Please join us for our next Kaffeestunde on Thursday, October 3 at 1 p.m. Read More »
Past Events
Kaffeestunde: Friday, October 16 at 1 p.m.
Please join us for our next Kaffeestunde on Friday, October 16 at 1 p.m. Read More »
Exhibition “Overt: Militarization as Ideology”
October 28 – November 21, 2020 Read More »
Spätzle Webinar, October 30, 5pm
Join Tante Stefan for a live webinar on how to make Spätzle – delicious, easy-to-make German noodles... Read More »
“Reconsidering Feminism, Film Authorship, and Performance” The 12th Annual Toronto German Studies Symposium 2019 (May 22-24)
University of Toronto, May 22-24, 2019 Read More »
“Reconsidering Feminism, Film Authorship, and Performance” The 12th Annual Toronto German Studies Symposium 2019 (May 22-24)
University of Toronto, May 22-24, 2019 Read More »
Holiday Party ~ December 6, 2018
See you at the Holiday Party! Read More »
“Teaching Online”: A webinar with Prof. James Skidmore, University of Waterloo
Thursday, June 11th, 3:00 - 5:00 Read More »
Lecture, Jan 30: John Evjen: “Betreutes Leben: Thomas Bo Nilsson and Julian Eicke’s Exploration into the Fiction of Surveillance”
As an installation in the bi-annual Wiesbaden Biennale Theatre Festival, Thomas Bo Nilsson and his partner Julian Eicke created Betreutes Leben, or its alternate title: Ezzelinolivecams.net. The dramatic installation is hinged on three major premises: Ezzelinolivecams.net is a real streaming website... Read More »
Guest Lecture, Oct. 1: David Wellbery on Lessing’s Laokoon
October 1, 2020, 4-6 pm The reading group Ekphrasis in conjunction with the Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures is happy to announce the following guest lecture by Dr. David E. Wellbery (University of Chicago). David E. Wellbery will join the reading group on Thursday October 1st, 2020 from 4-6pm to discuss passages from Lessing’s Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie (1766) with reference to the overarching theme of ekphrasis. Lessing’s Laokoon has outlived most of its contemporaries in 18th-century criticism and the reason for its abiding influence may well be that it gets to the core conceptual issues with incomparable clarity. Lessing’s Laokoon appears to be foremost an analysis of ekphrastic passages from Vergil in order to critique Horaz’ ut pictura poesis as well as Winckelmann’s idealization of Ancient sculptures and art. What strikes us nowadays about Laokoon is the self-referentiality envisioned in the use of ekphrasis as a critique of an approach intermingling between description/depiction in terms of spatiality and the temporality of narration. As if the critique as genre is to stand apart from aesthetic categories and, thus, would allow for a naïve use of ekphrasis; quite ironic to some extent. In addition, Lessing’s writing as ... Read More »