Introduction: Traveling Forms (Global German Studies)

Abstract

The present Covid-19 pandemic has brought the contradictions of our global existence into sharp relief. While the spread of the virus across national and continental borders has raised the awareness of global entanglements, the resultant closure of national borders even within the European Schengen Area locked people down in place and brought transnational movement to a halt. With most academic conversations having moved online, the 29th Annual Berkeley Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference, held February 19-20, 2021, gathered a group of scholars from across the globe to address the state of our discipline in times of uncertainty and transformation. The breadth of approaches contained under the disciplinary heading “German Studies/Germanistik'' can be at times dizzying, but we believe this ultimately to be a strength of what we call German Studies. Ours, perhaps more than many others, has been a discipline seeking to redefine itself by deconstructing its originary conception – in the sense both of its initially nationalistic orientation as well as its theoretical foundations and antecedents.