Different forms shape knowledge in different ways. In the fifth episode, Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen introduce a German and an American scholar who study the aphoristic form, namely Gerhard Neumann (1934-2017) and Adam Gopnik (b. 1956). These introductions serve as a starting point for a discussion of the thinkers Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), and Elias Canetti (1905-1994). Key themes include the tension between analytical and spiritual forms of wisdom literature, the conflict between thought and feeling, dogmatism, and epistemological humility.

The meaning of a poem is the least interesting thing about it. In the fourth episode, Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen share the satirical wisdom of two great transatlantic journalists and savage social critics, Karl Kraus (1874-1936) and H. L. Mencken (1880-1956). Key themes include linguistic precision, anti-foundationalism, politics, journalism, and—most importantly—wit, sarcasm, and humor.

The truth disappears when we summarize and paraphrase. In the third episode, Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen turn to wisdom literature written by two transatlantic women whose lives span three centuries, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) and Sarah Manguso (b. 1974). Key themes include historical understandings of social castes and gender, feminism, tensions between nature and artistic creation, and the philosophical relationship between the fragment and the whole.

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd. In the second episode, Coyle and Swensen trace the evolution of thought from the Enlightenment period (1685-1815) through the Romantic era (1800-1850) and Nietzsche’s lifetime (1844-1900) and lastly on to the Modernist era (1900-1940) by focusing on a number of key transatlantic figures. Key themes include the art of interpretation, the creation of philosophical systems, and tensions between rationalism and artistic creation.

Everything that matters is difficult to understand. In the first episode of Transatlantic Wisdom, Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen unpack the meaning of Nietzsche’s famous line that we have killed God. They then assess the influence of Nietzsche on Wallace Stevens’ poetry, namely his famous poems The Snow Man, The Surprises of the Superhuman, and The Emperor of Ice-Cream. Key themes include the seduction of language, problems with subjectivity, and the importance of patient interpretation.

The Trans-Atlanticist at the Amerikazentrum in Hamburg is delighted to announce the launch of our new six-part series called Transatlantic Wisdom, which explores the rich interchange of ideas between Germany and the United States over the last several hundred years.
The series is hosted by two fantastic professors: Michael Coyle and Alan Swensen of Colgate University in New York. Michael is an expert in Modernist literature and poetry and Alan is German scholar and translator of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Episodes will be released every Friday for the next six weeks starting on June 10.

In this episode, Andrew Sola and Christina Neuhaus, political correspondent for the Agence France-Press in Berlin, analyze the complexities of Germany’s relationship with Russia since World War II. They focus on the gratitude felt by many Germans for the Soviet Union’s approval of German reunification, the guilt felt for atrocities committed against Russia during the Second World War, as well as the greed that created an increasingly unbalanced economic relationship with Russia, driven by energy imports.

In light of the pending rollback of abortion rights by the US Supreme
Court's conservative majority, Stefanie Schäfer and her guest Judith
Rauscher turn to a world without men--as imagined in literary texts from
the turn of the 20th century. Reading feminist utopias such as Charlotte
Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915) and Mary E. Bardley's Mizora. A Prohpecy
(1880/9), they discuss literary representations of an ideal same-sex
state, whiteness, beauty standards, and the interlacing of progressivism
and conservative views of womanhood in the US at a time when women
fought for suffrage and civic equality.

In this episode, Andrew Sola and the Trans-Atlanticist's EU expert Guenter Danner discuss the French election rematch between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. They then delve into the consequences of Viktor Orban's decisive victory in Hungary for the EU, Russia, and Ukraine.

With her guest Nele Sawallisch, Stefanie discusses Esi Edugyan's 2018
novel Washington Black. With Olaudah Equiano's 1789 autobiography as
intertext, the novel entangles the adventure story with the slave
narrative. As Washington Black travels from Barbados to the Arctic, from
Virginia to London, his narrative asks about the (hi)stories that remain
out of the light and the making of 19th century discoverer personas
against the backdrop of gratuitous black labor.