20 November 2019Best Books & Fabulous FilmsBlog Contest, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Mindhunter, Serial Killers, TV Series, Winner's EntryHenrike Kattoll

ASB 2019 Contest Winner in the Category “Best Books & Fabulous Films”

By Lauren Solomon

On behalf of the American Studies Blog, we would like to extend our sincerest congratulations to Lauren Solomon whose winning entry in the category “Best Books & Fabulous Films” can be read below.

Mindhunter: Harnessing the Minds of Monsters

Nothing captivates an audience like the inhuman and horrific acts of a serial killer. After Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes aired on Netflix in January 2019, followed in May by the release of the biographical crime thriller, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, also based on the Ted Bundy story, the U.S. has become mesmerized by stories of serial killing. With that rising fascination, people can’t seem to stop talking about the second season of Mindhunter.

13 November 2019Creativity Corner1989, Berlin Wall, Contemporary Witness, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, November 9, Remembering The Wall, RemembranceHenrike Kattoll

Personal Recollections: The Fall of the Wall Part Two

By Bobbie Kirkhart, Evangelia Kindinger, Lynette Kirschner, Maria Moss, Monica Ortez, Cheryce von Xylander

This week’s installment concludes our series on the fall of the Berlin Wall. Enjoy!

Bobbie Kirkhart, Los Angeles

When I was very young, I imagined there was a wall just beyond my view, making sure I could not venture into the forbidden world. It made a strange shape, surrounding all the territory I could explore and blocking everywhere I could not. Perhaps it was that I was by far the youngest in my family, so that everyone else was an adult in my eyes and therefore free. Whatever the reason, I accepted as simple truth that I was banned from a world where everyone else was free to go. As I grew older, I realized that the wall was a metaphor, but I saw it as no less a reality in my life.

I was well into my 40s when that changed.

6 November 2019Creativity Corner1989, Berlin Wall, Contemporary Witness, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, November 9, Remembering The Wall, RemembranceHenrike Kattoll

Personal Recollections: The Fall of the Wall

By Marlena Voigts, Andreas Hübner, Michaela Keck, Christoph Strobel, Roger L. Nichols

Marlena Voigts, Hamburg

Nov. 9, 1989: I was lying in bed when I thought I heard the phone ring. The next morning, there was in fact a message on my answering machine from about 3 a.m. “Hi Marlena! You won’t believe where I am. (Pause) I’m in the West, at my Aunt’s house in West Berlin! It’s just unbelievable!”

30 October 2019Access AmericaAnniversary, Berlin Wall, Contemporary Witness, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Remembering The Wall, RemembranceHenrike Kattoll

Remembering the Fall of the Wall

By Martina Kohl

In honor of the 30^thanniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the American Studies Blog will remember this spectacular event in history through the eyes of people from around the world during the next few weeks.

Brandenburg Gate Today. Photo credit: U.S. Embassy

When Everything Changed

“Your friend Jörg called. There’s something going on at the border.” “What border, the Hungarian?” I was taking off my coat thinking of the pictures I’d seen of Hungarian border patrols cutting the wire fence and letting East Germans through only a few months before. “He said you should turn on the TV.” And so I did, and there they were, the celebrating Berliners climbing on top of the wall, welcoming stunned East Berliners, joined in delirious joy for the first time in four decades. And here I was, almost 7,000 kilometers away in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I’d been teaching for the last four years.

23 October 2019Access AmericaBlog Contest, Indigenous People, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Native Issues, Presidential Election, Winner's EntryHenrike Kattoll

ASB 2019 Contest Winner in the Category “Access America”

By Pune Karimi

From left to right: American author Peter Wortsman, Pune Karimi, and ASB editor, Dr. Sabrina Völz. Photo credit: Henrike Kattoll

On behalf of the American Studies Blog, we would like to extend our sincerest congratulations to Pune Karimi whose winning entry in the 2019 ASB contest in the category “Access America” can be read below. Although the American Studies Blog does not usually print political pieces, we felt that the winning blog voices a point of view largely absent from American politics and media, and, therefore, deserves to be heard. We hope it gives you some food for thought.

Presidential Elections 2020 – Still No Country for Indigenous People

“Republican Elephant & Democratic Donkey – Icons” by DonkeyHotey

While Republicans have made it abundantly clear that they have little desire to improve the lives of people of color or marginalized groups, Democrats have often prided themselves on fighting for the disadvantaged. Still – hardly ever have the rights of Indigenous people been a topic during the U.S. presidential elections, and it seems unlikely that this is going to change any time soon. At least that’s what it looked like during the first Democratic debates.

16 October 2019Access AmericaBlog Contest, Lecture Series, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Out of Mind, Peter Wortsman, Stimme und Atem. Out of BreathHenrike Kattoll

Maple Leaf & Stars and Stripes

By Maria Moss and Sabrina Völz

We’re in our ninth year of Maple Leaf & Stars and Stripes– if this lecture series were a child, it would be in third grade by now.

We’re especially proud to announce this year’s bilingual (German/English) kickoff talk by Peter Wortsman, New York author and translator of Austrian-Jewish descent. Interestingly, he’s the recipient of the Geertje Potash-Suhr Prosapreis. Citizens of Lüneburg will recognize this prestigious award, named after former Lüneburg resident Geertje Suhr.

On October 24, we will also be announcing the winner of the American Studies Blog contest in the Access America category. The writer of the winning blog, which will be posted on October 30, will be present.

Please join us for an exciting evening in building 12, room 013, from 18:15 to 19:45 at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Universitätsallee 1. Click here for the campus map.

All lectures are open to the public – and feel free to bring a friend!

Oct. 24

Peter Wortsman (writer and translator, New York), “Reading from Stimme und Atem. Out of Breath, Out of Mind”

Nov. 14

Michael Louis Moser (TU Dresden), “The Evolution of Political Moments on Network TV: Late Night from Steve Allen to Stephen Colbert”

Nov. 21

Andreas Hübner (Leuphana), “’Their motto is not liberty, but slavery’: Confederate Monuments, White Supremacy, and the Legacy of Jim Crow”

Dec. 12

Helga Bories-Sawala (Universität Bremen), “Indiens, Sauvages, Amérindiens, Premières Nations: Das Bild der Indigenen in den Geschichtsbüchern Québecs”

Jan. 9

Silke Hackenesch (Universität zu Köln), “Transracial Adoptions in Postwar America”

Jan. 23

Mieke Roscher (Universität Kassel), “Current Objectives of Historical Human-Animal Studies: Interspecies Societies after the Animal Turn”