German Studies

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag! Today I thought would be a great day to blog about the German Studies Collection.  This weekend UW Madison with Humboldt College are paying tribute to Jost Hermand on his birthday.  Earlier this year the UW payed tribute to Hermand as the most famous living scholar of German literature and culture, whom still teaching in Berlin and Madison.


Within our German Studies Collection is a sub-collection called The Wisconsin Workshop. Beginning in 1969 the Department of German at the University of Wisconsin, Madison sponsored “The Wisconsin Workshop,” an annual, interdisciplinary conference traditionally held in the fall and focused on a topic related to German culture. It was remarkable in the way it brought together young and mature scholars of German literature, arts, culture, and history, creating a transatlantic bridge for scholarly exchange about “things German.” 


Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand, the department’s two senior Vilas Research Professors, organized the annual event with support from younger colleagues and published the volumes from 1970 until 1982 in Germany and from 1986 until 1994 under the imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press.The selected proceedings of each Wisconsin Workshop were published in volumes that have accompanied and documented major trends in the discipline of German Studies. Many of these volumes are considered path-breaking contributions in the field, others have become standard reference works.


We hope you take a look at his collection, especially all you Germans out there. And lets all say a Alles Gute zum Geburtstag to Jost Hermand.