successfully, publications contributed to the academic discourses in German Studies, and funded research projects were completed or are underway.

The Waterloo Centre for German Studies’ second mandate is the provision of rich educational and cultural programming. We maintained a series of public research seminars and lectures, author readings, theatre performances, and exhibitions to promote the awareness and knowledge of German Studies on campus and in the wider community.

Most notably, the WCGS established the annual Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Lecture. In the four lectures thus far, Germanist scholars of international renown have addressed topics that transcend the boundaries of traditional German Studies and highlight the contributions of German Studies to other academic disciplines:

• history of the ecology and economy of water in central Europe,
• politics of migration and acculturation in Germany,
• social contexts of language change in post-war Austria, and
• history and international context of German film.

We hosted three exhibitions that drew particularly large crowds from both on and off campus: on the two German states and German unification, on the fall of the Berlin Wall, and one commemorating the prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp. The exhibitions were accompanied by illuminating and thought-provoking discussions and lectures. The Centre also supported the staging of two dramatic performances in the Theatre of the Arts and the Registry Theatre by German and Canadian artists as well as an artistic documentary film by a Canadian artist on international issues of repression and mental health.

Fulfilling its third mandate, the Centre continued its engagement with German-Canadian heritage through strong collaboration with Special Collections and Archives in the Dana Porter Library. The collection, transcription, translation, and analysis of documents pertaining to local history continued and researchers from a wide range of disciplines benefited from better and wider access to these research tools. The WCGS director and other Centre members represented the WCGS at and participated in important community events such as Ontario’s German Pioneers Day, the Day of German Unity, the German Volkstrauertag (remembrance day), the Concordia German School convocation, the Germanica Awards, and the Wilfrid L. Bitzer Awards ceremony.

The Centre’s fundraising efforts continued and resulted in substantial donations by Egon Homburger for the WCGS endowment, Cecilia Piller for the Cecilia and the late George Piller Graduate Research Award, the German-Canadian Education Fund for the Oral History Project through the efforts of community member Marga Weigel and German professor emeritus Manfred Richter, as well as a number of smaller donations. The $1.5 million donation by the Stork family was finalized in late 2008 and started being put to use in the Centre’s endowment and through the Fred and Ruth Stork Awards in German Studies beginning in 2009.

Through its many research and programming activities, the Waterloo Centre for German Studies has, over the ten years of its existence, made significant contributions to German Studies research, the academic and cultural life at the University of Waterloo, to the community of Waterloo Region, to the German Studies and German teaching communities in Canada and internationally.

The Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies is currently in the process of hiring a new Rt. Hon. John G. Diefenbaker Memorial Chair in German Literary Studies. As was the case with her/his predecessor, John H. Smith, the Diefenbaker chair will play a leadership role in the research and programming of the WCGS. Research projects—funded by the SSHRC, the University of Waterloo, and the WCGS—are underway; plans for educational and cultural programming well into the coming years are in place. A major international conference on multilingualism and transcultural and translingual competencies is envisaged for 2016. Our future fundraising efforts will be complemented by the continued generation of research income from federal and provincial sources.

Progress Report

Objectives

The Waterloo Centre for German Studies has the following mandate:

• To conduct research on the language, culture, and civilization of German-speaking peoples, from both historical and contemporary perspectives;
• To provide a wide range of educational and cultural activities for the academy and the broader community;
• To engage with German-Canadian heritage.

The WCGS provides the infrastructure and fosters research collaboration of its professorial, staff, and graduate student members

• From the University of Waterloo, including the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, the Department of History, Conrad Grebel University College, and the Dana Porter Library; and
• From other universities in Canada and the United States: Brock University, University of Guelph, University of Illinois Chicago, McMaster University, Ryerson University, Saskatchewan University, University of Toronto, Western University, Wilfrid Laurier University, and York University.

Through hosting and organizing conferences and seminars, the WCGS supports and disseminates research in German Studies in the broad areas of cultural studies, film and visual studies, history, language education, literary studies, second language acquisition, and sociolinguistics. Centre members work in five research groups: Applied Language Studies, Austrian Studies, Contemporary German Culture and Society, Ecology, and German-Canadian Studies. Graduate student members of the Centre are centrally involved in research groups and projects. Their research and learning is often supported through awards financed by the WCGS endowment:

• Fred and Ruth Stork Awards in German Studies (international opportunities awards),
• Cecilia and the late George Piller Graduate Research Award for excellence in graduate research,
• Herta Brichta Award for German Studies for excellence in graduate studies, and
• the Evelyn Guderian Thesis Prize for the top thesis or dissertation successfully defended.

The WCGS organizes and hosts a wide range of cultural and educational events such as author readings, theatrical performances, documentary and art exhibitions, and invited lectures and seminars. These are open to all colleagues and students at the University of Waterloo and to interested members of the community. The WCGS programming promotes awareness and understanding of issues and discourses in German Studies.

The Centre engages with German-Canadian heritage. Key activities here are

• work of the German-Canadian Studies research group,
• collaboration with and the support of the German holdings of the special collections and archive department in the Dana Porter Library,
• collaboration with the German-Canadian community in Waterloo Region and beyond on projects of mutual interest, and
• specialized programming to increase awareness of the history, culture, and languages of German Canadians.

Most of the operations of the WCGS are supported through a privately funded endowment. Thus, the Centre continues to be involved in the advancement and fundraising efforts of the Faculty of Arts and the University of Waterloo.

Summary of the Plans for 2009-14 from the 2009 WCGS Report

WCGS members continued their research on German literature and film, history, and applied linguistics. Individual SSHRC projects (Liebscher/O’Cain, Schulze/Heift) and internally supported projects (Calogeridis/Forgay, Mavor/Britton/Schulze) as well as other individual research programs and activities were still ongoing and have now been completed successfully. In addition to these areas, the following research themes emerged and/or were based on projects already under way at the time:

• Environment: Germany's particular role and position on environmental issues, their depiction in cultural artefacts and media discourses
• United Germany 25: historical, societal, political issues of modern Germany in an international context and (up to) a quarter century after German Unification
• Learning and teaching of German Studies: university curricula, language teaching, intercultural awareness
• German language and culture in Waterloo Region and Ontario: language use and identity, study of German archive materials, bibliography of German-Canadian materials

The WCGS planned to increase the number of its graduate student members through active recruitment in summer and fall of 2009. The Centre also planned to broaden its base of researchers by inviting colleagues in German Studies at universities in southwestern Ontario to become members and to actively participate in the research and programming activities of the WCGS. The plan targets were exceeded and the WCGS has now a base of 60 active researchers—professors, graduate students, and librarians.

Events envisaged for the 2009-2014 period and which were subsequently realized included these:

• A book resulting from the 2008 conference Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria.
• The conference "Transitions and Traditions: German Curricula" was held August 2010. Barbara Schmenk (WCGS) and John Plews (St Mary’s University, Nova Scotia) were the conference chairs. Centre members were members of the local organizing committee and the program committee.
• The annual conference of the Austrian Studies Association was hosted by the Centre in 2013. Conference organizer was Michael Boehringer.
• An annual flagship lecture series, the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Lecture, began in 2009. This public research lecture is delivered at the University of Waterloo by an outstanding, internationally recognized scholar in German Studies. (Though Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are probably best known for their collection of fairy tales, they were also nineteenth-century university professors, who—thanks to their work in German linguistics, literature, and history—were among the founding fathers of German Studies.) The inaugural lecture was held on 18 November 2009, the anniversary of the day in 1837 on which the Göttingen Seven (the two Grimms and five other professors) submitted their note protesting the abolition of constitutional rights in the Kingdom of Hannover.

Research Accomplishments

Research Groups

In April 2009, the WCGS organized a German Studies Colloquium for its members. We discussed current and emerging directions in research in German Studies. In the course of the discussion, five research themes emerged and subsequently five research groups were established. It was through these research groups and the initiatives of individual WCGS members—both professors and graduate students—that the Centre significantly increased its collaborative research activities and its research output.

The Applied Language Studies research group organizes and hosts the biennial Waterloo Colloquium on Language Learning and Teaching, at which graduate students present their research on foreign language pedagogy and second language acquisition. The colloquium is supported financially by the WCGS. In 2010, research group member Barbara Schmenk—with John Plews, Saint Mary’s University—organized the Centre-hosted, international conference Transitions and Traditions—German Curricula. Members of the Applied Language Studies research group participated in the local organizing committee and contributed papers. The book Plews, J and B. Schmenk (2013) Traditions and Transitions. Curricula for German Studies (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press) was based on this conference and published as the latest volume in the WCGS German Studies Series. The research group organized a number of graduate colloquia, research seminars, and invited lectures in the course of the last five years.

The Austrian Studies research group prepared as its main project the 2013 conference of the Austrian Studies Association. Centre member Michael Boehringer was the conference chair. This association organizes an annual international conference on all aspects of Austrian Studies: history, language, literature, and society. The year 2013 was only the second conference of 14 held in Canada, the previous one having been held in Edmonton. An edited volume of selected papers from the conference is in preparation, with Centre members Boehringer, Kleinhans, and Cattell as the editors. The volume is scheduled to be published as part of the WCGS German Studies series in 2015. This group also hosted a number of research seminars, open graduate classes, and invited lectures.

The research group Contemporary German Culture and Society was less active in the early years of the report period. In 2013, Centre member Gary Bruce organized the conference Herrschaft und Macht in der DDR on East German history and society, which took place at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. A number of eminent scholars on East German history gave presentations and engaged in extended discussions. An edited volume with state-of-the-art research on this subject is in progress and scheduled to be published as part of the Centre’s book series in 2015.

The Ecology research group, initiated and coordinated by WCGS member Alice Kuzniar, has brought together researchers and graduate students from this and neighbouring universities. With their regular research seminars, invited talks, and the organization of small conferences, this has been the most active of the five research groups. Their research focuses on German literary and other cultural discourses on ecology, nature, and the environment and their relevance to today’s society.

The German-Canadian Studies research group had regular discussion meetings and organized a number of lectures, for example by Alexander Freund, the Chair in German-Canadian Studies at the University of Winnipeg. Group members compiled the searchable bibliography of German Canadiana, available on the website of the University of Waterloo Library and were involved in the transcription and translation of German texts of local historical, cultural, and linguistic relevance in the University’s archive. Members of this group are now centrally involved in the Oral History Project (more on that below).

                  Conferences

The WCGS has become a major venue for the discussion and dissemination of research in German Studies on campus, Canada-wide, and internationally. The following conferences were organized and hosted between 2009 and 2014:

German Studies Forum - 1949-1989-2009: The Path to German and European Unity – September 29, 2009

The year 2009 marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the opening of the border between East and West Germany, and the 60th anniversary of the German Grundgesetz (Basic Law). Presentations at this multi-disciplinary conference included different aspects of German society and culture by specialists from several disciplines: Anthropology, History, German Studies, Geography, Economics, and Political Science. Presenters comprised a number of professors and graduate students from the Waterloo Centre for German Studies, different departments at the University of Waterloo, and universities in southwestern Ontario. The evening speaker was Paul Heinbecker, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) Distinguished Fellow and formerly the Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minster Mulroney. Conference chair was WCGS director Mat Schulze.

Traditions and Transitions - German Curricula – August 26-28, 2010

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.

Romantic Ecology Symposium - March 19, 2011

Presenters from German and English Studies, Science and Technology, discussed the connections between literature, nature, and eco-criticism. Invited speakers were

• David Clark (Professor of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University),
• Ian Balfour (Professor of English, York University), and
• Joan Steigerwald (Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies, York University).

Centre members David John (German, University of Waterloo), Belinda Kleinhans (German, University of Waterloo), Christine Lehleiter (German, University of Toronto), and Paola Mayer (European Studies, University of Guelph) as well as Shalon Noble (English, Western University), and Morgan Tunzelmann (English, University of Waterloo) gave papers. The symposium was organized by WCGS member Alice Kuzniar and sponsored by the WCGS, the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies, York University, and the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies. 

Dream of the Other Europe: Rethinking Germanistik through the Balkans – February 4, 2012

This conference examined how Germanophone writers from the Balkan countries contribute to recent discussions of migration, displacement, impermanence, and what Azade Seyhan calls the “geographies of memory.” The mini-conference was inaugurated the night before by readings in Croatian and German by the Swiss-Croatian poet, Dragica Rajčić, with translations into English offered by Christine Fritze (University of Victoria). WCGS member Alice Kuzniar was the conference chair. The conference was also supported by Croatian Studies at the University of Waterloo.

Waterloo Colloquium on Language Learning and Teaching – April 1, 2013

Centre members Emma Betz and Barbara Schmenk organized this colloquium, where graduate students from the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies discussed a wide variety of topics and issues pertaining to teaching German as a foreign language.

Congress 2012 of the Humanities and Social Sciences – May / June 2012

The WCGS was centrally involved in Congress 2012 at the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University. Centre member James Skidmore was the Congress co-convener and the local organizer of the annual conference of the Canadian Association of University Teachers of German (CAUTG). WCGS director Mat Schulze was the local organizer of the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics. Graduate students and colleagues of the Centre’s research groups were members of these conferences’ organizing teams. The Diefenbaker chair and centre member John H. Smith gave one of the keynote presentations at the CAUTG conference. The WCGS provided substantial financial support for both conferences. The Centre also sponsored a keynote speaker at the CAUTG conferences in 2011 and 2013 and has already committed for the 2014 conference.

Austrian Studies Association Annual Conference – May 2-5, 2013

The ASA held their annual conference at the University of Waterloo, the second time in the conference’s 14-year history that it was held in Canada. The conference focused on Glaubenssysteme/Belief Systems, and received generous support from many organizations:

• Austrian Cultural Forum (Canada),
• Austrian Cultural Forum (New York),
• Austrian Embassy (Ottawa),
• Austrian Studies Association,
• Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies,
• Faculty of Arts at the University of Waterloo,
• Retail Services University of Waterloo,
• Waterloo Centre for German Studies.

Scholars attended from Austria, Canada, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States, representing disciplines such as philosophy, science, history, film studies, architecture, literary studies, linguistics, gender studies, religious studies, comparative studies, and political science. Discussions focused on national belief systems and popular belief systems. Centre member Michael Boehringer, supported by a team of graduate students and colleagues mainly from the Centre’s Austrian Studies research group, was the conference chair.

In the context of the conference, the WCGS hosted the exhibition The Life and Art of Gustav Klimt - Forerunner to Modernism. To commemorate the “Gustav Klimt Year” in Austria and Klimt’s 150th birthday, the Austrian Cultural Forum in cooperation with the Waterloo Centre for German Studies presented a facsimile exhibit of his life and work. Gustav Klimt was one of the central figures of fin-de-siècle Vienna, the epoch that marked the beginning of Modernism. He created some of the most famous Art Nouveau paintings worldwide and was one of the organizers of the “Jugendstil” art movement in Vienna. The Austrian Embassy chose to honour Gustav Klimt by showing a tribute exhibition in Canada, bringing some of his art and his life to the Canadian public.

Power and Daily Life in East Germany – May 26-27, 2013

Gary Bruce, a WCGS member, organized this two-day conference, held at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA). It brought together some of the world’s leading experts on East Germany, including

• Alan MacDougall (University of Guelph),
• Armin Mitter (University of Halle),
• Edith Scheffer (Stanford University),
• Hermann Wentker (Institute for Contemporary History, Berlin),
• Hope Harrison (George Washington University),
• Mark Kramer (Harvard University), and
• Stefan Wolle (Director of the GDR Museum in Berlin).

Topics of discussion included opposition in daily life in East Germany, East German foreign relations, East German sport, memorialization of the Berlin Wall, grassroots involvement in creation of the German-German border, and the role of the East German army in everyday life. The conference was funded in part by the WCGS, the Dean of Arts' office, the BSIA, the Office of Research, and the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies. A publication of the conference proceedings is in preparation and is planned to appear as part of the WCGS German Studies series in 2015. The conference was held in German and English.

                  WCGS Publications

We established the WCGS German Studies book series with Wilfrid Laurier University Press. John H. Smith, the former Diefenbaker Memorial Chair in German Literary Studies, became the series editor, and an international editorial board included eminent scholars in history, linguistics, and literary studies. Three books were published with WLU press during the reporting period:

• (2012) Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria. Film and Media Studies Series. Mueller, Gabriele and James M. Skidmore, editors. The book is the outcome of a conference.
• (2012) Liberty is Dead: A Canadian in Germany, 1938. Wegenast, Franklin Wellington. Derry, Margaret, editor. The book is a first publication of prominent German-Canadian lawyer and writer Wegenast and his analysis of the Third Reich in 1938.
• (2013) Traditions and Transitions. Curricula for German Studies. Schmenk, Barbara and John Plews, editors. This book is about university curricula in German Studies and came out of a conference on learning German as a second/foreign language.
• Two volumes—based on recent Centre hosted conference on the history of the German Democratic Republic and Austrian Studies—are in preparation.

A representative list of research publications by Centre members can be found in Appendix A.

                  Research funding

The WCGS was very successful in obtaining funding for its research conferences, colloquia, and talks, as detailed in the relevant sections. Centre members Grit Liebscher, Barbara Schmenk, and Mat Schulze prepared a funding application ($300,000) to the Ontario Research Fund—Research Excellence Funding in 2011. Unfortunately, after a re-shuffle of in the Ontario government, this funding line was pulled after the Notice-of-Intent stage. Centre members were successful in obtaining external funding and were able to hire WCGS graduate students as research assistants (see table below).

                  Funded Research Projects (University of Waterloo Faculty members)

2007-10	Mat Schulze	$151,113	SSHRC
2009-10	Mat Schulze	$14,941	LIF grant
2011-12	Barbara Schmenk	$8,000	SSHRC 4A
2012-13	Paul Malone	$8,000	SSHRC 4A
2012-13	Grit Liebscher	$13,200	LIF grant
2010-14	Mat Schulze	$117,830	SSHRC
2011-14	Alice Kuzniar	$70,323	SSHRC
2013-14	Grit Liebscher	$5,492	Harding Endowment
2013-15	James Skidmore	$35,714	DAAD, LITE Seed Grant
2013-15	Emma Betz	$11,863	LITE grant and uW SSHRC

                  Research Talks and Lectures

Annual Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Lecture

For this annual flagship event of the WCGS, a prominent Germanist scholar is invited to the University of Waterloo. The lecture is named after the founding fathers of German Studies, the brothers Grimm, who conducted research on German literature, linguistics, and history. Its goal is to highlight the social relevance of modern German Studies, its interdisciplinary scope, and its contributions to many other areas of academic enquiry.

• Nature and Environment in Modern Germany: A Difficult History (November 18, 2010)
  • Presenter: David Blackbourn, Germanist historian at Harvard University
  • Summary: Blackbourn discussed the history of water—its ecology, economic use, and its place in society—in central Europe.
• Citizenship in Germany: From Mono-cultural to Multi-cultural Society (November 10, 2011)
  • Presenter: Christiane Lemke, Max Weber Chair in German and European Politics at New York University, Professor of Political Science at the Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany, and co-director of the Jean Monnet European Center of Excellence
  • Summary: The German concept of ethno-cultural citizenship has been highly contested in recent years given the increased migration to the country. Lemke addressed the debate about multiculturalism and explored the situation of migrant populations in Germany in the light of new citizenship regulations.

• Recent Developments in Post-War Austrian German: A Case Study on Genre-Related Language Change (October 23, 2012)
  • Presenter: Ruth Wodak, Distinguished Professor and Chair in Discourse Studies at Lancaster University in England
  • Summary: Wodak covered language change in Austrian German in the fields of education, media, and business and how different text genres—business reports, newspaper articles, the Austrian Press Agency’s news reports, and high school students’ German essays—underwent significant change between 1970 and 2010.
• The Lives of Others / Das Leben der Anderen  (October 25, 2013)
  • Presenter: Eric Rentschler, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
  • Summary: The Lives of Others won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2007. Rentschler situated this German film on East German secret service and its interference with cultural production and creativity in the context of German film history and discussed the notion of heritage film in European film.

                  Individual Lectures and Talks

The list below itemizes research talks and lectures organized and hosted by the Centre to illustrate the rich research culture of the WCGS. All lectures were public and thus open not only to WCGS members, but also colleagues, students, and community members. The attendance ranged from seminar size (~25–50 people) to a large lecture audience (Zayas: ~250 people).

German Language and (Dis-)Unity: German Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - October 20, 2009

Mat Schulze gave a public presentation at the Kitchener Public Library about the status of the German language in Kitchener-Waterloo and discussed a number of factors that influence the situation of bilingual speakers in English-speaking Canada.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Why it Happened, What it Changed - November 9, 2009

WCGS member James Skidmore gave a talk at Kitchener Public Library on the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

2010 Diefenbaker Lecture Series - February 1, 2010

In February and March 2010, the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies and the Waterloo Centre for German Studies hosted the 2010 Diefenbaker Lecture Series. Six distinguished scholars of German Literary Studies presented and discussed their thoughts on the study of German literature in the 21st century.

Ethnic Cleansing 1945 – 1948 - March 22, 2010

Discussion with Alfred de Zayas (Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations), Dieter Buse (Laurentian University) and Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach (University of Waterloo) on the expulsion of 12 million Germans from their homes in several eastern European countries and regions, including the many who were forced into Soviet labour camps. Alfred de Zayas is a retired senior lawyer with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and a retired Secretary of the United Nations Human Rights Committee; Dieter Buse is Professor Emeritus of History (Laurentian University); and WCGS member Sebastian Siebel Achenbach is Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Waterloo.

Franklin Wellington Wegenast, the Life of a German Canadian and His Impressions of Germany in 1938 - September 21, 2010

As one of very few North Americans, Wegenast visited Germany in 1938 and kept a travel diary which Margaret Derry edited and for which she wrote an extensive commentary/contextualization. The WCGS research group German-Canadian Studies organized the talk.

What Happened to the German Language in Kitchener-Waterloo? - October 14, 2010

Mat Schulze presented at the Kitchener Public Library on the status of the German language in Kitchener-Waterloo and discussed a number of factors that influence the situation of bilingual speakers in English-speaking Canada.

Austrian Immigration to Canada - 1938 to 1970 - September 16, 2011

This talk by the historian Andrea Strutz (Universität Graz, Austria) explored the legal constraints and the practice of post-1945 emigration from Austria to Canada, with special attention given to the individual experiences and the memories of both Jewish and non-Jewish Austrian migrants, collected in a series of oral histories. The event was organized by the Department of History and co-sponsored by the Waterloo Centre for German Studies and the Department of Jewish Studies.

The Anthes Papers - September 29, 2011

Susan Thorne explained and described her challenges in translating letters from 1867-1872 by pastor Jacob Anthes from Kitchener-Waterloo. The letters, mixed systems of the old German scripts, Roman lettering, and borrowed English words, provided insight in to the daily life of a German Evangelical preacher at the time of Confederation. Dr. Geoffrey Hayes, history professor at the University of Waterloo, then placed Jacob Anthes’ importance within German-Ontarian History.

Guttenberg to Google Street View - Germany Today as Seen by its Cartoonists - October 4, 2011

Christophe Fricker, Craig-Kade writer in residence at Rutgers University, combined two seemingly unrelated topics – how plagiarism brought a high-profile politician’s career to an abrupt end, and how hundreds of thousands of Germans objected to their house being photographed by Google Street View – by showcasing humoristic motifs and techniques used by op-ed artists.

Affen, Wölfe und Tanzbären - November 25, 2011

Regine Zeller, University of Mannheim, gave a lecture on animal imagery in Thomas Mann's early works and analyzed the form and function of “the other” as an animal in his earlier stories.

On the Interactional Import of Self-Repair in the Courtroom - November 25, 2011

Tanya Romaniuk and Susan Ehrlich, York University, examined how certain conversational resources are used for specific purposes in institutional talk. They provided insights into the analysis of interaction in the courtroom.

Zukunft der deutschen Sprache - September 10, 2012

Manfred Schröder (Verein Deutsche Sprache) discussed the changes occurring in everyday German language. This talk was organized upon the initiative of Ernst Friedel, community representative on the WCGS Advisory Board.

Classicism and Secular Humanism: The Sanctification of Die Zauberflöte in Goethe's Novelle - September 17, 2012

Presentation by Jane K. Brown, Joff Hanauer Distinguished Professor for Western Civilization Emerita (Germanics and Comparative Literature) in the Department of Germanics at the University of Washington. She offered insights into how Mozart’s opera influenced Goethe’s Novelle.

Salvaging History: Can We Learn Anything from (Really Bad) 1970s Oral History Interviews? - September 21, 2012

Alexander Freund (Professor of History and Chair of German-Canadian Studies, University of Winnipeg) highlighted the challenges but also the advantages of conducting oral history, which included explaining why the oral history interviews conducted in the 1970s are considered “bad,” and how to make the best use of the material we have.

Language Attitudes in Interaction in Narrated Language Biographies - September 28, 2012

Katharina König, visiting researcher from the University of Münster, Germany, discussed language attitudes in interaction in narrated language biographies. Based on a corpus of narrative interviews with people of Vietnamese origin living in Germany, she addressed different linguistic strategies of self- and other-positioning.

Symbolic Competence: New Goal for Global Times - October 20, 2012

Claire Kramsch, Professor of German and Foreign Language Education at UC Berkeley and founding Director of the Berkeley Language Center, illustrated the concept of symbolic competence both in the theory and the practice of foreign language teaching and learning. Given the increasing importance of language in the global economy both as a mode of communication and as the power to make and impose meaning on others, foreign language learners need the ability not just to express conventional meanings and solve communicative tasks but to interpret what is meant by what is said, to understand how people use symbolic systems to construct new meanings, and to imagine how the other languages they know might influence the way they think, speak and write.

History and Forms of Beautiful Ugliness - February 13, 2013

Mark W. Roche, Joyce Professor of German and Concurrent Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, discussed ugliness and its role in our culture: How can ugliness be considered art? How does it manifest itself in cultural history? In what ways has the German tradition contributed distinctive insights to the aesthetics of the ugly?

Celan's Orientation between the Languages - April 16, 2013

This talk was co-hosted with the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies and organized by the Diefenbaker Memorial Chair in German Literary Studies, John Smith. Na'ama Rokem of the University of Chicago (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations) presented her work on the poet Paul Celan (1920-1970) as part of a larger project that deals with German-Jewish and Hebrew literature through the lens of bilingualism and self-translation.

Stefan Heym – November 21, 2013

Historian Armin Mitter (Berlin, Germany) gave a lecture in German on the well-known writer Stefan Heym. Heym grew up in Germany, but had to flee the country at a young age. During his exile he became a writer and wrote a number of novels in English and German. He returned to Germany as a member of the American armed forces during World War II and in later life became the Father of the House of the German federal parliament.

Diefenbaker Lecture Series - March 6 - April 8, 2014

By discussing the issues and problems that are currently central to their research in German Studies, five leading scholars explore how literary studies can fulfill the expectations of an academic discipline and connect with wider society.

Programming Activities

The WCGS offers a broad range of educational and cultural events for town and gown. The events listed below are indicative of how the Centre, through initiatives by its members, facilitates knowledge mobilization in German Studies. The expertise of its members and the strong links of the Centre with the German Consulate General in Toronto, the Goethe Institute in Toronto, the German Academic Exchange Service Information Centre in Toronto, the German Embassy in Ottawa, and many community associations in Waterloo Region continue to provide a solid basis for these events, which increase the awareness and knowledge of German history, culture, and contemporary society not only to the academic community but also to interested Canadians. The WCGS brought German authors (Bronsky), filmmakers (Foth), and actors (Markland) to Canada. We supported the production of an artistic documentary (Thauberger), a theatrical performance in the Theatre of the Arts (Markland) and one at the Registry Theatre in Kitchener (Grimm), and a dramatic reading (Voltaire). In particular, the timely exhibitions on the fall of the Berlin Wall, German unification, and remembering the prisoners of the concentration camp in Dachau had hundreds of visitors and helped raise awareness of these historical events. In the context of the Icons of the Wall exhibition, 200 high school students of German and their teachers and parents spend a Saturday in workshops, which were conducted by WCGS graduate student members and colleagues from the Goethe Institute. Rabbi Erwin Schild (Toronto), who was a prisoner in Dachau, visited the University of Waterloo in the context of the exhibition Names instead of Numbers and spoke to a group of 100 University of Waterloo students.

Bronsky Reading	April 8, 2009	Reading by German author Alina Bronsky; in collaboration with the Goethe Institute Toronto and the Munk Centre in Toronto.
Icons of the Wall	September 13 to October 3, 2009	Photographic exhibition of traces of the Berlin Wall in today's Berlin. Supported by the Goethe Institute Toronto.
From Peaceful Revolution to German Unity	October 8 to 29, 2010	An exhibition of posters by the Federal Foundation for the Critical Appraisal of the SED-Dictatorship, in cooperation with the Hertie Foundation.
Jörg Foth: Neues aus der DaDaeR	October 18, 2010	Viewing of the satire film about the GDR followed by discussion with the director.
Jean Snook: Reading from Her Recent Translations	November 21, 2010	Reading by Professor Jean M. Snook, Memorial University, Newfoundland, from her English translations of two Viennese writers.
Photo Exhibition: The Wall: A Border through Germany	November 15 to December 15, 2011	Photo exhibition marking 50 years since the building of the Berlin Wall. In collaboration with the German Consulate General in Toronto.
Tales of the Grimm	February 19 to 20, 2012	A modern retelling of untold Grimms’ fairy tales; theatre for the whole family during the Brothers Grimm Year 2012. Bilingual script by the local writer Maggie Clark; German translation by WCGS member Allison Cattell; production by now WCGS member Lori Straus. With financial support of the WCGS.
Bridge Markland: Faust in the Box	March 27 to March 28, 2012	The Berlin performance and transformation artist Bridge Markland presented her interpretation of Goethe's Faust I as a one-woman show in German and English in the Theatre of the Arts.
Exhibition: Names instead of Numbers	October 1-18, 2012	The international travelling exhibition Names instead of Numbers about prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp.
Voltaire & Frederick: A Life in Letters	November 10, 2012	Commissioned in honour of Frederick II's 300th birthday, Voltaire and Frederick: A Life in Letters was a dramatic reading of the correspondence between the French-European philosopher and the Royal Prince (and later King) of Prussia. In collaboration with the Department of Philosophy and the Department of French.
Exhibition: Althea Thauberger: Marat-Sade-Bohnice	December 15, 2012 - May 5, 2013	The WCGS financially supported a project at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery Toronto by Althea Thauberger. The project was an experimental and documentary record of the performance of German author Peter Weiss' play Marat/Sade at Bohnice, a psychiatric hospital in Prague.
KW German Walk	January-February 2013	Students of German produced a mobile app which guides locals and visitors on a tour of the Region to various landmarks of German heritage. Prepared in collaboration with the German Consulate in Toronto.
Film & Discussion: Marat Sade Bohnice	February 7, 2013	Viewing of Canadian artist Althea Thauberger's new project, Marat Sade Bohnice, followed by discussion with Thauberger.
Ask Me More about Brecht	October 22, 2013	Dramatic performance of composer Hans Eisler’s interviews with the Germanist Hans Bunge by Sabine Berendse and Paul Clements (United Kingdom).
Free German Movie Screenings	January 13 - March 24, 2014	Free German-movie screenings, held by WCGS member Dr. Alice Kuzniar.

Membership

WCGS members are scholars in German Studies at the University of Waterloo and other universities, graduate students in German Studies, and support staff. Throughout the five years of the report period, both MA and PhD students have been involved in research and programming activities of the Centre. Scholars and graduate students are working in the five research groups (see Research Accomplishments). Below, the current members of the Centre are listed; colleagues who retired in the course of the last five years and graduate students who completed their studies at the University of Waterloo and do not continue their work with the Centre are not listed. All members are active in the WCGS research groups, contribute to and participate in WCGS conferences and colloquia, work with WCGS graduate student members, and/or provide support for the Centre’s operation.

Derek Andrews                            MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Taylor Antoniazzi                         MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Kim Bardwell                               Director Arts Advancement                                            University of Waterloo

Karin Barton, PhD                        Contract Academic Staff, German                                 Wilfrid Laurier University

Harald Bauder, PhD                    Associate Professor of Geography                                 Ryerson University

Ina Bendig                   MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Emma Betz, PhD                         Assistant Professor of German                    University of Waterloo

Diane Bielicki, PhD                     Lecturer in Modern Languages                     Brock University

Michael Boehringer, PhD            Associate Professor of German                   University of Waterloo

Gary Bruce, PhD                         Associate Professor of History                                       University of Waterloo

Helena Calogeridis                      Librarian, Dana Porter Library                                        University of Waterloo

Allison Cattell                               PhD Candidate                                                                University of Waterloo

Stephanie Cooper                        MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Katja Czarnecki                           Administrative Assistant WCGS / GSS                         University of Waterloo

Marlene Epp, PhD                       Associate Professor of History                                       University of Waterloo

Jane Forgay                                 Librarian Dana Porter Library                                         University of Waterloo

Sara Ghaffarian                            PhD candidate                                                                  University of Waterloo

Tanya Hagman                            MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Geoffrey Hayes, PhD                  Associate Professor of History                                       University of Waterloo

David G. John, PhD                     Professor emeritus of German                                       University of Waterloo

Christine Robinson                      PhD candidate                                                                  University of Waterloo

Belinda Kleinhans, PhD               Assistant Professor of German                    Texas Tech University

Alice Kuzniar, PhD                      Professor of German                                     University of Waterloo

Myriam Léger, PhD                     General Manager                                                             PatTheDog Playwright Centre

Christine Lehleiter                       Assistant Professor                                                         University of Toronto

Katharina Leuner                          MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Grit Liebscher, PhD                     Associate Professor of German                   University of Waterloo

Judith Linneweber                        MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Ute Lischke, PhD                         Professor of English and Film Studies                           Wilfrid Laurier University

Paul Malone, PhD                        Associate Professor of German                   University of Waterloo

Sara Marsh                                  MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Paola Mayer, PhD                       Associate Professor of German                   University of Guelph

David T. McNab, PhD                 Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies  York University

Gabriele Mueller, PhD                Associate Professor of German                   York University

Maike Müller, PhD                      MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Mareike Mueller, PhD                 Clinical Assistant Professor of German                        University of Illinois at Chicago

Nikolai Penner, PhD  Assistant Professor of German                    McMaster University

Jennifer Redler                            MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Tetyana Reichert, PhD                Lecturer in German and Russian                                   University of Waterloo

Julia Roitsch                                MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Daniela Roth                                PhD candidate                                                                  University of Waterloo

Sam Schirm                                 MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Friederike Schlein                       PhD candidate                                                                  University of Waterloo

Barbara Schmenk, PhD              Associate Professor of German                   University of Waterloo

Kyle Scholz                                  PhD candidate                                                                  University of Waterloo

Katharina Schröder                      PhD candidate                                                                  University of Waterloo

Mathias Schulze, PhD                 Associate Professor of German                   University of Waterloo

Sebastian Siebel, PhD                 Adjunct Professor of History                                           University of Waterloo

James M. Skidmore, PhD          Associate Professor of German                   University of Waterloo

John Smith, PhD                          Professor of German                                     UC Irvine (former Diefenbaker chair, uW)

Lori Straus                                    WCGS Administrative Assistant                                    University of Waterloo

Lynne Taylor, PhD                       Associate Professor of History                                       University of Waterloo

Katharina Unkelbach MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Janet Vaughan                              Administrative Assistant, GSS                                       University of Waterloo

Gerlinde Weimer                         PhD candidate                                                                  University of Waterloo

Sara Werthmüller                        MA candidate                                                                   University of Waterloo

Jean Wilson, PhD                        Associate Professor of German                   McMaster University

Peter Wood, PhD                         Assistant Professor of German                    University of Saskatchewan

Michele Zilinski                           Wage and Salary Analyst

Alexandra Zimmermann, PhD   Contract Academic Staff, German                                 Wilfrid Laurier University

Administration

Director:                                      Mathias Schulze

Founding Director:                   David G. John

Assistant:                                    Lori Straus

Executive Committee:

Alice Kuzniar, Professor of German and English, University of Waterloo

Grit Liebscher, Chair of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, University of Waterloo

Mathias Schulze, Director of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies

Lynne Taylor, Associate Professor of History, University of Waterloo

Advisory Board:

Lynne Taylor              Associate Professor of History, University of Waterloo

Mathias Schulze        Director of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies

Helene Schramek      community representative

Uwe Rau                    Director Goethe Institute Toronto

Grit Liebscher            Chair of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, University of Waterloo

Alice Kuzniar              Professor of German and English, University of Waterloo

Christina Kraenzle     Director Canadian Centre for German and European Studies

John Paul Kleiner       Acting Director, German Academic Exchange Service Information Office, Toronto

David G. John            Founding Director of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies

Jasmin Hofer             community representative

Marion Hensel           German teacher, Waterloo Collegiate Institute

Ernst Friedel              community representative

WCGS German Studies Book Series Editorial Board

John H. Smith            former Diefenbaker Chair, University of Waterloo - Series Editor

Frank Finlay               Professor of German, University of Leeds

Sabine Hake               Professor and Texas Chair of German Literature and Culture, University of Texas, Austin

Bob Moeller                Professor of History, University of California, Irvine

Diethelm Prowe         Laird Bell Professor Emeritus of Modern European History, Carleton College

Dietmar Rösler          Professor of German as a Foreign and Second Language, Justus-Liebig Universität, Gießen

Joseph Salmons        Seifert Professor of Germanic Linguistics, University of Wisconsin, Madison

During the report period, Gary Bruce (Associate Professor and Chair of History), Michael Boehringer (Associate Professor of German), and James Skidmore (Associate Professor and former Chair of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies) served on the WCGS Executive Committee. James Skidmore was also the chair of the WCGS Advisory Board. Sonja Griegoschewski (former director of the Goethe Institute Toronto), Alex Hausstein (former director of the German Academic Exchange Service Information Office in Toronto), Peter Isaac (former director of the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies at York University), Ron Rhodes (high school teacher of German), and Mark Webber (Associate Professor of German, York University) served on the WCGS Advisory Board.

Finances

Most of the WCGS operations are financed through the annual yield of a privately funded endowment. At the beginning of the current report period, the global recession of financial markets was at its peak. The University of Waterloo ensured that capital investment of the WCGS endowment retained its book value. Interest rates (yield), however, were down from 4% to 1% and have climbed back up in recent years to 3%. This enabled the WCGS—through prudent budgeting in 2009-11—to provide a stable basis for its research and programming activities. In the last five years, the Centre has received a number of smaller, often regular donations and a large donation of $20,000 from Egon Homburger (see the chart and table of the endowment principal below).

The Centre stewards and administers a number of smaller endowments. All remained stable and we were able to support Waterloo undergraduate and graduate students with the endowment-based awards and prizes. The Fred and Ruth Stork Awards in German Studies (endowed with $500,000) have been used in 2012, 2013, and 2014 to support Canadian students in the MA in Intercultural German Studies—a joint program with the University in Mannheim, Germany—and to enable them to travel to Mannheim for their 12-month study period there. The awards also enable(d) 20 students at the University of Waterloo to study in Germany in an accredited university course or program. In 2012, the WCGS—through the fundraising efforts of its Founding Director, David John—received a donation of $62K from Cecilia Piller. These funds are in trust and have been used in 2013 and 2014 to present two Waterloo graduate students in German Studies with the Cecilia and the late George Piller Graduate Research Award. The Evelyn Guderian Thesis Award and the Herta Brichta Award in German Studies were presented to graduate students with the best thesis or dissertation and to an outstanding student in the German graduate programs, respectively. These awards have enabled a number of graduate students over the years to better concentrate on their research and learning and thus achieve better results.

Due the financial uncertainty in 2009/10 and a lower level of programming activity in 2011 (WCGS director on research leave), the overall expenditure in these years decreased. The annual WCGS budget is approved by the Centre’s executive committee and sent to the Dean of Arts for approval.

In the budget, funds are allocated to support

• the work of the five research groups,
• hosted conferences and invited researchers,
• the WCGS German Studies book series with Wilfrid Laurier University Press,
• the programming of the Diefenbaker Memorial Chair in German Literary Studies and other programming activities,
• the Centre’s operation (administrative assistance, public relations, fundraising).

The WCGS has consolidated its day-to-day operations through the hiring of a half-time administrative assistant (Lori Straus) in November 2013. After years of only hiring occasional support for two to five hours a week or often project-based and employing Katja Czarnecki (administrative assistant in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies) for 2.5 hours per week, this new position and hiring has already improved the WCGS administration significantly. It will also result in an increase in expenditure for operating from the financial year 2013/14 onwards.

Five-Year Plan

The Waterloo Centre for German Studies has the following mandate:

• To conduct research on the language, culture, and civilization of German-speaking peoples, from both historical and contemporary perspectives;
• To provide a wide range of educational and cultural activities for the academy and the broader community;
• To engage with German-Canadian heritage.

The Strategic Plan of the University of Waterloo identifies eight areas of strength; five of them pertaining to research institutes like the Waterloo Centre for German Studies. These will be outlined in the subsequent sections. Each section is preceded by a central quote from the website Strategic Plan: A distinguished past—A distinctive future (https://uwaterloo.ca/strategic-plan/).

                  Transformational Research

“Waterloo’s Faculty of Arts is changing the landscape of social sciences and humanities research by harnessing new technologies and methodologies to traditional modes of analysis. This will generate new insights into the human condition in areas including finance and accounting, clinical and social psychology, digital media, science and technology studies, languages, literatures and culture, international governance and public policy.”

This is the foremost area of Waterloo’s strengths in which the WCGS can make a significant contribution. Over the next five years, the five WCGS research groups and individual researchers will continue to investigate and reflect upon

• Processes of cultural production, creativity, and knowledge making in the (German) arts and their place in the societies of the 21^st century;
• The nature and role of (German) language use and language learning in multilingual societies and for plurilingual individuals;
• The cultural, economic, political, and social systems in German-speaking countries and communities in their historical contexts.

More concretely, the WCGS will complete its Oral History Project successfully with the creation of an electronic text corpus for researchers in applied linguistics, cultural studies, and history, and the publication of a book detailing the stories of German immigrants to the region. The research groups, having matured in the last five years, will increase their collaborative research. The WCGS is planning to implement a funding line for its researchers, which will fund work on the creation of research tools and aspects of research activities that are currently not funded by federal and provincial funding agencies.

                  Internationalization

“Waterloo will offer more opportunities for international exchange, service learning, field programs and co-op employment. The university will grow its global research network and be recognized internationally for excellence in education, research and scholarship. Waterloo will embrace global viewpoints and experience, attracting a diverse and growing group of the best and brightest international students and faculty to its campuses.”

This is one of the strengths of the WCGS. It funds a wide variety of academic exchange and study abroad opportunities with universities in German-speaking countries through its awards for Waterloo students and will continue to do so and widen the scope of the awards to make them accessible to all Canadian students. The Centre will continue to bring researchers and creative artists and thinkers to the University of Waterloo and Canada. In the next five years, the WCGS will expand its cooperation and collaboration with similar centres and institutes in Canada, the United States, Ireland, Austria, and Germany by building on existing contacts and collaborative projects. Through the organization of two major international conferences (2016 and 2018), the WCGS will attract researchers of international renown to Waterloo and make a significant contribution to international discourses in German Studies.

We believe that research in foreign language education—and foreign language education itself—and the raising of transcultural competence are core components of the internationalization of a university. The WCGS—in collaboration with all language-based departments at the University of Waterloo—will continue to make significant contributions in this area.

                  Experiential Education

“Waterloo’s unique brand of education will reshape lifelong learning for students on and beyond its campuses. Recognizing the value of broad experiences in a global economy, Waterloo will increase opportunities for international work-terms, exchanges and research opportunities.”

The WCGS will continue to involve undergraduate and graduate students in the conceptualization, preparation, organization, and the execution of its research and programming activities. Students will gain valuable experience participating in ongoing research projects of high social relevance, such as the Oral History Project, in the organization of knowledge mobilization through international conferences, research seminars and workshops, and public discussion as well as through educational and cultural events for high school students and interested members of the community. They will actively participate in the collaboration with cultural, political, and social organizations and institutions such as the Goethe Institute, the diplomatic offices of the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Academic Exchange Service, and local community associations. The WCGS will continue to strengthen its existing links with the local German-Canadian Business and Professional Association and the German-Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Toronto to provide students with experience in transcultural economic and social contexts. For aspects of international experiential education see under Internationalization.

                  Entrepreneurship

“... increase opportunities for entrepreneurial learning and activity. Waterloo’s innovative approaches to technology, social innovation and social entrepreneurship will create recognizable impact — fuelling economic growth and improving the human condition.”

The Waterloo Centre for German Studies will introduce more Canadians to academic and public discourses about technology, social innovation, and social entrepreneurship in German-speaking central Europe, thus creating a higher awareness of such issues through critical, transcultural reflection. In our annual Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Lecture, we  showcase leading research in German Studies that makes important contributions to other areas of academic enquiry, our views of the entrepreneurial subject, society, and economy. The WCGS will continue to bring German leaders, researchers, and entrepreneurs and political leaders to Waterloo. We are planning a series of talks and discussions with prominent politicians, entrepreneurs, and leaders society from German-speaking central Europe.

                  Vibrant Student Experience

“The university will expand the range of experiences, programs and supports designed to develop student potential, and build a stronger sense of community connection for students both on and off campus.”

The WCGS has made many contributions to a more enjoyable and fulfilling life on campus through its educational and cultural programming activities and will continue to do so. Through the involvement of undergraduate and graduate students in its various activities and projects, the WCGS will continue the building of a community of students and colleagues in German Studies and those interested in German language, culture, history, and society. Based on its strong connection with organisations and institutions in the community, the WCGS will continue to foster a community of town and gown.

Possible External Assessors

Christina Kraenzle (Director of the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies at York University) serves on our Advisory Board and could be approached for an assessment. Alexander Freund (Professor of History and Chair of German-Canadian Studies, University of Winnipeg), Peter Gölz (Associate Professor of German, University of Victoria), Karin Bauer (Associate Professor of German and Chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, McGill University), and Joseph Salmons (Seifert Professor of Germanic Linguistics, University of Wisconsin, Madison) are also suitable external assessors. Upon request, we can also submit further names of members of the Canadian Association of University Teachers of German as well as of Germanist historians.

This report was prepared by the Director of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies, Mat Schulze, and Lori Straus, the WCGS Administrative Assistant, using Centre files and texts from the website of the WCGS (http://wcgs.ca), where more detailed information can be found. A penultimate draft of this document has been discussed with the membership, the Executive Committee, and the Advisory Board and feedback and comments were solicited and worked into the final version. The final report will be sent to the same three groups for information. The draft document was also sent to the Associate Dean of Arts (Research), Tim Kenyon, and the chairs of Germanic and Slavic Studies (Grit Liebscher) and History (Gary Bruce).

Appendix A: Selected Publications by WCGS Members 2009-2014

Amstutz,Nina. (2013) (University of Toronto. As of Fall 2013, post-doc, Yale University, Yale Center for British Art). Caspar David Friedrich and the Science of Landscape. PhD dissertation.

Amstutz,Nina. (forthcoming in 2014) "Caspar David Friedrich and the Anatomy of Nature.” in Art History.

Bauder, Harald and Lujan, O. (2013) “Immigrant Integration in Ontario, Canada.” Integrationspolitik im internationalen Vergleich: Beiträge zum internationalen Symposium des Ministeriums für Integration Baden-Württemberg an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 4.12.2012. Stuttgart, Germany: Ministerium für Integration Baden-Württemberg: 20-22.

Bauder, Harald. (2011) Immigration Dialectic: Imagining Community, Economy and Nation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press: 305 pages. 

Bauder, Harald. (2011) “The Regulation of Labor Markets Through Migration.” In Phillips, N. ed., Migration in the Global Political Economy. International Political Economy Yearbook Series, Vol. 17. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers: 41–60.

Bauder, Harald. (2011) “Towards a Critical Geography of the Border: Engaging the Dialectic of Practice and Meaning.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 101(5): 1126–1139.   

Bauder, Harald and Semmelroggen, J. (2009) “Immigration and Imagination of Nationhood in German Parliament.” Nationalism & Ethnic Politics 15(1): 1–26.

Boehringer, Michael, Belinda Kleinhans, and Allison Cattell (eds.) (To be published by Wilfrid Laurier UP in 2015) Glaubenssysteme/Belief-Systems in Austrian Literature and Culture.

Boehringer, Michael, and S. Hochreiter (eds.) (2011) Zeitenwende: Österreichische Literatur seit dem Millennium 2000-2010. Vienna: Praesens Verlag. 506pp.

Boehringer, Michael. (2011) “Fantasies of White Masculinity in Arthur Schnitzler’s ‘Andreas Thameyers letzter Brief’ (1900).” The German Quarterly 84(1), 80-96.   

Borchert, Angela. (forthcoming in May 2014)(Western University) “Arabeskgroteske »Zimmerverzierung« in der Raumästhetik des Interieurs um 1800.” Interieur und Bildtapete. Narrative des Wohnens um 1800. Ed. Katharina Eck, Astrid Silvia Schönhagen. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

Bruce, Gary. (2010) The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cattell, Alison. (2013) "Reflective Curriculum Construction in the Postmethod Era: Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations." Transitions and Traditions: German Curricula. Eds. John L. Plews and Barbara Schmenk. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier UP.

Caws, Catherine, Marie-Josée Hamel, and Mathias Schulze (eds.). (2011) Computer-Assisted Language Learning in Canada. Special Issue of the Calico Journal.

Dailey-O'Cain, Jennifer and Grit Liebscher. (2011)  “Germans from different places: constructing a German space in urban Canada.” Journal of Germanic Linguistics 23/4 (special issue on Germanic languages and migration in North America, Kristine Horner, ed.), 315-345. 

Dailey-O'Cain, Jennifer and Grit Liebscher. (2011) “Language attitudes, migrant identities, and space.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 212, 91-133.

Heift, Trude and Mathias Schulze. (2009) “The Past and the Future.” In Hubbard, P. (ed.) Computer Assisted Language Learning, Volume IV, Present Trends and Future Directions in CALL. Critical Concepts in Linguistics. New York: Routledge. 337-356.

Hubbard, Philip, Mathias Schulze, and Bryan Smith (eds.). (2013) Learner-Computer Interaction in Language Education. A Festschrift in Honor of Robert Fischer. San Marcos, TX: CALICO.

John, David G. (Aug. 2013) “Faust-Aufführungen im Vergleich.” Co-authored with Martina Maria Sam. Das Goetheanum. Wochenschrift für Anthroposophie, 33-34, 10-12.

John, David G. (2013) “The Duality of Goethe’s Materialism.” Lumen. Selected Proceedings from the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 32. Peter Walmsley and Emily West, eds. Montreal: Université de Montréal Press. Pp. 57-71.

John, David G. (2013) “Kahn, Engelmann, and Eichner: Autobiography, Memory, and Identity.” Romanticism, Humanism, Judaism: The Legacy of Hans Eichner / Romantik, Humanismus, Judentum: Hans Eichners Vermächtnis. Eds. Hartwig Mayer, Paola Mayer and Jean Wilson. Kanadische Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur / Canadian Studies in German Language and Literature, vol 52. Ed. Rodney Symington. Bern, Berlin, etc.: Peter Lang. 239-62.

John, David G. (2012) Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust. German and Intercultural Stagings. German and European Studies 12. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. XII + 343 pp. + 16 photo illustrations.

Kleinhans, Belinda. (University of Waterloo.  As of July 2014, tenure track at Texas Tech) Dissertation, defended 2013.  “Die anthropologische Maschine zum Halt bringen: Zu einer Poetologie des Offenen bei Ilse Aichinger, Günter Eich und Wolfdietrich Schnurre.”

Kleinhans, Belinda. (2011) “Jenseits der Grenze zwischen Mensch und Tier. ‚Becoming‘ in Günter Eichs Hörspiel Sabeth.”  Orbis Litterarum. 66(5). 361-387.

Kuzniar, Alice. (forthcoming) “The Competing Structures of Signification in Samuel Hahnemann’s Homeopathy:  Between 18^th-century Semiosis and Romantic Hermeneutics.”  In Fact and Fiction: German Literature and Science in the German and European Context. Christine Lehleiter, ed.  Toronto:  University of Toronto Press. 

Kuzniar, Alice. (2012) “Similia similibus curentur:  Homeopathy and its Magic Wand of Analogy.”  Literary Studies and the Pursuit of Reading. Eric Downing, Jonathan Hess, and Richard Benson, eds.  Rochester, NY:  Camden House. 130-47.

Lehleiter, Christine. (University of Toronto) (forthcoming in 2014). Origins Matter: The History of Heredity in Romanticism. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP.

Liebscher, Grit and Jennifer Dailey-O'Cain. (2013) Language, Space, and Identity in Migration. England: Palgrave Macmillan.

Liebscher, Grit. (2013)  “Multilinguals in the language classroom and curricular consequences.” In: Traditions and Transitions. John Plews and Barbara Schmenk, eds. Wilfrid Laurier UP. 125-141.

Liebscher, Grit and Mathias Schulze. (2012) Language Use and Identity: Analysing Language Behaviour of German-Speaking Immigrants in Kitchener-Waterloo. In: Freund, Alexander (ed.) Beyond the Nation?: Immigrants' Local Lives in Transnational Cultures. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 249-267.

Liebscher, Grit. (2011) “Fremdsprachenlernen mit der Ausgangssprache: Mehrsprachiger oder monolingualer Sprachenlerner?” In: Drei Schritte vor und manchmal auch sechs zurück. Internationale Perspektiven auf Entwicklungslinien im Bereich Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Festschrift für Dietmar Rösler zum 60. Geburtstag. Barbara Schmenk und Nicola Würffel, eds. Tübingen: Narr Verlag.171-179.

Liebscher, Grit and Jennifer Dailey-O'Cain, Mareike Mueller, and Tetyana Reichert. (2010) “Negotiating identities through pronouns of address in an immigrant community.” Pragmatics 20(3): 375-400.

Liebscher, Grit and Jennifer Dailey-O'Cain. (2009) “Dialect use and discursive identities of migrants from the west in Eastern Germany.”  In: Language, Discourse, and Identity in Central Europe. Patrick Stevenson and Jenny Carl, eds. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 185-202.

Malone, Paul. (2013) “Hybrides Spielfeld Manga: Adaption und Transformation japanischer Comics in Deutschland.” Nipponspiration: Japonismus und japanische Populärkultur im deutschsprachigen Raum. Michiko Mae and Elisabeth Scherer, eds. Global Manga Studies 2. Cologne: Böhlau Verlag. 233-58.

Malone, Paul. (2012) “Transcultural Hybridization in Home-Grown German Manga.” Intercultural Crossovers, Transcultural Flows: Manga/Comics. Jaqueline Berndt, ed. Global Manga Studies 2. Kyoto: Kyoto Seika University International Manga Research Center. 49-60.

Malone, Paul. (2010) "Mangascape Germany: Comics as Intercultural Neutral Ground." Comics as a Nexus of Cultures: Essays on the Interplay of Media, Disciplines and International Perspectives. Mark Berninger, Jochen Ecke and Gideon Haberkorn, eds. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. 223-34.

Mayer, Hartwig, Paola Mayer, and Jean Wilson, eds. (2013) Romanticism, Humanism, Judaism: The Legacy of Hans Eichner. Bern: Peter Lang.

Mayer, Paola. (University of Guelph). Finishing a book entitled Spectral Realities: The Aesthetics of Fear in German Romanticism.

Mayer, Paola. (2013). "Jean Paul, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and the Definition of the Romantic."  Romanticism, Humanism, Judaism: The Legacy of Hans Eichner.  Hartwig Mayer, Paola Mayer, & Jean Wilson, eds. Bern: Lang. 115-138.

McNab, David T., Patsy Lou McArthur and Paul-Emile A. McNab. (2013) Historic Saugeen Metis, A Heritage Atlas. Southampton: Essence Publishing for Historic Saugeen Metis Council. 252 pp.

McNab, David T. and Olive Patricia Dickason. (2009) Fourth Edition, Canada’s First Nations, A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, Toronto: Oxford University Press. 589 pp.

McNab, David T. and Ute Lischke. (2009) “Introduction to Sacred Landscapes”, Sacred Landscapes, Rick Riewe and Jill Oakes, et al., (eds.), Winnipeg: Aboriginal Issues Press. vii-viii.

Mueller, Gabriele and James M. Skidmore, eds. (2012) Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria. Film and Media Studies Series. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP.

Penner, Nikolai and Mathias Schulze. (2010) “Group Work in a Technology-Rich Environment.” Journal of Interactive Learning Research 21(1).111-137.

Reichert, Tetyana and Grit Liebscher. (2012) “Positioning the expert: word searches, expertise, and learning opportunities in peer interaction.” Modern Language Journal 96(4), 595-605.

Schmenk, Barbara and John Plews, eds. (2013) Traditions and Transitions. Curricula for German Studies. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier UP. 404 pp.

Schmenk, Barbara. (2012) “Die Selbstkonstruktion von Lehrenden im Spannungsfeld zwischen Mehrsprachigkeit und dem Ideal der native speaker Kompetenz. ” [“Self-Construction of Instructors Between Multilingualism and the Ideal of the Native Speaker. ”] In Grünewald, Andreas et al. (eds.). Globalisierung, Migration, Fremdsprachenunterricht. Hohengehren: Schneider. 101-112.

Schmenk, Barbara and Nicola Würffel, eds. (2011) Drei Schritte vor und manchmal auch sechs zurück. Internationale Perspektiven auf Entwicklungslinien im Bereich Deutsch als Fremdsprache. [Three Steps Forward and Sometimes Six Backwards. International Perspectives of the Development of German as a Foreign Language.] Tübingen: Narr. 354 pp.

Schmenk, Barbara. (2010) “Bildungsphilosophischer Idealismus, erfahrungsgesättigte Praxisorientierung, didaktischer Hiphop? Eine kleine Geschichte der Lernerautonomie.” Profil, 2. 11-26.

Schmenk, Barbara. (2010) “Challenging the language – literature continuum.” Forum Sprache, 2(1). 35-44.

Schmenk, Barbara. (2009) Geschlechtsspezifisches Fremdsprachenlernen? Zur Konstruktion geschlechtstypischer Lerner- und Lernbilder in der Fremdsprachenforschung. [Sex-Specific Language Learning? On the Construction of Gendered Images of Learners and Learning in Second Language Research.] 2nd ed. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. 286 pp.

Schmidt, Martin and Mathias Schulze. (2009) “Neologismen der 90er Jahre – Kenntnis, Verwendung und Einstellungen.” In: Henn-Memesheimer, Beate and Joachim Franz (eds.) Die Ordnung des Standard und die Differenzierung der Diskurse. Akten des 41. Linguistischen Kolloquiums in Mannheim 2006. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. 541-554.

Schulze, Mathias and Grit Liebscher. (2010) “Going in Cycles: Courseware and Material Development for Written Communication.” Calico Journal 27(3). 554-563.

Schulze, Mathias. (2013) “Computers and Language Learning in German Studies.” In: Plews, John and Barbara Schmenk (eds.) Traditions and Transitions: Curricula for German Studies. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier UP. 279-294.

Schulze, Mathias, Barbara Schmenk, and Allison Cattell. (2011) “Estila: Engaging Students through Increased Language Awareness.” In: Simmons, Nicola (ed.) Opportunities and New Directions. Waterloo: Centre for Teaching Excellence.

Skidmore, James M. (2010) “W. Günter Plaut – Ein Rabbi für ganz Kanada.”  (“W. Günter Plaut: A Rabbi for All of Canada.”)  Deutsche Exilliteratur seit 1933.  Band III: USA, Teil 5.  Ed. John M. Spalek. Berlin: de Gruyter Saur, 2010.  232-48.

Smith, John H. (2013) “Leibniz Reception around 1800: Monadic Vitalism and Harmony in Schleiermacher’s Reden über die Religion and Schlegel’s Lucinde.”  Religion, Reason, and Culture in the Age of Goethe.  Elizabeth Kimmerer and Patricia Simpson, eds..  Camden House.  

Smith, John H. (forthcoming  2014) “Friedrich Schlegel’s Calculus: Reflections on the Mathematical Infinite around 1800.”  The Relevance of Romanticism. Dalia Nasser, ed.   Oxford: Oxford UP.

Executive Summary

In its first five years, the Waterloo Centre for German Studies has reached its initial fundraising goal. It also conducted, organized, supported, and facilitated a large number of activities which engaged the academy and the broader community with the culture, history, language of societies of German cultural and linguistic background from central Europe as well as here in Canada. The Centre

• conducted, disseminated, supported, and facilitated research on these societies,
• organized two international conferences—one on cultural, historical, and linguistic aspects of German-speaking minorities worldwide and one on contemporary film in Germany and Austria and social change,
• published two books,
• obtained external (SSHRC, DAAD) and internal funding for the two conferences and the Kinofest, and
• conducted and coordinated a number research projects.

In all three areas—fundraising, cultural and educational programming, and research—the Waterloo Centre for German Studies has fulfilled its mandate.

Progress Report

The Waterloo Centre for German Studies (WCGS) was proposed to Senate in April 2004 and approved in June 2004. The proposal was prepared and submitted by David G. John, Full Professor of German in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies (GSS) at the University of Waterloo. He was the Director of WCGS from its inception to 31 December 2008 and is now its Founding Director. Mat Schulze, Associate Professor of German in GSS, has been the Director since 1 January 2009.

The WCGS has been and continues to be active in conducting and disseminating research in German Studies, offering programming for both the academy and the broader community as well as in fundraising to support these activities. Fundraising in the private sector, particularly in the German-Canadian community in the Region of Waterloo, combined with the development of strong links with interested people in the Kitchener-Waterloo area was very high on the list of priorities in the initial years of the WCGS. The Centre achieved recognition from colleagues in German Studies at Canadian universities and, through its international conferences and publications, from German Studies researchers worldwide. It fostered links with relevant institutes and peer groups such as the Canadian Association of University Teachers of German, the Endowed Chair of German-Canadian Studies at the University of Winnipeg, the Canadian Centre of German and European Studies at York University, the Goethe Institute Toronto, and the Max Kade Foundation and the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA.

The WCGS has brought a wide variety of activities such as readings by authors from Austria, Germany and Switzerland, theatre performances of plays by German-language authors, music performances, and educational and academic lectures and discussions to the campus of the University of Waterloo and invited interested members of the community of the Region of Waterloo and beyond.

The members of the WCGS have engaged in the research of different aspects of German-speaking societies in central Europe and in Canada mainly in the following broad areas:

• Applied Linguistics: societal and individual German-English bilingualism in the Region of Waterloo and beyond; foreign-language teaching pedagogy and second language acquisition theories; application and integration of information and communication technologies in the learning and teaching of German language and culture;
• History: local and regional history of German-Canadians and other groups; immigration and acculturation of individuals and groups of German descent; history of German-speaking peoples in central Europe with a particular focus on twentieth-century history; the role of Germany and its neighbours in Europe and their contribution to global society and economy;
• Literature and Film: German literature from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century; contemporary German-language film and film by authors of German descent; current popular culture in German-speaking central Europe.

In its preparatory and inception phases, the Waterloo Centre for German Studies had a Steering Committee which advised the Centre Director on the conceptualization and the initial running of the Centre and participated actively in the successful, original fundraising efforts. Later, the WCGS had an Advisory Board on which several community supporters of the Centre and representatives of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies served. During the Director’s, David John, two six-month research leaves, Centre members James M. Skidmore and Grit Liebscher served one term each as Acting Director of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies. The Centre’s members met twice a year in meetings of the Research Advisory Group.

The supporters of the Centre and members of the Steering Committee and the Advisory Board were thanked for their commitment and work at a gala event in December 2008. At the German Studies Workshop in April 2009, the Research Advisory Group, which consisted of the Centre members, terminated its practice of having two business meetings a year and decided to organize further German Studies Workshops in their stead, which focus on the presentation and discussion of research ideas, projects, achievements which fall under the mandate of the WCGS.

Under the coordination of Mathias Schulze, the current Director of WCGS, and upon request by the Dean of Arts, Ken Coates, a new administrative structure of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies has been implemented. The Director is supported by an Executive Committee and by a new Advisory Board.

Members of the Executive Committee are Michael Boehringer (Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies), Gary Bruce (Department of History), Mathias Schulze (WCGS Director), and James M. Skidmore (Chair of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies).

The Terms of Reference for the Executive Committee are as follows:

The Executive Committee 

• makes strategic and medium-term decisions for the WCGS regarding the WCGS research agenda, its management structure, major programming and fundraising activities 
• meets regularly, at least four times a year
• is coordinated by the director,
• provides advice to the Dean and the director,
• reviews the annual budget and provides a recommendation to the Dean.

The Executive Committee is functioning well and has met three times since January 2009.

Members of the Advisory Board are Ken Coates (Dean of Arts), Ernst Friedel (Friend of the Centre), Sonja Griegoschewski, (Director of the Goethe Institute Toronto), Alexandra Hausstein, (Director German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Toronto and Department of German University of Toronto), Jasmin Hofer (Friend of the Centre, UW alumna), David G. John (Founding Director WCGS), Ronald Rhodes (Waterloo Regional District School Board German teacher), Mark Webber (The Canadian Centre for German and European Studies, York University) as well as the four members of the Executive Committee. At its first meeting James M. Skidmore was elected Chair of the Advisory Board. One seat on the Advisory Board for a Friend of the Centre is vacant.

The Terms of Reference of the Advisory Board are as follows:

The Advisory Board:

• elects a chair from its membership,
• includes the director, the other members of the executive committee, a faculty member from another Ontario university (preferably with an affiliation to a comparable research centre), and two to three members of the local community with an interest in German Studies,
• meets at least twice a year, normally in the spring and the fall,
• receives reports from the executive committee at each of its meetings,
• is advisory, providing advice on the general and financial management of the Centre, its scientific direction, its programming and fundraising activities,
• establishes a nominating committee consisting of three members who will solicit and evaluate nominations for the post of the WCGS director six months before the expiry of the term of the current director.

The Advisory Board has constituted itself at its first meeting in May 2009 and has started to conduct its business.

Five-Year Plan

The Waterloo Centre for German Studies has the following mandate: To conduct and disseminate research on the German-speaking world, including its languages, cultures, and diasporic manifestations, from both historical and contemporary perspectives; to provide a wide range of activities for the academy and the broader community; and to engage with German-Canadian heritage.

In the five years of its existence, the Centre has carried out activities in three areas: fund raising, programming, research. It is understandable that priorities were set in the order of occurrence in the previous sentence. Now that the Centre is matured and that it has a solid infrastructural basis, the priorities will be more in line with general expectations of university research centres: (1) research, (2) programming, (3) fundraising. However, all three activities will be pursued further.

Waterloo, 25 May 2009

This report was prepared by the Director of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies, Mat Schulze, using Centre files and texts from the website of the WCGS and other relevant websites hosted at the University of Waterloo. Important parts of this document were discussed with the membership, the Executive Committee, and the Advisory Board before the first draft of this report. Then, a draft document was circulated among the membership, the Executive Committee, and the Advisory Board, who then provided comments and suggested changes. The final report was sent to the same three groups for information.

Appendix A: Selected Publications by WCGS Members 2004-2009

Bold printed names are Centre members.

Boehringer, Michael (2006) Einleitung. In Boehringer, M. (ed.) Ferdinand von Saar: Richtungen der Forschung/Directions in Research. Vienna: Praesens Verlag, 2006. pp. 7-20.

Boehringer, Michael (2006) Gender, Identity, and the Function of Violence in Ferdinand von Saar’s Die Troglodytin. In Chamber, H (ed.) Violence, Culture and Identity: Essays on German and Austrian Literature, Politics and Society. Oxford: Lang, 2006. pp. 165-184.

Boehringer, Michael (2006) Of Washed-up Warriors and Bourgeois Brutes: Representations of Masculinity in Ferdinand von Saar’s Leutnant Burda. In Boehringer, M. (ed.) Ferdinand von Saar: Richtungen der Forschung/Directions in Research. Vienna: Praesens Verlag, 2006. pp.125-37.

Boehringer, Michael (ed.) (2006) Ferdinand von Saar: Richtungen der Forschung/Directions in Research. Vienna: Praesens Verlag..

Boehringer, Michael (2007) Der Dichter des Übergangs: Ferdinand von Saar. In Ritter, M. (ed.) Praesent: Das österreichische Literaturjahrbuch. Vienna: Praesens Verlag, pp. 23-31.

Boehringer, Michael (2008) Introduction. In Boehringer, M. (ed.) Discourses on Masculinity in German Literature and Film. Special issue of Seminar. 44.1 (2008): 1-5

Boehringer, Michael (ed.) (2008) Masculinities in German Literature and Film. Special issue of Seminar. 44.1 (2008).

Boehringer, Michael, Christiane Bongartz, and Anne-Katrin Gramberg (2004) Language Learning and Intercultural Training: The Impact of Cultural Primers on Learners and Nonlearners of German. The Journal of Language for International Business 15.2 (2004), pp.1-18.

Boehringer, Michael and Stephen Preece (2006). From Juggernaut to Symphony, or ‚How we feel about Germans’. In Krause and Scheck (eds.) Emotions and Cultural Change—Gefühle und kultureller Wandel. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 2006. pp. 249-261.

Bruce, Gary (2005) ‘In our District, the State is Secure:’ The East German Secret Police Response to the Events of 1989 in Perleberg District, Contemporary European History 14, 2, pp. 219-244.

Bruce, Gary (2005) Die Sowjetunion und die ostdeutschen Krisen 1953 bis 1961 In Torsten Diedrich ed, Staatsgründung auf Raten? Zu den Auswirkungen des Volksaufstandes 1953 und des Mauerbaus 1961 auf Staat, Militär und Gesellschaft in der DDR. Berlin: Ch. Links, pp. 39-64.

Bruce, Gary (2006) Aufklärung und Abwehr: The Lasting Legacy of the Stasi under Ernst Wollweber Intelligence and National Security 21, 3, pp. 364-393.

Bruce, Gary (2007) ‘Wir haben den Kontakt zu den Massen nie verloren’: Das Verhältnis zwischen Stasi und Gesellschaft am Beispiel der Kreise Gransee und Perleberg In Jens Gieseke ed., Staatssicherheit und Gesellschaft: Studien zum Herrschaftsalltag in der DDR. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, pp. 365-379.

Bruce, Gary (2008) Access to Secret Police Files, Justice and Vetting in East Germany since 1989 German Politics and Society 25, 4, pp. 82-111. Reprinted as East Germany  In Lavinia Stan, ed. Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 15-36.

Calogeridis, Helena and Jane Forgay (2009). German Canadiana in Ontario: Bibliography. Waterloo ON: University of Waterloo Library, 2007-. Available from: http://gcobiblio.uwaterloo.ca/advSearch.cfm.

Duxa, Susanne, Adelhaid Hu, and Barbara Schmenk (2005) Vorwort. In Duxa, S, A Hu, and B Schmenk (eds.) Grenzüberschreitungen. Menschen, Sprachen, Kulturen. Festschrift für Inge Christine Schwerdtfeger zum 60. Geburtstag. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, pp. ix-xv.

Duxa, Susanne, Adelheid Hu, and Barbara Schmenk (eds.) (2005) Grenzüberschreitungen. Menschen, Sprachen, Kulturen. Festschrift für Inge Christine Schwerdtfeger zum 60. Geburtstag. Tübingen: Narr, 337 pp.

Ezeiza, Nerea, Montse Maritxalar, and Mathias Schulze (eds.) (2007) International Workshop on NLP for Educational Resources held in conjunction with RANLP-2007, September 26, 2007, Borovetz, Bulgaria. Proceedings. Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Franz, Julia, Alexandra Möckl, and Barbara Schmenk (2005) Das Ruhrgebiet im DaF-Unterricht. In Wolff, A, C Riemer, and F Neubauer (eds.): Sprache lehren – Sprache lernen. Regensburg: FaDaF, pp. 593-610.

Heift, Trude and Mathias Schulze (2007) Errors and Intelligence in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Parsers and Pedagogues. New York: Routledge.

John, David G. (2004) History of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Waterloo. CAUTG/APAUC Bulletin 33.1, pp. 7-12.

John, David G. (2005) Fritz Bennewitz in India: A Co-operative Research Project? In Chaturvedi, R and B Singleton (eds.) Ethnicity and Identity. Global Performance. Jaipur, New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai: Rawat Publications, pp. 280-87.

John, David G. (2005) Goethe’s Venus: Aesthetics and Reality. Neophilologus. 89 (2005), pp. 261-76

John, David G. (2007) The Partnership [Schiller and Goethe]. Friedrich Schiller. Playwright, Poet, Philosopher, Historian. In Kerry, P E (ed.) British and Irish Studies in German Language and Literature 38. Oxford: Lang, pp. 181-201.

John, David G. (2008) Goethe’s Faust in India: The Kathakali Adaptation. In Fitzsimmons, L (ed.) International Faust Studies Adaptation, Reception, Translation. London, New York: Continuum, pp. 161-76.

John, David G. (2008) Stage Productions of Goethe’s Faust in India. In Golz J and A Hsia (eds.) Orient und Okzident. Zur Faustrezeption in nicht-christlichen Kulturen. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, pp. 129-51.

Kuzniar, Alice (2006) Melancholia’s Dog: Reflections on Our Animal Kinship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 216 pp.

Kuzniar, Alice (2007) ’It’s not often that I want a man’: Reading for a Queer Marlene. In Gemünden, G and M Desjardins (eds.) Dietrich Icon. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 239-58.

Kuzniar, Alice (2007) The New Media Artist and the Matrix: Telemediation and the Virtual World of Bjørn Melhus.  In Schindler, S K and L Koepnick (eds.). The Cosmopolitan Screen: German Cinema and the Global Imaginary. 1945 to the Present. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 269-85.

Kuzniar, Alice (2008) ‘I Married My Dog’: On Queer Canine Literature, In Giffney, N and M Hird (eds.) Queering the Non/Human Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2008.  205-26.

Kuzniar, Alice (2008) The Post-Pop Hauntings of Bjørn Melhus. Halle, R and R Steingröver (eds.) After the Avant-Garde. Rochester, NY: Camden House, pp. 181-203. Translated into Spanish for MEACVAD, Muestra Euroamericana de Cine, Video y Arte Digital.

Liebscher, Grit and Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain (2005) West Germans Moving East: Place, Political Space, and Positioning in Conversational Narratives. In Baynham, M and A de Fina (eds.) .Dislocations/relocations: narratives of displacement. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome, pp. 61-85.

Liebscher, Grit and Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain (2007) Identity and Positioning in Interactive Knowledge Displays. In Auer, P (ed.) Style and Social Identities. Alternative Approaches to Linguistic Heterogeneity. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 247-278

Liebscher, Grit and Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain (2008) Mixing Languages: Canadian German in Kitchener-Waterloo and Edmonton. In Schulze, M et al. (eds.) German Diasporic Experiences: Identity, Migration, and Loss, Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier Press, pp. 73-82.

Liebscher, Grit and Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain (2009) Dialect use and Discursive Identities of Migrants from the West in Eastern Germany. In Stevenson, P and J Carl (eds.) Language, Discourse, and Identity in Central Europe London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 185-202.

Liebscher, Grit and Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain (2007) Interculturality and Code-Switching in the German Language Classroom. In Lorey, C, J L Plews and C Rieger (eds) Interkulturelle Kompetenzen im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Intercultural Literacies and German in the Classroom. Festschrift für Manfred Prokop. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen, pp. 49-67.

Liebscher, Grit and Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain (2007) Sprachattitüde und Wissensdarstellung in Nach-Wende-Interaktionen und die verbale Konstitution von Gruppenzugehörigkeit. In Valentin, J-M and B Scherbacher-Posé (eds.) Akten des XI. Internationalen Germanistenkongresses Paris 2005—Germanistik im Konflikt der Kulturen. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 347-350.

Mueller, Gabriele (2006) ’Welcome to Reality’. Constructions of German Identity in ‘Lichter’ (Distant Lights, Schmid, 2003) and ‘Halbe Treppe’ (Grill Point, Dresen, 2002). New Cinemas. Journal of Contemporary Film. 4:2, pp. 117-127.

Mueller, Gabriele (2006) Committing to ‘Third Space’: Teaching Film in the International Classroom. In Cecchetto, V and M Stroinska (eds.) The International Classroom: Challenging the Notion. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, pp. 161-170.

Mueller, Gabriele (2008) Going East, Looking West: Border Crossings in Recent German Cinema. Seminar. A Journal of Germanic Studies. 44:4, pp. 453-469.

Mueller, Gabriele (2008) Imagining the RAF from an East German Perspective: ‘Vater, Mutter, Mörderkind’ (Carow, 1993) and ‘Raus aus der Haut’ (Dresen, 1997). In Berendse, G-J and J Cornils (eds.) History and Cultural Memory of German Left-Wing Terrorism, 1968-1998. German Monitor. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 269-284.

Mueller, Gabriele (2009) The Aged Traveler: Cinematic Representations of Post-Retirement Masculinity. in Hartung, H and R Maierhofer (eds) Narratives of Life: Mediating Age. Aging Studies in Europe. Münster: Lit-Verlag, pp. 149-165.

Schmelter, Lars and Barbara Schmenk (2009) Die kleine Freiheit – Expansives Fremdsprachenlernen. Theoretische und praktische Konsequenzen einer konzeptuellen Alternative. In Arntz, R and B Kühn (eds.) Autonomes Fremdsprachenlernen in Hochschule und Erwachsenenbildung. Erträge des 1. Bremer Symposions zum autonomen Fremdsprachenlernen. Bochum: AKS, pp. 211–222.

Schmenk Barbara (2008) Lernerautonomie. Karriere und Sloganisierung des Autonomiebegriffs. Tübingen: Narr, 448 pp.

Schmenk, Barbara (2004) Drama in the Margins? The Common European Framework of Reference and its Implications for Drama Pedagogy in the Foreign Language Classroom. GFL (German as a Foreign Language) 4/1, pp. 7-23.

Schmenk, Barbara (2004) Interkulturelles Lernen versus Autonomie? In Börner, W and K Vogel (eds.): Emotion und Kognition im Fremdsprachenunterricht.Tübingen: Narr, pp. 66-86.

Schmenk, Barbara (2004) Language Learning – A Feminine Domain? The Role of Stereotyping in Constructing Gendered Learner Identities. TESOL Quarterly 38/3, pp. 514-524.

Schmenk, Barbara (2005) Globalizing Autonomy? TESOL Quarterly 39/1, pp. 107-118.

Schmenk, Barbara (2005) Information overkill. Zur Inflation des Informationsbegriffs in der Fremdsprachenforschung. In Duxa, S, A Hu, and B Schmenk (eds.) Grenzüberschreitungen. Menschen, Sprachen, Kulturen. Festschrift für Inge Christine Schwerdtfeger zum 60. Geburtstag. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, pp. 115-133.

Schmenk, Barbara (2005) Mode, Mythos, Möglichkeiten. Das Lernziel Kommunikative Kompetenz heute. Zeitschrift für Fremdsprachenforschung 16/1, pp. 57-87.

Schmenk, Barbara (2006) CALL, self access and learner autonomy: a linear process from heteronomy to autonomy? In Harden, T and A Witte, Arndt (eds.) The Concept of Progression in Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages. Oxford: Lang, pp. 75-90.

Schmenk, Barbara (2006) Entropie der Archive. Todesarten in Max Frischs 'Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän'. In Köhnen, R and S Scholz (eds.) Die Medialität des Traumas. Eine Archäologie der Gegenwartskultur. Frankfurt/M. et al: Lang, pp. 175-191.

Schmenk, Barbara (2006) Kraut und Rüben? Kulturwissenschaftliche Ansätze und Implikationen für die Fremdsprachenforschung. In Klippel, F and A Hahn (eds.) Sprachen schaffen Chancen. Munich: Oldenbourg, pp. 267-278.

Schmenk, Barbara (2007) Foreign Language Research and the Feminization of Language Learning. In Decke-Cornill, H and L Volkmann (eds.): Gender Studies and Foreign Language Learning/Teaching. Tübingen: Narr, pp. 121-135.

Schmenk, Barbara (2007) Kommunikation ist alles. Oder? Wider die Trivialisierung des Kommunikativen im Kommunikativen Fremdsprachenunterricht. Deutsch als Fremdsprache, 44/3, pp. 131-139.

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Schulze, Mathias and Nikolai Penner (2008) Construction Grammar in ICALL. Computer Assisted Language Learning 21 (5), pp. 427-440.

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