Today: The Crisis of the Humanities and Prospects for Language Students in the US (MLA President Russell Berman)

You are cordially invited to a talk by MLA President Russell Berman at Deutsches Haus at NYU, Today 6:30 p.m.

42 Washington Mews, New York, NY, 10003

The Crisis of the Humanities and Prospects for Language Students in the US.

A talk by Russell Berman

Russell Berman's talk deals with the challenges to language study as a component of a wider crisis faced by the humanities in US higher education. This paper provides a historical frame to evaluate this crisis, while relating it to problems in student learning, especially with regard to language skills. The role of recent government education policy in contributing to the decline of language learning is discussed. The paper concludes with some specific proposals to expand second language learning in the US.

Carlos Alonso and Catherine Porter will act as respondents to the talk.

Biography: Russell A. Berman is the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, with appointments in the Departments of Comparative Literature and the Department of German Studies, which he now chairs.

Berman specializes in German literature and culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and on wider problems of European and trans-Atlantic culture. He is the author of numerous articles and books including Enlightenment or Empire: Colonial Discourse in German Culture (1998) and The Rise of the Modern German Novel: Crisis and Charisma (1986), both of which won the Outstanding Book Award of the German Studies Association. Other books include Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem (2004) and Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture ( 2007). At Stanford, he is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institutions and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and he is a recipient of the Bundesverdienstkreuz of the Federal Republic of Germany. He is also the 2011 President of the Modern Language Association, as which he has consistently advocated for expanded opportunities for second language learning.

DAAD sponsored event