The Trans-Atlanticist

Dr. Alexander Phillips and Andrew Sola chart the history of ecological thinking and the origins of ecocriticism as a scholarly discipline and then discuss the importance of the environment in the works of German authors Wilhelm Raabe and Adalbert Stifter. The episode ends by assessing the importance of ecocriticism in the present.

Fifty years after the Prague Spring, Dr. Thomas Murphy discusses his new book, Czechoslovakia Behind the Curtain: Life, Work, and Culture in the Communist Era. Dr. Murphy and host Andrew Sola explore the history of Czechoslovakia, the events that led to the Prague Spring, the Soviet-led invasion of 1968, and the lives of ordinary people under communist rule. The episode ends with a discussion of recent political developments in central Europe.

On November 6, 2018, Americans went to polling places across the US to cast their votes in the mid-term elections. Prof. Bierling, a leading expert in transatlantic relations, discusses the election results and the consequences for the United States, Germany, and transatlantic relations in general.

Renowned economist and expert on international trade, Prof. Gabriel Felbermayr explains President Trump's economic policies. Topics include the Trump tax cuts, US-EU trade imbalances, Nordstream2, energy security, and Iran sanctions, as well as forecasts about the future of the US and the global economy.

Dr. Stefanie Schäfer discusses the cultural history of the “first family,” the concept of civil religion in the US, the development of the academic specialty of First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS) studies, the significance of the Obama presidency for race relations and identity politics, as well as the cultural impact of Michele Obama's new autobiography, Becoming.

February is African-American History month in the United States, and the Trans-Atlanticist is celebrating with a number of podcasts about African-American authors. For this first episode of NovelROMANtics, host Dr. Douglas Cowie and his guest, Dr. Oli Belas of University of Bedfordshire, discuss a pair of crime novels by Attica Locke: Blue Bird, Blue Bird and Heaven, My Home, both of which follow black Texas Ranger Darren Matthews as he tries to unravel the truth of a complicated set of white-supremacist hate crimes in rural East Texas.

The Trans-Atlanticist launches its second new podcast series called LadyFiction. In the first episode, our host Dr. Stefanie Schaefer and her guest Prof. Alexandra Ganser-both from the University of Vienna-discuss Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. February is African-American History Month, and these books were chosen because Butler's Earthseed series provide profound insights into black history and culture.

March is Irish-American Heritage Month in the United States. In Episode #2 of NovelROMANtics, host Douglas Cowie and his guest Shane Carmichael discuss Apeirogon by Colum McCann, an Irish storyteller living in New York. They discuss the intersection of storytelling, conflict, and global politics with respect to McCann's multifaceted novel.

We celebrate Women's History Month with an episode about women and politics. In the second episode of LadyFiction Stefanie Schaefer discusses First Ladies and “First Lady Fiction” with her guest Dr. Katharina Gerund from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. In January 2021, the arrival of new First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, an educator who has said she will keep working during her time in the White House, garnered renewed debate about marriage, politics, and modern womanhood. In this episode of LadyFiction, we turn to Curtis Sittenfeld's bestselling novel American Wife (2008), a fictional autobiography of Laura Bush, First Lady from 2001-2009.

In Episode 3, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, science fiction writer Adam Roberts, discuss The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, an ambitious novel set in the near future that tells the story of a global effort to slow impending environmental collapse. Please also see Adam Robert's post about the novel here https://sibilantfricative.blogspot.com/2020/10/kim-stanley-robinson-ministry-for.html

In this episode, host Andrew Sola and our resident EU expert Guenter Danner discuss challenges facing the EU's vaccination program. Also, they discuss the long-term economic consequences of the pandemic as well as challenges facing European social services post-pandemic. Lastly, they offer a preview of the upcoming federal elections in Germany in September.

This episode of LadyFiction discusses Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo's “We New New Names” (2013), a novel about a young girl who leaves behind her shantytown childhood to pursue her goals in America. The novel meditates on home, trauma, and childhood in a globalized world—and Stefanie Schäfer's conversation partner is Oksana Marafioti, US-American writer of Armenian and Russian Romani descent and the author of American Gypsy: A Memoir (2012).

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, Classicist Hannah Bean, discuss Circe by Madeline Miller. The novel reimagines and retells the story of one of the characters Odysseus encounters in The Odyssey of Homer, and the discussion looks both at the roots of the story, other tellings of it, and some of the specifics of how Miller imagines these roots into a contemporary novel.

Recorded on International Women's Day, LadyFiction's episode 4 turns to the history of science—and the forgotten role black people played as study objects in this context. Stefanie Schäfer and Dr. Christine Vogt-William from the University of Bayreuth discuss how black women's poetry unearths and retells these forgotten histories. We read Elizabeth Alexander's poems “The Venus Hottentot” and selections from Marilyn Nelson's “Fortune's Bones” (2004) and from Bettina Judd's “Patient” (2014). The poems selected showcase the Renaissance of the Black Arts in the current moment and its aesthetic of empowerment that gives a voice to those who have been silenced by History.

In this episode, novelist Nadifa Mohamed and host Douglas Cowie discuss What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, a collection of short stories by Lesley Nneka Arimah. They discuss several of the stories, and the overlaps and differences in cultural expectations between the United States and Africa, the pressures of young womanhood, and more. Nadifa Mohamed's latest novel, The Fortune Men, is published by Penguin, and will be available in German from September, under the titel Der Geist von Tiger Bay, published by C.H. Beck Verlag.

With her guest Andrew Wildermuth, Stefanie Schaefer discusses the text that kicked off the white women's movement in the US, Margaret Fuller's 1845 "Woman in the 19th Century", interrogating its feminist meanings and transatlantic entanglements, and Fuller's concept of female genius.

With her guest, film expert and documentary maker Anna Sola, Stefanie Schäfer discusses the winning film of the 2021 Academy Awards, zooming in on visual anthropology, freedom and mobility, and feminist art in times of crisis.

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, Professor Robert Eaglestone, discuss The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin, a novel set in Portland, Oregon that dramatizes the human cost of the economic crash. They also touch on the relationship between Willy Vlautin's fiction writing and his songwriting

Dr. Trygve Svensson, director of the Norwegian think tank AGENDA, and Andrew Sola preview the upcoming elections in Norway on 13 September. Topics include antagonistic politics, social and economic inequality, climate change, and immigration. Lastly, Dr. Svensson remembers the tragic day of the terrorist bombing in Oslo and the subsequent mass shooting on the island of Utøya.

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, Professor of English at Colgate University, Michael Coyle, discuss No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts. This is the first of two episodes in which Douglas and Michael discuss novels that are based in different ways on F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby.

In this show, Andrew Sola and his guest, Prof. Steven Durand, discuss different theoretical approaches to understanding US foreign policy and international security 20 years after 9/11. Topics include (1) realpolitik or neo-realism: the view that the world is an anarchical and amoral competition among nations; (2) Graham Allison's critique of the assumption that governments make rational decisions; (3) James Dobbins' analysis of successful and unsuccessful approaches to nation building. Next, they discuss the war in Afghanistan, including (4) the role of humanitarian intervention in US foreign policy; and (5) the influence of domestic politics on foreign policy. The show concludes with (6) an assessment of President Biden's decision to end the war in Afghanistan as well as (7) a discussion of the Biden Doctrine.

Marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Stefanie and her guest, Americanist Marius Henderson, discuss contemporary literature and the concept of American art after 9/11, touching on the affective turn, the New Sincerity, the Occupy Movement, and the aesthetics of sleep in the novel "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" (2018) by US novelist Ottessa Moshfegh.

Political correspondent Christina Neuhaus and host Andrew Sola discuss the upcoming federal elections in Germany. They cover the top six parties: CDU, SPD, the Greens, FDP, AFD, and the Left. Also, they assess the chances of the three candidates who seek to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel: Olaf Scholz, Armin Laschet, and Annalena Baerbock . Lastly, they analyze the effect of climate change, tax policy, and COVID-19 on the elections.

In the second of two episodes about reinterpretations of The Great Gatsby, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, Michael Coyle, discuss The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo, in which Daisy Buchanan's golf star friend Jordan Baker narrates a dark, fantastical and politically-charged version of the same events that Nick Carraway tells in Fitzgerald's 1925 novel.

In Oct 2021, aka the second fall after the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic, many pressing questions persist: What will be our new normal? How will we construct our stories and our identities after COVID? Is the future, as many say, indeed female? In this episode, Stefanie Schäfer and her guests, Ina Batzke and Linda Hess, explore two novels about global pandemics that were published before the arrival of COVID-19, and the answers these works of post-apocalyptic speculative fiction offer. They touch on female authors, alternate fictional universes, and the consequences wrought on humanity by the end of oil—and of the cultural industry, respectively .

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, Los Angeles-based writer Ryan Gattis, discuss Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli, a road novel about a family traveling from New York City to the Mexican-American border. Check out Ryan's novels at ryangattis.com.

Do women have to choose between life as an artist and being a mother? That's what the story boils (or burns!) down to in Celeste Ng's 2017 novel (and in the eponymous Hulu Series) Little Fires Everywhere. In this episode, Stefanie Schäfer and her guest Julia Faisst discuss the implications and repercussions of this conflict—and on the side, they connect the abyss between itinerant freedom and the comforts of white settlement to the 2008 economic crisis, to adoption and white privilege, and to the iconicity of the American home in contemporary culture.

In the final episode of the first series of Novel RomAntics, host Douglas Cowie and guest Gregory Miller, a Wisconsin-based educator, discuss Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, a novel that, while telling a story of opiate addiction in the USA, contemplates matters of science, faith, race, immigration, and family.

This episode features Stefanie Schäfer and her guest Amanda Halter discussing their experiences in reading Louisa May Alcott's 1868/9 classic. We talk about Jo's meanings as tomboy and archetype of white womenhood, domesticity and nostalgia, and female authorship, touching also on Great Gerwig's 2019 film version--and finally, we wonder why Little Women continues to gather, as Anne Boyd Rioux and others have contended, a predominantly female readership.

In the final episode of 2021, Andrew Sola and our resident EU expert Dr. Guenter Danner discuss EU refugee policy, the Dublin Agreement, and Fortress Europe; the challenges facing the new German coalition government in 2022; and the likely candidates in the French presidential election coming up in April.

In our first episode 2022, Lady Fiction takes a cue from Black History Month to ask about the legacies of black woman celebrities in the US cultural archive. Stefanie Schäfer's guest is Dr. Samantha Pinto (UTexas), author of Infamous Bodies. Early Black Women's Celebrity and the Afterlives of Rights (Duke UP 2020), whose work on transantional feminism and black women's performance inquires into our understanding of the "popular" in popular culture. Fans of Beyoncé will find their Queen B all over and across this episode, as we read from Morgan Parker's 2017 poetry collection There are More Beuatiful Things than Beyoncé.

War has returned to Europe. Andrew Sola and Dr. Guenter Danner, our EU expert, unpack what the war means for Ukraine, Russia, and the future of the continent. Was the West delusional in believing that trade and economic relations would prevent Russian aggression? Is Putin a madman or a rational actor? How will the war end?

With her guest Nele Sawallisch, Stefanie discusses Esi Edugyan's 2018 novel Washington Black. With Olaudah Equiano's 1789 autobiography as intertext, the novel entangles the adventure story with the slave narrative. As Washington Black travels from Barbados to the Arctic, from Virginia to London, his narrative asks about the (hi)stories that remain out of the light and the making of 19th century discoverer personas against the backdrop of gratuitous black labor.

In this episode, Andrew Sola and the Trans-Atlanticist's EU expert Guenter Danner discuss the French election rematch between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. They then delve into the consequences of Viktor Orban's decisive victory in Hungary for the EU, Russia, and Ukraine.

In light of the pending rollback of abortion rights by the US Supreme Court's conservative majority, Stefanie Schäfer and her guest Judith Rauscher turn to a world without men--as imagined in literary texts from the turn of the 20th century. Reading feminist utopias such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915) and Mary E. Bardley's Mizora. A Prohpecy (1880/9), they discuss literary representations of an ideal same-sex state, whiteness, beauty standards, and the interlacing of progressivism and conservative views of womanhood in the US at a time when women fought for suffrage and civic equality.

In this episode, Andrew Sola and Christina Neuhaus, political correspondent for the Agence France-Press in Berlin, analyze the complexities of Germany's relationship with Russia since World War II. They focus on the gratitude felt by many Germans for the Soviet Union's approval of German reunification, the guilt felt for atrocities committed against Russia during the Second World War, as well as the greed that created an increasingly unbalanced economic relationship with Russia, driven by energy imports.

The Trans-Atlanticist at the Amerikazentrum in Hamburg is delighted to announce the launch of our new six-part series called Transatlantic Wisdom, which explores the rich interchange of ideas between Germany and the United States over the last several hundred years. The series is hosted by two fantastic professors: Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen of Colgate University in New York. Michael is an expert in Modernist literature and poetry and Alan is German scholar and translator of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Episodes will be released every Friday for the next six weeks starting on June 10.

Everything that matters is difficult to understand. In the first episode of Transatlantic Wisdom, Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen unpack the meaning of Nietzsche's famous line that we have killed God. They then assess the influence of Nietzsche on Wallace Stevens' poetry, namely his famous poems The Snow Man, The Surprises of the Superhuman, and The Emperor of Ice-Cream. Key themes include the seduction of language, problems with subjectivity, and the importance of patient interpretation.

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd. In the second episode, Coyle and Swensen trace the evolution of thought from the Enlightenment period (1685-1815) through the Romantic era (1800-1850) and Nietzsche's lifetime (1844-1900) and lastly on to the Modernist era (1900-1940) by focusing on a number of key transatlantic figures. Key themes include the art of interpretation, the creation of philosophical systems, and tensions between rationalism and artistic creation.

The truth disappears when we summarize and paraphrase. In the third episode, Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen turn to wisdom literature written by two transatlantic women whose lives span three centuries, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) and Sarah Manguso (b. 1974). Key themes include historical understandings of social castes and gender, feminism, tensions between nature and artistic creation, and the philosophical relationship between the fragment and the whole.

The meaning of a poem is the least interesting thing about it. In the fourth episode, Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen share the satirical wisdom of two great transatlantic journalists and savage social critics, Karl Kraus (1874-1936) and H. L. Mencken (1880-1956). Key themes include linguistic precision, anti-foundationalism, politics, journalism, and—most importantly—wit, sarcasm, and humor.

Different forms shape knowledge in different ways. In the fifth episode, Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen introduce a German and an American scholar who study the aphoristic form, namely Gerhard Neumann (1934-2017) and Adam Gopnik (b. 1956). These introductions serve as a starting point for a discussion of the thinkers Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), and Elias Canetti (1905-1994). Key themes include the tension between analytical and spiritual forms of wisdom literature, the conflict between thought and feeling, dogmatism, and epistemological humility.

There is no “I” that sees in every direction at once. In the sixth and final episode of Transatlantic Wisdom, Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen return to Friedrich Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality (1887) in order to explore its importance in the development of modern wisdom literature, particularly Wallace Stevens' poetry. Key themes include an exploration of the ascetic ideal in the Western tradition; the importance of form or genre in the creation of meaning; the differences between treatise, polemic, and aphorism; the tensions between having a systemic worldview and having no systemic worldview; the impossibility of achieving pure knowledge; and lastly the joy that comes in understanding that the absence of meaning provides human beings with the unique existential opportunity to be creative.

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, Dr. Katie McGettigan, Senior Lecturer in American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, discuss Sister Carrie, a novel by Theodore Dreiser. Published in 1900, it tells the story of a young woman seduced by the material trappings of Chicago and its men

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, writer Ryan Gattis, discuss Native Son by Richard Wright. Published in 1940, it tells the story of a young Black Chicagoan who murders a White heiress, and the personal, social and political consequences that ensue.

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, documentary filmmaker Mark Blottner, discuss The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren. Published in 1949, it tells the story of a war veteran's struggle with morphine addiction, and in so doing paints a portrait of a marginal neighborhood in Chicago and its people.

In this episode, Sola and Danner examine the recent elections in Sweden and Italy. Both nations experienced an enormous surge in votes for far-right parties. Is the European electorate moving to the right? Are are far-right parties moving to the center? Join us as we explore the history of Swedish and Italian politics over the last 100 years.

In this episode, our experts explore the effects of Russia's war in Ukraine on European energy policy and EU politics. A number of countries are analyzed, including Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, and the Baltics. The episode ends with a moral and legal assessment of EU policy regarding Russian draft dodgers.

The Amerikazentrum Hamburg commemorates Kurt Vonnegut's 100th birthday with a special podcast about his seminal novel Slaughterhouse-Five. The Amerikazentrum will also be hosting a Virtual Vonnegut Birthday Celebration live on ZOOM on Saturday Nov. 19 from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. CET. The expert panel includes Dr. Wieland Schwanebeck, Vonnegut biographer Charles J. Shields, and Jan-Christian Petersen. Please visit our website to register for the event: amerikazentrum.de.

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, poet and teacher Alina Borger, discuss The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. They begin by exploring why the novel makes for useful study on a high school curriculum, and move to a wide-ranging discussion of its place as a novel of Chicago, its structure, and the many themes that emerge from its center as a novel about a Latina girl's tentative steps towards adolescence.

In this episode, Stefanie Schaefer and her guest Savage Bear (Cree) commemorate Native American Heritage Month. They discuss sensuality and the politics of decolonizing sexuality in contemporary indigenous art. They address indigenous interventions in academic discourses, read poetry by Richard van Camp (Tłı̨chǫ Dene) and Tenille Campbell (Dene/Métis), and talk about moose lips and feminist body sovereignty.

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, Professor Robert Eaglestone discuss The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon, published in 2008. The conversation looks at the novel's structure, and its development of themes of immigrant and refugee identity, ethnic cleansing, trauma, language, and much more.

With Dr. Cedric Essi, Stefanie Schäfer talks about the legacy of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, a mainstay of US culture and a holiday classic, and the politics of the 1991 “unauthorized parody” The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall, in which Scarlett's black half- sister Cynara tells a very different family story. She asks readers to discard Confederate nostalgia and white melodrama and to dismantle Gone with the Wind's status as cultural monument to the Lost Cause.

Andrew Sola of the Amerikazentrum-Hamburg teams up with Sarah Wagner and David Sirakov of the Atlantische Akademie in Rheinland-Pfalz to analyze the 2022 mid-term elections in the United States. What lessons can we learn about the health of American democracy? What issues are driving American voters? How is Donald Trump's influence on American politics evolving? What can we expect between now and the next presidential election in 2024? This podcast episode is a cooperation between The Trans-Atlanticist and the Atlantische Akademie's podcast, Amerikas Verfassung: Politik und Gesellschaft in den USA. It will be published on both podcast channels. Please show your support for transatlantic relations by subscribing!

On December 7, 2022, German police announced that they had uncovered a plot to overthrow the government and install a new king of Germany. Who are these seditionists, known as Reichsbürger or citizens of the Reich? What are their goals? How do they interact with other extremist groups in Germany? What can the German government do-and what can't it do-to manage the evolving threats of home-grown extremism? Andrew Sola and Günter Danner answer these questions in this special episode of The Trans-Atlanticist Politics Podcast.

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, Professor Michael Coyle, discuss Carl Sandburg's 1919 collection, Chicago Poems. They interpret a handful of poems, including his most famous poem, Chicago, which begins with the memorable lines: "Hog butcher of the World / Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat / Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler / Stormy, husky, brawling, / City of Big Shoulders." Also, they assess Sandburg's place in American poetry more generally.

In this episode, host Douglas Cowie and his guest, Gregory Miller, discuss Stuart Dybek's 1990 book of short stories, The Coast of Chicago. In particular, they place Dybek's depiction of the shifting demographics of the Pilsen neighborhood into broader contexts, and also look at Dybek's lyrical, musical writing style, and the effects it accomplishes.

In the final episode of 2022, Andrew and Günter discuss the important transatlantic events of 2022 and (mis)forecast the future. This episode's six topics include the war in Ukraine, the political climate in the USA, the continuing rise of the far right in Europe, the unfolding EU corruption scandal, general macroeconomic trends in Europe and the USA, and finally the evolution of the great global struggle between liberal democracies and autocracies. Happy New Year!

Welcome to Season 4 of the Trans-Atlanticist at the Amerikazentrum in Hamburg. We are republishing this episode from 2021 (Season 2) in honor of African-American Heritage Month. In this episode, host of LadyFiction Dr. Stefanie Schaefer and her guest Prof. Alexandra Ganser from the University of Vienna discuss Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. If you are interested in learning more about African-American culture, check out our specially curated OverDrive Reading List, which highlights African-American history and books by Black authors. Browse the list here: https://ebooksusa.overdrive.com/collection/1415345 AS A MEMBER OF THE AMERIKAZENTRUM, YOU CAN USE THIS EBOOK SERVICE FOR FREE. PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION. BECOME A MEMBER TO GET YOUR FREE ACCESS TO THOUSANDS OF BOOKS AND MAGAZINES! https://amerikazentrum.de

The year 2022 proved to be a hard test for the resilience of democracies, and 2023 continues to test the strength of democracies worldwide. Threats are both external and internal. Authoritarian governments seek to undermine democratic societies with disinformation campaigns from the outside. Or, as in Russia's case, they simply seek to conquer and obliterate their democratic neighbors. Meanwhile, home-grown groups seek to attack democracy from within, through election denialism, conspiracy theories, and political violence. However, there is good news for democracy! It can be seen in a number of new and innovative democratic practices developing throughout the world. The two most important of these are sortition and deliberation, the practice of randomly selecting citizens to meet, learn, and discuss an issue of public importance, and then giving them the power to shape the solution to the problem. In the first of this two-episode miniseries, deliberation expert Antoine Vergne from Missions Publique and sortition expert Ahmed Radi Teleb provide you with an introduction to these new democracy initiatives.

In Episode 2 of A Better Democracy Is Possible, Antoine Vergne from Missions Publique and our sortition expert Ahmed Radi Teleb continue the conversation about new democracy initiatives. They highlight current efforts by the European Commission to engage citizens throughout the European Union in the EU decision-making process regarding issues such as the reduction of food waste and the future of the internet. Other topics include the feeling of democratic euphoria that results when citizens participate in citizens assemblies as well as the evolutionary basis for democratic deliberation.

In this special Women's History Month episode, Stefanie Schäfer discusses gossip with American Studies Scholar Katrin Horn, head of the research project www.archivalgossip.com. Following the trajectories of American artists in Rome, and specifically the making of actress Charlotte Cushman's celebrity persona, they read the functions of gossip in 19th-century US magazines between the intimate and the political, between escapism and nation building, and they also ponder the question of how gossip became gendered.

Our first politics podcast of 2024 begins on a tragic note after the mass shooting in Hamburg, which claimed the lives of at least 7 victims and injured many more. The Amerikazentrum would like to express its heartfelt condolences to the victims' families and friends, as well as to the all of the citizens of Hamburg. After a discussion of gun laws in Germany, Sola and Danner turn to the concept of feminist foreign policy and describe its place in wider foreign policy debates about power-based approaches and humanitarian approaches. Lastly, they provide analysis of recent developments in Ukraine and discuss the situation in Bakhmut, Chancellor Scholz's visit to DC, and the simmering crises in Moldova and Georgia.

Andrew Sola provides a new introduction to this episode, originally published in 2021 to mark the end of the War in Afghanistan, by reflecting on the 20-year anniversary of the War in Iraq. What lessons can we learn from America's blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan? Has Russia avoided the same mistakes in its war against Ukraine? And if Russian has learned nothing, are there reasons for Ukraine to be hopeful?

In this episode, Douglas Cowie and Adrienne Brown (University of Chicago) discuss the life and poetry of Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks. They talk about her poems that document life in Chicago, "Kitchenette Building," "In the Mecca," "Chicago Picasso," and "The Wall," and unpack the social, economic, racial, cultural, and political history that informs her life and work. Please see these links for further information about topics mentioned in the episode: Gwendolyn Brooks and others reading her poetry: The Library of Congress Audio: https://www.loc.gov/item/85755182/ YouTube: We Real Cool (Short Film produced by the Poetry Foundation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0USvSvhue70 LP (Caedmon Records, 1968): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9XlIR-SzVg The Wall of Respect (City of Chicago, Department of Cultural Affairs): https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/wall_of_respect.html History of The Mecca and IIT (Segregation by Design): https://www.segregationbydesign.com/chicago/iit-and-the-mecca-flats

In this episode, Lady Fiction returns to the First Lady mystique with a particular glance at 'the Jackie moment' with Oline Eaton, the author of "Finding Jackie. A Life Reinvented" (Diversion Books, 2023). They discuss the link between biography and 'capital H' historiography, the American craze around Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the need for “just one more story” to get to the essence of this famous cultural icon. Link to Finding Jackie: https://diversionbooks.com/books/finding-jackie/

Narratives of immigration and identity formation are never fully told, and they change as we mature. In this episode, Stefanie Schäfer talks to author and activist Oksana Marafioti about her Romani-Armenian-Ukrainian background, her personal American success story, as well as her memoir project "All of Us Fragile and Brave." Touching on the "what" and the "how "of identity assemblage, they also turn to a recent example of the immigration-identity narrative, Nora Krug's "Heimat /Belonging" (2018).

The past is present and the present is personal. With her guest, German American author and illustrator Nora Krug, Stefanie Schäfer talks about visualizing Timothy Snyder's "On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century," about flowered wallpaper and swastika trees, and about dealing with German Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung as a West German 40-something in this day and age.

It's turning into a hot summer in Europe. France is burning in protest after the killing of an ethnic teenager by the police. A Koran was torched in Stockholm, inflaming tensions with Turkey about Sweden's membership in NATO. The far-right AFD party won a local election in East Germany, stoking anti-immigrant tensions. And Ukraine continues to burn after 500 days of war. Andrew Sola and Günter Danner discuss these issues and many more in their summer politics update.

Stefanie Schäfer kicks off the new season of LadyFiction with her guest Katharina Motyl. They confront many difficult and complex questions about feminist solidarity with the Iran protests, imperial feminism, and the Western obsession with the burka as the only symbol of female oppression, liberation, freedom, or self-determination. Mohja Kahf's poem "My Body Is Not Your Battleground" provides a starting point for reflecting on Arab and Muslim feminism, then and now, and on the potential of a European Feminist Foreign Policy.

In the first episode of this series about Chicago history, Dr. Sola and his expert guests, Dr. Keating (North Central College) and Dr. Karamanski (Loyola University-Chicago) discuss the history of the indigenous people of Chicagoland from the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago through the War of 1812. Specific topics include the arrival of Paleo-Indians and the development of Mississippian culture, which reached its summit in the indigenous metropolis of Cahokia; the arrival of European traders and settlers; the machinations of European powers in Paris and London to exert control over the region; the long period of peace between the first French traders and indigenous people; the first non-indigenous settler in Chicago, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who was of African not European descent; the rise of the mixed-race Metis culture around Chicago; the resistance of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa to American expansionism; and the outbreak of violence during the War of 1812, which culminated with the burning of Fort Dearborn by an indigenous army.

In the second episode of the series, Dr. Sola and his guests, Dr. Low (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, Ohio State University-Newark) and Dr. Karamanski (Loyola University-Chicago) tell the story of the indigenous people of Chicagoland from the War of 1812 through their violent removal from the region. Specific topics include the various origin stories of the Potawatomi; the willingness of tribes to accommodate and compromise with Americans; the Indian tribe as a construct of the US government; the Indian Removal Act of 1830; the Blackhawk war of 1832; the Treaty of Chicago of 1833; the phenomenon of "Treaty Chiefs," as seen in the cases of Billy Caldwell (British-Potawatomi) and Alexander Robinson (British-Otatwa); the unique story of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi; the development of Indian boarding schools, whose purpose was to destroy all aspects of indigenous culture and identity; the diverse perspectives of various Indian tribes and bands in their responses to the arrival of Americans; and the Native American perspective about the concept of land ownership.

In Part 3 of our history, Dr. Sola and Dr. Wuepper, historian of German immigration, explore the first two waves of Germanic migrants to Chicago, the so-called Dreiziger (the 30-ers, the ones who arrived in the 1830s) and the Vierundachtziger (the 48-ers, or the ones who arrived due to the 1848 revolutions in various German-speaking states, duchies, and principalities in what is now modern Germany). Topics include the rapid growth of Chicago between 1833 and 1880, when it grew from a mere 200 to over 500,000 inhabitants, making it the world's fastest growing city; the difficulty of defining "German immigrants" in early Chicago because Germany did not yet exist as a nation-state; tensions between the 30-ers and the 48-ers; the strong political beliefs of the 48-ers, including a staunch opposition to slavery and secession; the shift of their political support from the pro-immigrant Democratic Party to the anti-slavery Republican Party of Abe Lincoln; the importance of beer to the German immigrants, as seen in the Lager Beer Riot of 1855; the creation and deployment of so-called ethnic regiments, including German ethnic regiments, during the Civil War; and the importance of German community associations, namely the Turnverein or Turner halls as well as singing societies and choirs, throughout the 1800s.

In Episode 4 of our history of Chicago, we discuss the continuing growth and then decline of German Chicago, which largely disappeared with America's entry into WWI in 1917. Topics include the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), which united the German community in Chicago; the importance of German-language newspapers, namely the Illinois Staats-Zeitung; the impact of the Great Chicago Fire (1871) on German communities on the North Side; the next wave of German immigrants who came as industrial workers to help rebuild the city; the left-wing political activities of these new workers, which led to the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Haymarket Square Massacre of 1886; the first conflict between the German Empire and the United States as seen in the Samoan Crisis (1887-1889); the death of German-language newspapers and culture with the onset of WWI; the final wave of German immigrants fleeing communism and the loss of the territories of Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia following WWII; and the lasting contributions made be German immigrants to Chicago, including gym class in schools, playgrounds in public parks, and homes for senior citizens.

Poet and scholar Lindsay Tuggle is Stefanie Schaefer's guest in this episode. They talk about "solastalgia," the feeling of loss that occurs when you are "home" but your home is destroyed. This concept has acquired a new global relevance in the Anthropocene as a climate-related mental health concept. They also discuss solastalgia's meanings as pathology and as a strategy for resilience. Lastly, they assess the impact of Walt Whitman's Civil War poetry on Tuggle's own poetic engagement with her lost home in Mayfield, KY, which was wiped out by a tornado and a flood in 2021.

In the second of our two-episode series about Jane Addams, we continue telling the story of Hull House and Addams' impact on the development of the the city of Chicago. Addams was a keen advocate for worker's rights and helped mediate the labor unrest that had been shaking the city since the Haymarket Affair of 1886. We survey the long list of projects she supported from juvenile justice reform to children's music education and from housing reform to the building of playgrounds and libraries. We also meet her partners in her projects, including Ellen Gates Starr, Eleanor Sophia Smith, John Dewey, Lillian Wald, and Johnny the Greek. The models of community improvement she created in Chicago began to spread around the US and the world as Addams herself began to set her sights on international issues, namely imperialism, militarization, and war. Her concerns about armed conflict led her to become Chair of the Woman's Peace Party and President of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. We also outline the criticism she endured as a result of her peace activism. As her health began to fade, she maintained her interest in issues of racial justice and community involvement at Hull House.

In our wrap-up of political developments in the EU in 2023, Sola and Danner discuss the results of the five big European elections this year in Italy, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. Are we seeing the entrenchment of the far-right across Europe? Or are centrist politicians regaining the advantage? The second topic is the European Council Summit that took place last week and that yielded some mixed results for Ukraine, due to the obstinance of Viktor Orban, PM of Hungary. Lastly, we evaluate the performance of the German coalition government, which had a rough and tumble 2023.

In the final episode of 2023, Sola and Danner look ahead to 2024. They discuss three issues that will influence a number of elections in 2024: the immigration crisis, the war in Ukraine, and the macroeconomic situation. They then use these issues as a lens to analyze five upcoming elections: the Russian presidential elections in March; the EU parliamentary elections in June; the east German state elections in Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony in September; the expected parliamentary elections in the UK; and the mother of all presidential elections in the USA in November.

"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life." Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House (1910) In the first of our two episodes on the life of Jane Addams, we learn about her formative years in a small farming village outside of Chicago, her education, and her relationship with her progressive Republican father, from whom she developed some guiding principles for her life, namely the ideas of Christian stewardship and community engagement. We also learn about her first visits to Europe, where she began to develop her conviction that human beings are not helpless and subject to the unfathomable forces of history, but that we have agency and can change the world in positive ways. Lastly, we explore the origins of her belief in mediation and dialogue, the idea that we can never solve the problems facing society without understanding one another and speaking to one another. All of these ideas coalesced with the founding of the first settlement house in Chicago by Addams in 1889, Hull House, a place where immigrants and Americans, rich and poor, black and white, young and old, men and women could come together in order to address the problems facing the fastest-growing city on the planet. Our two expert guests are Rima Lunin Schultz and Ann Durkin Keating. Rima is a Jane Addams scholar.  She co-edited "Women Building Chicago: A Biographical Dictionary” and most recently co-authored "Eleanor Smith's Hull-House Songs: Music of Protest and Hope in Jane Addams Chicago".    Ann is professor of history at North Central College in Naperville, IL, and the co-editor of the "Encyclopedia of Chicago".

This episode is part of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City partnership. Learn more about the history and culture of Black Chicago with award-winning scholar Dr. Mary Pattillo, Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at Northwestern University. Topics include the difficulties in defining Black Chicago, which is neither a static nor homogenous concept; the two waves of the Great Migration of Black people from the rural South to the cities of the North in the early 1900s; the important differences between the concepts of the Black Ghetto and the Black Metropolis; and the history of important Black political figures in Chicago from Ida B. Wells and President Barack Obama to Mayors Harold Washington, Lori Lightfoot, and Brandon Johnson. Throughout, Pattillo highlights the resilience and complexity of Black Chicago.

This episode is part of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City partnership. In this episode, Dominic Pacyga (Emeritus Professor of History, Columbia College Chicago) and Tobias Brinkmann (Malvin and Lea Bank Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History, Penn State) discuss the immigration of Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians and Lithuanians to Chicago via the Hamburg-America Line. Topics include the following: -the first Eastern European immigrants in the 1850s -the self-definition of these groups through language, religion, and ethnicity -the concept of spatial integration and social segregation in Chicago -the role of railroads in opening up Eastern Europe to the port of Hamburg -the turmoil in Europe that caused different waves of immigration -the importance of foreign-language, ethnic newspapers in Chicago -the new roles available to immigrant women in Chicago -the inter-ethnic conflict in Chicago caused by World War I -the effect of immigration restrictions on Eastern Europeans due to the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924 -the inter-ethnic conflict between German Chicagoans (the German-American Bund) and other groups before and during World War II -the softening of immigration restrictions after WWII with the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 -the differences among Polish, Czech, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian experiences during the Cold War If you are interested in learning more about Polish Chicago, check out Back Home: Polish Chicago at the Chicago History Museum through June 8, 2024. https://www.chicagohistory.org/

This episode is part of the Amerikazentrum's ChicagoHamburg30 series, celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City partnership. Happy Jewish American Heritage Month! In this episode, we explore the rich and complex history of Jewish Chicago, from the 1850s to the present. Topics include the following: -the first Jewish settlers and politicians in Chicago -the influence of German high-culture and Enlightenment philosophy on German Jews in Chicago -the formation of Jewish regimental companies in the Civil War -the second wave of Jewish immigrants and the tensions between establishment Jews and the new arrivals -World War I and the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924 -Prohibition and the rise of the Jewish gangster -the role of Word War II and the Holocaust in unifying the disparate Jewish communities -protests against the German American Bund -the transformation of the suburb of Lawndale into German Jewish "Deutschland" -further immigration trends from the post-Soviet nations as well as Israel Throughout, you will learn about famous Jewish Chicagoans, such as Henry Greenebaum, Dankmar Adler, Edward Solomon, Hannah Shapiro, Joseph Schaffner, and Julius Rosenwald. Our expert guests are Dr. Tobias Brinkmann (Penn State University) and Dr. Joe Kraus (University of Scranton).

This episode is part of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, which celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City Partnership. Happy Pride Month! We celebrate with an episode about Queer Chicago featuring two historians of Queer History, Owen Keehnen and Timothy Stewart-Winter. Topics include the following: -The difficulties of accessing Queer history since it was repressed and marginalized for so long -The recovery and reclamation of Queer history -Early Gay cultures in the Levy District -The Society for Human Rights, which was the first Gay rights organization in the US, founded in Chicago by Henry Gerber in 1924 -The influence of the German writer and thinker Magnus Hirschfeld on Gay culture in Chicago -The special historical role of Chicago as the Midwestern Queer city, which differentiates it from the more well-known Gay cities of New York and San Francisco -The repeal of anti-sodomy laws by the Illinois in 1961, the first state to do so -Chicago's Human Rights Ordinance of 1988, which formally protected the Queer community from discrimination -Black Queer Chicago -Lesbian Chicago -The AIDS crisis -The Belmont Rocks and the AIDS Garden Check out Owen's Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/owenkeehnen/

Many of the EU's 370 million eligible voters from 27 countries went to the voting booths between 6 and 9 June 2024 in order to cast their votes for the European Parliament. In this episode, Andrew Sola and our resident EU expert Günter Danner discuss the EU Parliament, its powers, its role in the constellation of EU institutions, and its inner workings. Furthermore, they discuss the results of the election and their significance for France, Germany, and Europe as a whole.

This episode is part of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City Partnership. No industry shaped Chicago more decisively than the meatpacking industry, and no book exposed the rapacious, exploitative and vicious character of the meatpacking industry more than Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906). In this episode, we explore the origins and explosive growth of the meatpacking industry, the brutal working conditions on the bloody killing floors, the emergence of literature about Chicago in the early 1900s, the importance of Lithuanians in Chicago history, the life of Upton Sinclair, his urban realist and naturalist writing style, and his political ideas as seen in The Jungle. Our expert guests are historian Dr. Dominic Pacyga, co-founder of Chicago's Packingtown Museum, and novelist Dr. Douglas Cowie, creator of the Literature of Chicago Course at Royal Holloway, University of London. Visit the Packingtown Museum, voted the best small museum in Chicago. More information is available here: https://www.packingtownmuseum.org/

Fri, 28 Jun 2024 07:00:00 +0000 https://thetrans-atlanticist.podigee.io/s5e7-a-short-history-of-organized-crime-in-chicago f27c28ae2961be94ffd5eeca8025774f with Andrew Sola, Robert Lombardo and Joe Kraus This episode is part of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City partnership. Chicago is always associated with the Mafia boss Al Capone. But what is the real history of organized crime in the city? When did it begin? What social and economic forces helped it grow? And how did machine politicians, in alliance with gangsters like Al Capone, shape the city? In this episode, we dissect the connections between vice and politics in the city from its origins to the present with two expert guests: retired Chicago Police Officer and Professor of Criminology Robert Lombardo (Loyola University) and author and expert on Jewish gangs in Chicago Professor Joe Kraus (University of Scranton). Topics include the origins of vice in the Levy District, the early connections between politicians and criminal activity, the Black Hand, Jewish gangs, Prohibition, and the evolution of the Italian Mafia from its early days as the Capone Syndicate through the emergence of the Outfit. 5 7 full with Andrew Sola, Robert Lombardo and Joe Kraus no chicago,organized crime,al capone,mafia,outfit,amerikazentrum,andrew sola,joe kraus,robert lombardo Andrew Sola

The 2024 election is shaping up to be one of the most consequential in history. With two vastly different candidates and visions, the stakes couldn't be higher. What's particularly concerning this year is the apparent disregard for democratic institutions and values.⁠ Join us as we explore the historical context of this pivotal moment, starting from George Washington's presidency. To mark 225 years since Washington's passing, Gottfried Haufe and Thomas Zimmer discuss how Washington's precedent of stepping down after two terms has shaped our democracy.⁠ This event is part of our virtual Road To Election Series. The event series is running from January 2024 to January 2025, and will host in-depth discussions and foster a vibrant exchange of ideas in the lead-up to the pivotal 2024 U.S. election. As a collaboration of over 25 transatlantic organizations and political foundations, the series aims to inform, to engage in dynamic dialogues, and to champion democratic values by presenting diverse perspectives. The Road to Election series aims to offer comprehensive insights for audiences both in the United States and Germany. For more information visit www.roadtoelection.de. Gottfried Haufe works as a freelance event and radio presenter, cultural manager and author. As a trained historian, English scholar and educationalist, many of his interests lie in the field of educational and mediation projects of all kinds. However, topics relating to art and culture, social co-operation, innovation and future prospects also play an important role for him. Thomas Zimmer is a historian and has been a DAAD Visiting Professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., since 2021. He was previously an Academic Counsellor at the University of Freiburg. Zimmer is interested in the history of American democracy and its opponents - especially anti-democratic tendencies in modern conservatism since the 1930s. He is currently working on a book project entitled "Trumpism: An American History", in which he locates the current radicalization of the American right in the longer lines of U.S. history. He also writes "Democracy Americana", a weekly newsletter on American politics, and hosts the "Is This Democracy" podcast.

This episode is part of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, celebrating the 30-Year Anniversary of the Chicago Hamburg Sister-City relationship. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago 1968 was one of the most important political events in the twentieth century. It was preceded by a number of earth-shaking crises, including the devastating Tet Offensive in Vietnam in January, President Lyndon B. Johnson's shocking announcement that he would not run for a second term in March, the assassination of beloved civil rights leader Martin Luther King in April, and then the assassination of popular presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in June. In the midst of this turmoil, all eyes turned to the DNC in Chicago in August. The cast of colorful characters includes the all-powerful Mayor of Chicago Richard J. Daley, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy, segregationist candidate Governor George Wallace, journalists Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather, author Norman Mailer, activist leaders Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffmann, as well as hippies, yippies, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Mobe (the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam), the Poor People's Mule Train, and the Chicago Police. Our expert guests include Dr. Charlotte Lerg (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich) and Prof. emir. Gary Kissick, who attended the protests in Chicago in August of 1968.

This episode is part of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City relationship. In this special episode, Andrew Sola and his guests discuss the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Topics include the similarities and differences between the 1968 DNC and the 2024 DNC; the use of gender and race in the speeches; the main themes of the convention, including the reclamation of a Democratic concept of patriotism; the relative paucity of European and global themes; VP Kamala Harris's speech; and memorable speeches by other speakers, including Michelle Obama, Adam Kinzinger, The Central Park 5, Oprah Winfrey, and Hillary Clinton. Lastly, we settle the dispute about how to create the possessive form of Harris. Is it Harris' policies or Harris's policies?

This episode features an analysis of the local elections in the east German states of Thuringia and Saxony, which were held on September 1. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) earned the most votes in Thuringia and the second most in Saxony. Furthermore, a brand-new party, the BSW or Bündnis Sahra Wagegnknecht achieved 16% in Thuringia and 12% in Saxony. Who are the leaders of these parties? We introduce you to Björn Höcke, leader of the AfD in Thuringia, and Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the BSW. What do they stand for? What are the issues that drive there campaigns? What role dose anti-Americanism play in their politics? Both parties are pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine, anti-NATO, anti-EU, and anti-immigrant, but what are their differences? We explore how Nazi ideology still influences the AfD and how East German communism found a new home in the BSW.

It's Hispanic-American Heritage Month, so today's episode focuses on the unique role that Latino voters play in American politics. Andrew Sola and New York Times National Politics Reporter Jazmine Ulloa analyse the Latino electorate and discuss the following points: -the diversity of the Latino electorate -the growing influence of Latino voters -explanations for historically lower voter turn-out among Latinos -Democratic and Republican strategies to reach out to Latinos -the role of swing-states like Arizona in the presidential election -Latino responses to aggressive anti-immigrant rhetoric -the role of the economy and immigration policy in past and current elections This event is part of the US Election Speaker Series, sponsored by the Association of German-American Centers, the Aspen Institute, and the US Embassy in Berlin.

This episode is part of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City Anniversary. We're celebrating Hispanic-American Heritage month with a deep dive into the rich history and diversity of the Hipanic/Latino/LatinX/Latine community in Chicago. Topics include the following: -the debate about the language we use to describe the Hispanic or Latino community -the first Latinos in Chicago in the 1850s -the political upheavals in Central and South America that drove migration -the mass deportations during the Depression -the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924 -the Bracero Program (1942-1964), which brought Mexican laborers to the US to help with the war effort -the program of expulsion, unfortunately named Operation Wetback (1954), which forcefully removed Mexicans and Mexican-American citizens from the US -the rise of the Chicano movement, the Young Lords, and the Brown Berets in the 60s Check out the website for the exhibition on Latino Chicago at the Chicago History Museum here: https://www.chicagohistory.org/aqui-en-chicago/ And here's the link to historical Spanish-language newspapers in Chicago: https://www.nicolemarroquin.com/harrison-and-froebel/2019/12/4/latinx-newspapers-of-chicago And here's a link to the book _Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s_ by Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez: https://www.unmpress.com/9780826339744/decade-of-betrayal/ Our expert guests are Dr. Elena Gonzales and Dr. Lilia Fernandez. Elena Gonzales is Curator of Civic Engagement & Social Justice at the Chicago History Museum where she is curating _Aquí en Chicago_ (2025). She is author of _Exhibitions for Social Justice_ (2019) in Routledge's Museum Meanings Series. Lilia Fernandez is Professor of History at University of Illinois-Chicago. She is the author of _Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago _ (2012).

In this episode we commemorate the life and work and ongoing influence of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), 175 years after his death. Poe is a fascinating historical figure and his literary work is known throughout the world. In this episode, we explore both his complicated life story as well as his ongoing influence on all forms of creative production. We discuss the loss of his mother and his early years in London; we examine the role of Romanticism in his writing; we take you through his time in Baltimore and his role in the development of the horror genre; and lastly, we discuss his continual presence in contemporary pop culture. Gottfried Haufe moderates this episode with special guest Dr. Verena Adamik from the University of Potsdam.

This episode is part of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, celebrating the 30-Year Anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City relationship. Happy German-American Heritage Month! In this episode, we explore the remarkable story of one German immigrant who left Hamburg for Chicago in 1923, Walter Heinsen, through the lens of his grandson John. Walter was an aerial photographer for the German Empire during WWI, where he met historical figures like the Red Baron (Manfred von Richthofen) and Kaiser Wilhelm II. However, he also photographed regular soldiers, including British and American prisoners of war. After the war, he immigrated to Chicago where he started a successful photography business in Rogers Park, Chicago. Many years later, his grandson John re-examined his grandfather's photo archive and made some remarkable discoveries, leading to his quest to find the families of the British and American POWs his grandfather photographed over 100 years ago. Join the hunt for the POWs' families on Facebook at: returntolecateau1917.com You can also use the hashtag: #bringthemhomeagain Also mentioned in the episode is John Heinsen's exhibit about his grandfather, which was shown at the Hamburg Emigration Museum, Das Auswanderermuseum Ballinstadt. More information is available here (in German): https://www.ballinstadt.de/sonderausstellung-durch-die-linse-des-lebens/11754/

In this episode, Andrew Sola and AFP journalist Christina Neuhaus discuss Germany's reaction to the US elections as well as the collapse of the German government. Topics include the following: -Public and private reactions to Trump's victory -The reactions of all the different political parties, including BSW, AFD, die Linke, SPD, CDU, the Greens, and FDP -Different policy issues that concern Germany and Europe, including Ukraine, trade, tariffs, and the climate -The climate of predictable unpredictability that will characterize trans-Atlantic politics for the next four years -The three paths that the EU and NATO might take in the future, including the Europe-first approach led by France, the Trump-adjacent approach led by Hungary, and the compromise approach led by Poland -The reasons for the collapse of the coalition government in Berlin, namely the so-called debt brake, which is the constitutional rule preventing the government from accruing public debt -The process of planning new elections Lastly, they forecast the likely outcome of the elections, namely a coalition between the CDU and the SPD, with Friedrich Merz of the CDU as the new Chancellor in Berlin. Check out Christina Neuhaus's excellent weekly podcast on current debates in the German Parliament (Bundestag) here: https://unterderkuppel.de/

***This episode is part of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, which is celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City partnership (1994-2024).*** In our 30th and final episode celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City partnership, we look at the German architects who literally built the buildings that Chicagoans live, work, and play in today. After discussing the early history of German architects in Chicago, we discuss the life and career of Mies van der Rohe through the memories of his grandson Dirk Lohan. We cover van der Rohe's role in the Bauhaus movement, his difficulties with the Nazis, his escape from Germany, and his career in Chicago. Then, Dirk relates his memories of WWII in Germany and his cooperation with his grandfather on post-war buildings, including the New National Gallery in West Berlin as well as the IBM building and the Federal Center in Chicago. After a discussion about Helmut Jahn, another great German-American architect, Rolf and Dirk conclude with a heartfelt thank you to the people of Chicago for their generosity and kindness in accepting German immigrants throughout the years. Our guests: Dirk Lohan is a German-American architect who designed the Shedd Oceanarium, the Soldier Field expansion, and the McDonald's corporate headquarters. He is Mies van der Rohe's grandson. Rolf Achilles is an art historian who has worked extensively on Chicago art and architecture. He was also instrumental in founding the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City partnership thirty years ago. Photo Credit: Anna Kristina Sola, The New National Gallery, Berlin

In our final politics podcast of 2024, we look back at the political developments in France, Germany, and the US in 2024. We also look ahead to issues facing Germany, Europe, and the US in 2025. Topics include the following: -French President Macron's difficulties with internal French politics -the collapse of Chancellor Scholz's coalition government in Berlin -issues that will affect the elections in Germany in February, including the economy and illegal migration -Trump's approach to tariffs and support for Ukraine Happy New Year everyone!

Andrew Sola and Günter Danner analyze the 2025 federal elections in Germany, focusing on the social, economic, and security challenges facing Germany, Europe, Ukraine, the USA, and the world.

The new administration in Washington has forced both Americans and Europeans to reckon with an emerging new security environment. How should we understand this new world order? Is it time to panic? Ambassador Doug Lute (US Ambassador to NATO, 2013-2017) outlines the contours of this new world and explains why we should not panic. Topics include the following: -Updates from the Munich Security Conference -Consequences of the Trump-Zelenskyy White House summit -A primer on 4 traditional pillars of US Foreign Policy (military alliances, trade agreements, support of international organizations, and commitment to development assistance) -The evolution from a bi-polar to a uni-polar to a multi-polar world -The adaptation of NATO and the EU to Putin's malign actions -The importance of development assistance in past, present, and future wars -An assessment of Ukraine's resistance on the battlefield -An encouraging note to the people of Germany This podcast episode is part of the U.S. Election Speaker Series, which was organized in cooperation with the Aspen Institute Germany and the Association of German-American Centers (AGAC), and kindly supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.

***This episode is from our brand new series called "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" to commemorate the 250-year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.*** In this introductory episode, you will learn about some key events leading up to the Declaration of Independence. Check out additional information at amerikazentrum.de. If you have any thoughts, please share them on our YouTube channel: @declarationofindependence250. Here is the timeline: 1756-1763: The Seven Years' War AKA The French and Indian War 1763, 10 February: Treaty of Paris (ended the war) 1763, 7 October: Proclamation of 1763 (set the boundaries for Indian Territory) 1763-1766: Pontiac's War (Native American Coalition vs. Britain) 1765: Stamp Act (Tax on Printed Material Used in Colonies) 1766-1767: Townshend Acts (Levied More Taxes on Colonies) 1770, March 5 : Boston Massacre (Protest against Townshend Acts, 5 Protesters Killed) 1773,16 December : Boston Tea Party (Protest against Tea Act) 1774: Intolerable Acts (Punishment for Boston Tea Party) 1774: Dunmore's War (Colony of Virginia vs. Shawnee and Mingo Nations) 1774 September-October: First Continental Congress 1775, 19 April : Battles of Lexington and Concord 1775: Second Continental Congress begins 1775, 5 July : Olive Branch Petition (Final Attempt by Congress to Avoid War) 1776, 11 June : Committee of Five Established (to Write Declaration of Independence) 1776, 4 July : Final “Fair” Version of Declaration Completed