Freedom Without Walls
Celebrate 20 years of freedom in Germany and in Central and Eastern Europe. Spray paint a graffiti wall on Duke's West Campus and win a trip to Berlin! Take part in a speech contest -- and win a trip to Berlin! Take part in a charity run and donate money for SEEDS, a local charity. Come and celebrate at a formal Gala. See our exhibition on a wall that divided not just a city, but an entire hemisphere.
Come and discuss the revolution with Vera Lengsfeld, one of the leaders of the opposition movement against Socialism in East Germany. Imprisoned by Stasi, East Germany's secret police, Vera Lengsfeld later became a human-rights advocate and distinguished politican in unified Germany. After serving four terms in Bundestag, Germany's national parliament, she joins us at Duke for a special lecture.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is an unprecedented event in German and European history. It marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new age: the age of open borders, the age of globalization. Duke University has committed itself to facing the challenges and opportunities of this new situation. The Department of Germanic Languages and Literature, with its highly successful Duke-in-Berlin program (founded in 1988 and considerably expanded immediately after 1989), is part of a university-wide effort to participate fully in a world of interconnection and interdependence. The "20 Years Fall of the Wall" represents a wonderful opportunity to reflect upon and honor a truly transformative event and to look ahead towards a new global environment.
This project is linked to a wide range of academic activities of the department in the fall of 2009. Students at the intermediate level watch films of the event and read reports and poems discussing it along with materials such as museum catalogues and websites; students in the advanced conversation class receive assignments preparing them for participation in the public speaking competition; and upper-level courses feature works by writers from West and East Germany and concentrate on themes such as censorship and political repression, peaceful revolution, and German culture after reunification. The larger events forming the key components boost an existing range of "German" events such as Weihnachtsfeier, Viennese Ball, and Oktoberfest. Students at each level are invited to help with and participate in these celebrative occasions.
