Embassy Events Calendar

Upcoming or ongoing events with Embassy involvement include:

• Oct. 30–Feb. 07: “It must schwing” photo exhibit at Jewish Museum - deutsch: Blue Note - Fotografien von Francis Wolff und Jimmy Katz
• May-December:
  theater play by Edgar Allan Poe, Ein Spiel von Liebe und Tod, at Seebühne Hiddensee

November 24: David Goldfield on "The Obama Presidency and Race in America"

W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture at Humboldt University

David Goldfield (University of North Carolina)
"The Obama Presidency and Race in America"

November 24, 2009

18:30 – 20:00

Humboldt University, Main Building, Room DOR 24 1.501
Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin

Dr. David Goldfield is Robert Lee Bailey Prof. of History, University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Goldfield is an expert on the American South, including race relations, economic development, religion, and political culture. His research has also focused on the American City with many of the same issues, including ethnicity. He published an American history textbook with Prentice Hall, called The American Journey: A History of the United States. His most recent publication is Southern Histories: Public, Personal, and Sacred. He is the author of the award-winning study, Still Fighting the Civil War: the American South and Southern History (2004), "America's Changing Perceptions of Race, 1946-1996," in Cristina Giorcelli and Rob Kroes, eds., Living With America, 1946-1996 (1997), Race, Region, and Cities: Interpreting the Urban South (1997), Black, White, and Southern: Race Relations and Southern Culture (1990), and Urban America: A History (sec. ed. 1990). Dr. Goldfield received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Maryland in 1970. He has served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Urban History since 1990 and is consultant to numerous urban and southern history museums.

This event is organized by the Department of English and American Studies at Humboldt University and supported by the U.S. Embassy Lecture Series.

For the complete lecture series, please go to:

http://www.angl.hu-berlin.de/confslecs/dboislecs/dboislecs/duboiswinter0910

December 17: Richard Pells on "The Conservative Impulse in American Culture and Politics, 1970 to the Present"

John F. Kennedy Institute Guest Lecture, History Department

Richard Pells (University of Texas, Austin)

"The Conservative Impulse in American Culture and Politics, 1970 to the Present"

December 17, 2009

18:00 – 20:00, room 203

Lansstr. 7-9, 14195 Berlin

Richard Pells received his Ph.D. from Harvard, and is currently Professor of History at the University of Texas. He specializes in the history of American culture and social life in the 20th century. He is the author of three books: Radical Visions and American Dreams: American Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years; The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s; and Not Like Us: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture Since World War II. He has also written for magazines and newspapers including the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He has lived and taught in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, and The Netherlands, as well as in Brazil, Australia, and Indonesia. He has just completed a fourth book—Modernist America: Art, Music, Movies, and the Globalization of American Culture—to be published by Yale University Press.

20 Years Fall of the Wall

• Mauerfall 2009

  November 2, 2009 – March 2010
  “11/9 ↔ 9/11” Exhibition project by a group of artists from Berlin and New York: the artists explore from a personal angle the effects and implications of two contemporary historical events: the fall of the Wall in Berlin/Germany and the 9-11 attacks in New York. The works of the U.S. artists will be exhibited in Berlin, those of the German artists in New York. Opening of exhibition in New York: November 2, 2009 Opening of exhibition in Berlin: March 2010 in the gallery Berlin am Meer
• November 6 & 7 and November 13 & 14:
  The Kennedy School Drama Department will be performing the musical Stimmen durch die Mauer/Voices through the Wall. The musical, written by JFKS teacher Dr. McDaniel to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, offers insight into the Cold War divide and its effect on Berliners from both sides. The piece will be performed by high school students in both English and German with projected subtitles. Five performances are scheduled during two consecutive weekends at 7 pm in the Aula, as well as on Thursday, November 12^th.
• November 8/9
  The Wall Project, Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles
  Artists Thierry Noir, Kent Twitchell and Shepard Fairey will design 32 recreated pieces of the Berlin wall, which will be erected across Wilshire Blvd., to be torn down at midnight in form of a artistic ceremony on November 8 corresponding to November 9 in Berlin. The midnight ceremony will feature a performance by renowned chanteuse Ute Lemper, after which the Wall across Wilshire will be toppled by artists featured in The Wall Project: www.wallproject.org
• November 9
  “Fest der Freiheit”
  The fall of the Wall will be celebrated on November 9 with a festive act at the Brandenburg Gate and state representatives, contemporary witnesses and senior personalities. A highlight of the event will be a 'domino effect' staging of the symbolic fall of the Wall when more than 1,000 oversized dominos designed by young people will be made to fall - stretching from the Reichstag through to Potsdamer Platz, marking the old route of the Wall that ran past the Brandenburg Gate. PA Berlin has sponsored a U.S. Embassy domino designed by 12th grade students from the Torhorst Schule Oranienburg (Brandenburg).
  www.torhorstschule.de/html/domino.html - Fall of the Wall
  http://www.mauerfall09.de/en/portal/9-november.html
  http://www.berlintwitterwall.com/de/
  
• November 10: Street Festival on the occasion of the 20^th anniversary of the opening of the Glienicker Brücke organized by Land Brandenburg and City of Potsdam - The Street Festival (Bürgerfest) is taking place at Glienicker Brücke in Potsdam from 18:00-20:00 hrs. and will be open to the public. There will be performances by a U.S. Army brass quintet as part of the cultural program. more
• December 4
  Symposium “Art in the Cold War” at the Deutsches Historisches Museum with one American speaker. The symposium will take place in connection with the exhibit “Art of Two Germanys”.
  www.dhm.de/ausstellungen/kunst-und-kalter-krieg/begleitprogramm.html
  
• December 17
  Lecture within the series “20 Years Fall of the Wall on “American Culture and the Cold War” - 6-8 PM - Speaker: Richard Pells, Professor of History, University of Texas, Audience: students from the Kennedy Institute (literature, culture, history). Host: Andreas Etges, Professor of History. 
• Ongoing programs: USA-GDR: Twenty Years Later – Oral History Project
  The project highlights the American connections to the GDR by an interactive online oral history collection designed to record the reciprocal impressions of GDR citizens and Americans who lived through this period of history. To document this unique relationship, the impressions of both Americans who lived and visited in the GDR and citizens of the GDR who came in touch with Americans are being recorded. In cooperation with the Leipzig Consulate, PA Berlin has identified interview partners including Foreign Service officers and local staff from the former U.S. Embassy in East Berlin, Americans with other institutional and personal contacts in the GDR, and former GDR citizens. Their interviews will be posted on a YouTube page, with appropriate links from the Mission website. In addition to video clips, text comments and photographs, the site will feature a timeline of the political events that led to unification, including the commitment of successive American presidents, FRG Ostpolitik, Perestroika, and the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR as reference points to topics mentioned in the interviews. So far the project has been presented at America@yourlibrary events in Frankfurt/Oder and Potsdam, more regional events are planned.
  

Also check out our archive of past events in 2008.