Waterloo Centre for German Studies events

[Katja Czarnecki]

Dear colleagues,

Please join us in the official opening of the photo exhibit "The Ideal 
World of Dictatorship AND The Beier Collection. A double exhibition," 
marking 20 years of German unification, on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 
3:00 pm in the Atrium of Modern Languages (ML) at the University of 
Waterloo. We welcome the German Ambassador and the German General 
Consule to this opening. The exhibition is on display in the halls of 
Modern Languages from 16 February until 11 March, 2011. It is sponsored 
by the German General Consule in Toronto and the Waterloo Centre for 
German Studies.

German Ambassador Dr. Georg Witschel will also give a lecture and 
round-table discussion entitled “International Law and the War on 
Terrorism” on Wednesday, March 2, 2011, 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm, Modern 
Languages (ML) 245. The lecture and discussion are in English. Everyone 
is welcome.
Abstract: Terrorism is neither new as a crime nor as a security threat. 
It did not begin with September 11 and it has not ended since then. 
Rather terrorism is an age old phenomenon, which however develops and 
changes over the years. Contemporary terrorism is different from 
previous forms because of (1) the globalisation of terrorist movements 
in terms of their transnational ideology, agenda and membership together 
with network-style decentralized structures and (2) the perfection of 
asymmetric warfare, where the victim is not a target as such, but rather 
part of a communication strategy -resulting in an increased lethality of 
terrorist attacks, (3) and the fact that internal and external security 
have become less clearly separable.

Also in connection with above photo exhibition, Prof. Andrew Port (Wayne 
State University) and Prof. Gary Bruce (University of Waterloo) will be 
"Debating East Germany: A dictatorship - but what kind?" on Friday, 
March 11, 2011 at 11:00 am in ML 245.
East German history is one of the most contentious fields of European 
history. Historians differ vastly in their views of the former German 
Democratic Republic, with descriptions of the regime ranging from 
repressive and totalitarian, to one where citizens led a 'perfectly 
normal life'. Andrew Port of Wayne State University and Gary Bruce of 
the University of Waterloo will discuss these different approaches to 
the post-war Communist dictatorship.

Hope to see you there.
Grit Liebscher
Acting Director, WCGS


Prof. Grit Liebscher (German Applied Linguistics)
Associate Chair, UG Studies
Germanic and Slavic Studies, University of Waterloo
200 University Ave. West, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, Canada
519-888-4567, x. 35695