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Michaela Holdenried, a German author and professor and Lafayette’s 2009 Max Kade Distinguished Professor for German Studies, will present a lecture, “Contemporary German-speaking Literature – An Intercultural Melting Pot,” at 4:10 p.m. April 8 in the Max Kade Center for German Studies, room 429 Pardee Hall.
The lecture, which will be presented in German, is sponsored by the Max Kade Center and the department of foreign languages and literatures.
As part of her residency, Holdenried is teaching an interdisciplinary course focusing on the transformation of lyrical expression (poetry) into visual works (film). The content of the course consists of German poems from the 19th and 20th centuries which are representations of city life, particularly in Berlin and New York City.
The students, whose majors represent all four of the College’s academic divisions, have taken two excursions to New York City and are combining techniques of literary analysis with film production to transform their poems into 10-15 minute films.
The students in the course are Mike Atamanchuk ’09 (Martinsville, N.J.), an engineering studies major; Ivan Dimitrov ’10 (Pavlikeni, Bulgaria), an international affairs major; Katrina Ladd ’11 (Acton, Mass.), a double major in international affairs and psychology; Daniel McDonald ’10 (Palmerton, Pa.), an English major; Britta Moore ’12 (Temple, N.H.); and Oleksiy Onishchenko ’12 (Chernihiv, Ukraine).
Holdenried says that she enjoys working with the small class size that Lafayette offers as opposed to the larger classes in German institutions. “You really get to know the students and make a connection,” she says.
Holdenried is the author of several books on interculturality, identity, and autobiography in contemporary and modern German literature. Her research interests include German literature and culture since the 18th century with a focus on the 20th century, travel literature and theory, cultural studies with focus on theories of alterity or “otherness,” and shifting concepts of authorship in recent German literature. Holdenried currently holds a teaching position in the department of philosophy and humanities at the Free University of Berlin, and has just been appointed a full professor of intercultural studies at Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg.