The 12th annual Graduate Student Conference
of the German and Dutch Graduate Student Association
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison entitled
"What is a German Department?"
will take place on March 19 and 20, 2010.
Keynote speaker: Claire Kramsch, University of California, Berkeley:
e.g. German:
Language departments as privileged sites for the study of meaning

What constitutes a German department varies widely not only from institution to institution but also within individual departments. Many German departments are entirely German in their name only, and many others share their space (both physically and in the constructed space of academia) with other languages, disciplines and cultures. Germanists working in literature, linguistics, applied linguistics and all related sub-categories and fields may seem to have more in common with their peers in sciences, letters and humanities than with their colleagues in their own German department. Still, it is the German language that structures the myriad disciplines into one department.

What is our common ground? In what direction does our own research take us? How is what we do located within German Studies? What is a German department and what will we emerging Germanists make of it?

This conference will illustrate and celebrate the diverse work done by scholars who intersect at the term German. In order to address the question posed in the title, the conference committee cordially invites abstracts on any aspect of German, Austrian, or Swiss Studies including (but not at all limited to): literature, linguistics, applied linguistics, philosophy, film, art history, history, political science, musicology, sociology, minority studies, global studies and cultural studies.

The conference committee will host a pre-conference panel discussion with UW-Madison faculty members on the importance, marketability and reality of taking an interdisciplinary approach in academia.

Please submit your abstracts (approx. 250 words) to Joshua Bousquette by no later than January 25, 2010. The primary language of the conference will be English, however papers in German are also welcome. Submissions should not bear the author's name. Include the following information as a separate attachment: name, title of paper, department and university affiliation, address, phone number and e-mail address. Please contact any of the committee members with potential questions or concerns: