The Fate of German Studies after the End of the Cold War

Abstract

Fifty years ago?shortly after World War II?modern language professors gathered for the first time, at the University of Kentucky, to examine the major task that lay ahead of them?namely, to restore intellectual contacts with colleagues in this country and abroad, to rethink the goals of foreign language programs after the turmoil of a global war, and, in the German case, to reconsider the values and possible use of German culture after the experience of National Socialism. For the United States it was certainly a moment of historical optimism: after the defeat of Germany and Japan, the country was ready to accept the challenge of global leadership that was be stowed on it when the European powers were clearly no longer in a posi tion to resume traditional roles of domination. The organizers of the first Kentucky conference, whether they fully understood the global historical shift of those years or not, must have grasped the unexpected opportunities for foreign language departments that came with the new global mission of the United States, opportunities that were soon channeled into the rigid mold of the cold war, in which every phenomenon, whether political or cultural, was looked at and defined in terms of its function in the struggle between democracy and totalitarianism. Clearly, language and literature programs had to be strengthened so that they could participate in the larger rebuilding and expansion of the American university, which for the first time made a serious attempt to