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CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
X-WR-CALNAME:The German Blues. A Historian’s Perspective on the Rise of R
 ight-Wing Populism in Eastern Germany
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Mountain Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260808T155532Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_51970132919700
DTSTART:20260306T230000Z
DTEND:20260307T010000Z
DESCRIPTION:The right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD)\, r
 ecognizable by its light-blue campaign color\, has become a major force in
  German politics. In upcoming state elections in eastern and western Germa
 ny as well as in Berlin\, the AfD is expected to increases its share of th
 e votes even more and may even become unavoidable in government formation 
 in some regions\, such as Saxony-Anhalt. While right-wing populism has gro
 wn across the country\, its rise over the past decade has been especially 
 pronounced in eastern Germany.\n \n\nHistorian Dorothee Wierling explores 
 the deeper historical reasons for the AfD’s particular appeal in the Eas
 t. She argues that current political discontent is rooted in a longer expe
 rience of perceived marginalization that began with Germany’s defeat in 
 World War II and the division of the country during the Cold War\, when We
 st Germans came to see themselves largely as winners and many East Germans
  as lasting losers.\n\nThe analysis draws on two oral history projects: on
 e conducted in 1987 in the former GDR with people born before 1930\, and a
 nother carried out after reunification with members of the 1949 birth coho
 rt. Planned interviews with AfD voters and party members in a village in S
 axony-Anhalt will extend this perspective. Together\, these sources offer 
 a multi-generational view of eastern German experiences based on what cult
 ural historian Jan Assmann calls communicative memory.\n \n\nDorothee Wier
 ling was deputy director of the Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Ha
 mburg\, Germany\, and professor of contemporary history at the University 
 of Hamburg until 2015. Her focus is on social history of the 19th and 20th
  centuries\, oral history and gender and generational history. She publish
 ed Inside World War One? The First World War and Its Witnesses (with R. Be
 ssel\, 2018) and Eine Familie im Krieg: Leben\, Sterben und Schreiben 1914
 -1918 (2013).\n\n \n\nThis lecture is part of the Gerda Henkel Lecture Tou
 rs that were established in 2018 by the Pacific Office of the German Histo
 rical Institute Washington in cooperation with the Gerda Henkel Foundation
 . Each year\, the series brings leading German historians to the West Coas
 t to present their latest research and to engage in conversations with div
 erse academic and public audiences across North America. This year\, the G
 HI is partnering with CU Boulder's Department of History. The lecture is a
 lso the keynote of the GHI West's Eighth West Coast Germanists' Workshop t
 hat takes place at CU Boulder on March 6-7. For more information\, please 
 contact Prof. T. Pegelow Kaplan at thomas.pegelow-kaplan@colorado.edu.
GEO:40.008826;-105.270405
LOCATION:Norlin Library\, Center for Global British & Irish Studies Room (C
 GBIS Room)\, Room M549 (fifth floor)
SUMMARY:The German Blues. A Historian’s Perspective on the Rise of Right-
 Wing Populism in Eastern Germany
URL;VALUE=URI:https://calendar.colorado.edu/event/the-german-blues-a-histor
 ians-perspective-on-the-rise-of-right-wing-populism-in-eastern-germany
CATEGORIES:Lecture/Presentation
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