MGV Congress

4th MGV Congress: Centers and Peripheries - German and its Intercultural Relations in Central Europe

The Middle European Association of Germanists (Mitteleuropäischer Germanistenverband - MGV) invites you to its 4th congress with the title "Centers and Peripheries - German and its intercultural relations in Central Europe" from 10th to 12th April 2014 at the University of Erfurt. The congress will be hosted by the president of the MGV, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Csaba Földes and his Department of German Linguistics. The congress is under the patronage of Mrs. Christine Lieberknecht, Minister President of the State of Thuringia.

As at the last three congresses in Dresden (2003), Olomouc (2007) and Vienna (2010), Germanists from Central Europe as well as from outside, who deal with the language and culture of the culturally descriptionable Central European area, are welcome. The MGV - as an intercultural and cross-border association - is planning the Congress 2014, which will not only deal with the "centers" of German language and culture, but also with the "peripheries", which relativize the hard language borders and enable interrelations between them.

Besides Germany, Austria and Switzerland, there are several "centers" in Central Europe where German is spoken and/or where rich cultural traditions exist. These centers - literally seen as mid-points - can thus also refer to language islands or German-speaking cultural or traditional areas. Outside the centers are the respective peripheries, which are all too often considered to be of marginal importance. However, the peripheries represent important connections, they connect different centers and thus also establish relationships between the individual languages of Central Europe. The German language, as a language in the center of Europe, has proven to be a mediator between cultures in both diachronic and synchronic linguistics. Other areas of German studies, such as literary studies and subject didactics, are increasingly expanding their research topics to include an intercultural perspective. The 4th MGV Congress aims on the one hand to provide an inventory of interculturally oriented German Studies with reference to Central Europe, but on the other hand, new research approaches will be discussed and debated.