The Politics of Contemporary German Culture

Conference at University of St Andrews (26-27 April 2019), co-organisers: Dr Dora Osborne (St Andrews) and Dr Katya Krylova (Aberdeen)

This conference seeks to understand how the contemporary cultural landscape in Germany and Austria is being shaped by current political concerns and to consider, through dialogue between academics and practitioners, how this affects German Studies as a discipline and a practice. Five themed panels will focus on political or politicized aspects of contemporary life that have become increasingly significant for German and Austrian culture today: market forces, Europe, resurgent nationalism, memory and memorialization, and (German) language. Guided by these categories, the conference specifically aims to foster productive exchange between cultural practitioners (e.g. from Goethe-Institut and New Books in German) and German Studies scholars.

The conference is supported by Cross Language Dynamics, a research project of the Open World Research Initiative (OWRI) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) (£2000 by the Institute of Modern Languages Research). Those funds are held at the University of St Andrews. A further £200 were awarded by the Moray Endowment Fund.