Germanists Discussion Group

Sunday, June 27, 2004

9:30-11 a.m.

Sheraton World Resort Orlando

Caribbean B

 

Minutes

 

Welcome and Announcements:

 

Gordon Anderson invited members to consider participating in the Frankfurt Book Fair, October 6-10, 2004.  This year’s Guest of Honor is The Arab World.

 

Discussion Topics:

 

1. German-Americana Collections

 

Frances Ott Allen described different kinds of German-Americana collections and the background and holdings of the German-Americana Collection at the University of Cincinnati Libraries, which just celebrated its 30th anniversary. 

 

In 1935 the university purchased the personal library of Heinrich Hermann Fick, a German-American educator who wrote textbooks, edited journals for children, wrote essays on pedagogy, and was involved in the German-American literary scene.  In 1974 the German-Americana Collection was established as a Special Collection.  It now contains around 10,000 items, including well-known standard works as well as rare, scarce, and previously unrecorded and "grey" materials.  It has recently been bequeathed the Robert Cazden library.  Its website is:

  <http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/ger_americana/>

All items are searchable in the online library catalog, and in addition in 1990, KG Saur published a two-volume classified catalog of the collection (Tolzmann, Don Heinrich. Catalog of the German-Americana Collection, University of Cincinnati. München; New York: K.G. Saur, 1990) which contains analytics not in the online catalog.

 

Frances discussed the use of the collection, and reminded the Group of several useful books in the area of German-Americana:

-- Arndt, Karl John Richard and May E. Olson. The German language press of the Americas, 1732-1968: history and bibliography. 3rd rev.ed. München: Verlag Dokumentation, 1976. – The bibliography in vol. 1 lists US serials and is arranged alphabetically by state, city, and title. A search for "Cincinnati" retrieves over 200 different newspapers or periodicals that were published at one time or another in Cincinnati.

-- Ward, Robert E. Bio-Bibliography of German-American writers, 1670-1970.  White Plains, NY: Kraus, c1985. This focuses on German-American authors of creative literature.

-- Arndt, Karl John Richard and Reimer C. Eck, eds. The First century of German language printing in the United States of America :  a bibliography based on the studies of Oswald Seidensticker and Wilbur H. Oda.2 vols. Göttingen : Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, 1989. A wonderful bibliography that stops at 1830, just as German publishing inland began.  Frances called for a continuation beyond 1830.  In 1992 she published a checklist of Cincinnati German imprints.

 

Frances also mentioned The Society for German-American Studies, an international organization.  Its web page is currently hosted by IUPUI:

http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/kade/sgasin.html

 

General Discussion on the topic of German-Americana Collections:

 

Kati Radics announced that UCLA is collecting current materials which are housed in the general stacks.

Helene Baumann reminded the Group that Duke owns the Harald Jantz’s German-Americana Collection, most of which is in Special Collections.

Jim Niessen announced an exhibition in New York City on the General Slocum disaster. This involved a ship fire which killed many German immigrants.

[The Greater Astoria Historical Society maintains a photo gallery of the disaster

http://www.astorialic.org/photo/slocum/slocum_index.shtm

and a Google search yields more information]

Laura Dale Bischof  reminded the Group of UC Berkeley’s Bay Area German Linguistic Fieldwork Project (BAG) that began in 1984.

Jim Burgett reminded the Group of the presence German-speakers in the Kentucky region. The "Turnverein" was an important entity in 19th century Louisville.

Jeff Garrett reported that Northwestern has worked with the Chicago Historical Society on a number of online projects relevant for the study of German-Americana. One is called "The Dramas of Haymarket," and is actually an extended account of Chicago history between the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 to the events at Haymarket in 1886, when a dramatic confrontation between the city establishment and the socialist movement in Chicago, dominated by German immigrants, ended in death and violence. See <http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/overview/over.htm> for more. There is also a sizeable "Haymarket Affair Digital Collection" at <http://www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/index.html>.
A project to inventory the ethnic newspapers of Chicago and make them available online is also in the works.

Thea Lindquist announced the Frances H. Ellis Collection of German Textbooks, housed in theDepartment of Special Collections at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It consists of some one thousand textbooks (1860-1970) of North American origin (chiefly USA) in the area of German language, literature, and culture.  The bulk of the collection consists of products of major publishing companies whose titles were broadly distributed; what little regional publishing is represented in the collection comes chiefly from the upper Midwest.

 

 

 

2. Non-German authors writing in German

 

Dick Hacken reported on the Mongolian poet/shaman Galsan Tschinag, whose biography and 1999 "Defense of Poetry" address appear on www.poetryinternational.org and whose poetry has been published by a Swiss publisher. His name in his native Tuvan language is Irgit Shynykbai-oglu Dshurukuwaa, and he was born in 1944 as the youngest son of a nomadic cattle herder.  He studied German in Leipzig, began publishing prose and poetry in German, and, in 1992, won the Adalbert von Chamisso Prize.  Dick Hacken is translating Tschinag’s poetry from German into English.

 

Jim Burgett reported on the Japanese poet Yoko Tawada, who now lives in Hamburg. She has published many volumes of poetry in both Japanese and German. In fact, in one work, she presents her poetry one word at a time, first one word in German, then one word in Japanese. She employs word play and a magical use of language throughout her work.

 

General Discussion on the topic of Non-German authors writing in German (and more):

 

Marilen Daum reminded the Group that the Adalbert von Chamisso Prize is awarded to non-Germans who write in the German language.

Knut Dorn and Regina Lichti announced an additional authors list for in-house use by Harrassowitz that lists authors writing in German and which is sorted by their country of origin.

Kati Radics announced a recent name change. The French Department is now the UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies.

Others mentioned the growing interest in Literature in English from around the world.

Jeff Garrett noted that the Proceedings from the 2004 Paris Conference are in the works.

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