News

From May 2nd to May 5th, 2013, the Austrian Studies Association held their annual conference at the University of Waterloo/St. Paul’s Campus with the generous support of the Faculty of Arts at UW, the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, the Waterloo Centre for German Studies, Retail Services UW, the Austrian Studies Association, the Austrian Cultural Forum, Austrian Embassy (Ottawa), and the Austrian Cultural Forum (New York).

Marc W. Roche, Professor of German Language and Literature and Concurrent Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, addressed a large audience on the topic of "History and Forms of Beautiful Ugliness."

Sandra Beck, guest lecturer from the University of Mannheim, gave a talk on Leander Scholz’s RAF-novel Rosenfest. Her talk centred on explaining how the novel deconstructs the collective memorz of the RAF.

On October 20th, 2012 Professor Claire Kramsch (University of California at Berkeley) was conferred the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, by the University of Waterloo. Kramsch is one of the most prominent scholars in applied linguistics worldwide; her work has greatly influenced second and foreign language research around the world.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers of German and GermanStudies.ca has awarded James Skidmore (chair of Germanic and Slavic Studies) the ‘German Online’ (GO) award for his online learning course, German Thought & Culture (GER 271/272).