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Law in the Time of Party Rule: Humboldt University’s Law Faculty Under Socialism
The curious dialectic between law and socialism in the former East Germany
“Lawyers make bad Christians,” Martin Luther once said (“Juristen – böse Christen”). Why? Lawyers are too contrary, too skeptical, too willing to argue either side of any controversy in order to win. They have no talent for unquestioning faith, no convictions, no allegiance. This same rationale might explain, says Inga Markovits, the Ellen Maria Gorrissen Fellow at the Academy this spring, why Socialism, a secular religion of sorts, was always wary of its lawyers and kept them under tight control. »
How to Do Things with the Ordinary
Or, how the lecturer learned to stop worrying and love skepticism
Richard Deming, a poet and theorist at Yale University whose work explores the intersections of poetry, philosophy, and visual culture, thinks that the ordinary has things to teach us about belief and skepticism, and about hope and despair, about our own lives as reflected in the lives of others -- if we pay attention. »
The Berlin Journal on NPR Berlin (Spring 2012)
On this episode of the Berlin Journal, Brittani Sonnenberg, editor of the Berlin Journal magazine, speaks with prize-winning author and American Academy fellow Karen Russell (Swamplandia!) about her new book of short stories, tentatively titled Vampires in the Lemon Grove. Author Tara Bray Smith speaks with poet and philosopher Richard Deming, a lecturer in English at Yale University. »
“You Can Always Count on a Murderer for a Fancy Prose Style” – On Nabokov’s Lolita
Was Vladimir Nabokov's scandalous novel a moral tale?
On April 19, Leland de la Durantaye, the Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of English Literature at Harvard University, spoke about Vladimir Nabokov's scandalous novel Lolita, published in 1955. Nabokov was fifty-six at the time; it was his twelfth novel, his third in English, and "the finest he would ever write, amongst the finest ever written," Durantaye said. Since its publication, Nabokov's work has been read by millions and written about by thousands. »
The Steam-Powered Gardens of Potsdam and Berlin: Projecting Industrial Culture into the Landscape
Postdam and Berlin's 19th-century idyllic landscaped gardens and their debt to the industrial steam-engine
There were two distinct parts to M. Norton Wise's talk on the steam-powered gardens of Potsdam and Berlin: one that covered the royal gardens around Potsdam from 1815 to 1850, and the second about Berlin's industrial growth during the second half the nineteenth century. Both play a role in the fascinating history of topiary aesthetics and industrialization of Berlin and its lush environs during the swift change of the industrial age. »