Multiple ‘generations’ of UW German scholars were represented at the Atkins Goethe Conference in San Antonio, Texas in November. Both the current and incoming presidents of the Goethe Society of North America received their PhDs from the University of Washington. It was hosted by Trinity University, home of Prof. Heather Sullivan (UW Phd, 1995), the current president of the GSNA. The conference is held every three years, and in 2027 it will take place at the University of Illinois, Chicago, home of Prof. Heidi Schlipphake (UW Phd, 1999), the next president of the Society. Prof. Ellwood Wiggins, incoming Director at Large, presented the annual essay prizes at the conference banquet. Recent UW PhDs Prof. Jeffrey Jarzomb (University of Nebraska) and Matthew Childs (Wake Forest University) participated in or moderated panels as well. Professor Emerita Jane Brown, a founding member of the society and its second president, could not attend in person, but her name was on everyone’s lips.
Ellwood, Heather, Matthew and Jeff
The overall theme of the conference was “Goethes Welt/Welten” (Goethe’s World/Worlds), and we spent three days exploring both the excitingly freeing and dismayingly troubling ways that Goethe and his contemporaries changed how the world could be conceived in our present.