AGI

Society, Culture & Politics

The AGI Society, Culture & Politics Program focuses on crucial topics within the German-American dialogue, including: demographic change, migration/integration, and aging societies; electoral politics at the national, state, and European levels, and comparative analysis of Germany and the United States; diversity within Germany, Europe, and the United States; the politics of collective memory and identity, Holocaust remembrance and reconciliation, and shifting conceptions of national identity that shape perspectives and policy responses.
Reset

QAnon Goes Global

“Please, Mr. President, make Germany great again.” It’s not every day that demonstrators in Germany plea for America’s president to come to their aid. But the August 29 anti-lockdown protest …

The Anticlimactic Opening of the Humboldt Forum

December will witness one of Germany’s (actually, Europe’s) biggest cultural events in at least a decade: the opening of a massive new museum and cultural complex in the heart of …

The Saga of Berlin’s Long-Delayed Airport Opening

It’s finally happening: Berlin will soon have a new airport. After decades of repeated delays and mishaps, Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) is set to open this fall, with service beginning …

The SPD Goes Back to the Future

German politics today is fit for a Greek tragedy, which is particularly true for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The quest for new leadership less than a year ago brought …

Episode 30: German Politics Heats Up

German political dynamics have made an early and perhaps unexpected change this summer, coming out of the “Sommerloch,” with two new announcements from the Social Democratic Party. First, the SPD …

#BlackLivesMatter: Social Unsettlement and Intersectional Justice in Pandemic Times

Notes From Black Berlin in the Summer of 2020 Seven years after the initiation of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and Opal Tometi, we are again facing …

Like Sands Through an Hourglass, So Are Angela Merkel’s Approval Ratings

German chancellor Angela Merkel may be cementing her legacy in the pandemic as the most popular leader in the history of the Bundesrepublik. While Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, …

Lucky Soldiers

Part Four of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins Introduction George H. Jordan, Jr. did not like the movie Commando.[1] He made this clear to me as the Arnold …

Up from the Cellars

Part Three of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins Introduction In the Introduction to her outstanding work of oral history of German women who lived during the Second World …

Education for Boys

Part Two of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins Introduction Rand Paul was frustrated. During a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, the Republican Senator …

Israel’s West Bank Annexation: The End of the Special German-Israeli Relationship?

Israel’s intended annexation of up to 30 percent of the West Bank is further straining its relationship with Germany, one of its most committed European allies, a key provider of …

Rubble Girls

Part One of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins Prelude: The End of the War Experience of a Seven-Year Old Girl I spent my seventh birthday on April 25 …