Call for Submissions: DDGC Blog

Recent discussions at scholarly conferences, on listservs, on various social media platforms, and beyond have yielded important insights about four areas of consideration that should inform our engagement patterns as we continue to think about German studies, its pasts, its present, and its futures. These are: 

1. The severe status of the German job market: what advocacy models are needed or are emerging to tend to the plight of those in precarious positions or those unemployed? How should/does this job market situation inform current graduate program practices? What is the role of non-PhD-granting institutions in these debates/discussions? 

2. Disability rights: in the context of transition to emergency remote instruction, discourses about accessibility of instruction have not proliferated as much as they should have. Beyond remote instruction, what considerations about disability rights in the context of language/culture studies instruction across the curriculum and across/beyond the campus community should be foregrounded in our debates about German studies? 

3. Ageism: a number of our collective members has noted an alarming rise in ageism discourse that informs our considerations about the profession. What critiques of this culture of ageism should be foregrounded as we continue our discussions about German studies? 

4. “We all have to be generalists.” Structural features of German studies have shaped a discourse around generalists. In PhD programs, we emphasize that students must show they can be generalists. In hiring, we prefer people who can teach flexibly across areas of expertise. What this has authorized is an empowerment of people in programs with limited staff to teach any subject matter relatively independent of expertise and training. Can we think critically about this process of fostering a structure of generalists?

We invite submissions for the DDGC Blog that touch upon the four areas above. We especially hope to amplify the research and perspectives of graduate students, contingent faculty, and faculty at any stage of their career who belong to a historically and structurally marginalized community in the academy. If you are inspired to write a blog post but don’t feel it aligns with the themes above, not a problem! Reach out and let's chat.