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European, German, and Russian Studies

Max Kade Center for European and German Studies

About Us

The Max Kade Center for European and German Studies promotes global understanding through lectures, workshops, conferences, and film screenings on European culture, history, and politics. Inspired by Max Kade’s philanthropic vision, the center advances academic exchange, scientific progress, and dialogue across borders. Rooted in a legacy of fostering German-American relations, the center's activities illuminate contemporary conflicts while encouraging collaboration and mutual respect.

By connecting scholars, students, and communities, the Max Kade Center is committed to cultivating cross-cultural understanding, supporting international cooperation, and strengthening the exchange of ideas essential to addressing global challenges and building lasting relationships among nations.

John C. Kornblum Lecture

The Max Kade Center proudly hosts the annual John C. Kornblum Memorial Lecture Series.

Kornblum, former ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany and assistant secretary of state, joined Vanderbilt in March 2023. He played a key role in Vanderbilt’s second Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats in April 2023 before his death in December. An esteemed diplomat, statesman and scholar, Kornblum was involved in ongoing initiatives to help grow Vanderbilt’s international reputation and expand the university’s global influence.

The grandson of German immigrants who was fluent in the language, Kornblum began his diplomatic career in Hamburg, Germany, in 1964. In 1985 he was appointed United States minister and deputy commandant in Berlin. While in that position, Kornblum orchestrated the iconic appearance of President Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate in June 1987, where the president famously exhorted the communist leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, to “Tear down this wall.”

The lecture series honors Kornblum’s legacy and Vanderbilt’s commitment to thoughtful global dialogue. The inaugural lecture in 2026 was given by Metin Hakverdi, coordinator of transatlantic cooperation for the German government. As a member of Germany’s federal parliament, Hakverdi reflected on leadership and democratic cooperation.

Max Kade Center Awards

The Max Kade Center regularly presents awards to deserving students. These awards range from fellowships for the purpose of academic travel to financial awards for exceptional academic achievement.

News and Events

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Past Events

  • 2026
    • January 16 – Paola Gambarota (Rutgers University), “American Naples: Cross-Cultural Memories of an Occupation”
    • January 30 – Hakim Abderrezak (University of Minnesota), “From Sea to Seametery: Migrants, Refugees, and Europe’s Closed Frontiers” [Due to Ice storm moved to September 18)
    • February 17 – Metin Hakverdi (Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation for the German Government and a member of the Bundestag), Inaugural John C. Kornblum Memorial Lecture
    • February 24 – Alexander Schmidt in collaboration with Hanna Kostiv (Vanderbilt University), “2000 Meters to Andrivka by Mstyslav Chernov and Alex Babenko”
    • March 3 – Adam Hunter (Vanderbilt University Alumnus and Pathways International), “Transatlantic Partners Reshaping Global Migration”
    • March 20 – David Gramling (University of British Columbia), “An Accidental Trilogy: On Ten Years Writing about (the Future of) Monolingualism”
    • March 26 – Mark Mazower (Columbia University), “On Antisemitism: A Word in History”
    • April 10 – Paul Duguid (University of California, Berkeley), “The Aging of Information: From Info-Enthusiasm to Info-Anxiety”
    • April 14 – Andrew Counter (Oxford University), “Immoralism: Sex, Ethics, and Modern French Literature”
    • April 17 – Sven Beckert (Harvard University), “Capitalism. A Global History”
  • 2025
    • January 30 – Robert Kelz (University of Memphis), “A Scripted Silence: The Diary of Anne Frank in post-Peron Polyglot Buenos Aires”
    • January 31 – Elsa Filosa (Vanderbilt University), “Women Writing to Women in Mid-1300s Italy”
    • February 18 – Anne Gaëlle-Sailot (Duke University), “On Modernity: Godard and Baudelaire”
    • February 19 – Barbara Hahn (Vanderbilt and Free University of Berlin), “The Most Ingenious Woman of the Universe: Thinking with Rahel Levin Varnhagen”
    • February 28 – Film Screening “A Rising Fury”
    • March 4 – A Roundtable discussion with David Blackbourn (Vanderbilt), Alexander Schmidt (Vanderbilt), Christian Schütz (Honorary Consul of Germany in Tennessee), and Thomas A. Schwartz (Vanderbilt), “Germany’s February 23rd, 2025 Election: A Turning Point?”
    • March 5 – A Roundtable Discussion with Stephen D. Dowden (Brandeis University), Caroline Jessen (Dubnow Institute Leipzig), and James McFarland (Vanderbilt University), “100 Years of Kafka at Vanderbilt”
    • March 19 – Valeria Finucci (Duke University), “Choosing to be Fat: Prospero Alpini’s Egyptian Women”
    • March 27 – Simone Paoli (University of Pisa), “European Integration and International Migration: A Historical Perspective”
    • April 3 –Wendy Timmons (Vanderbilt University), “Animated Silhouettes: Filmmaker Lotte Reiniger”
    • April 10 – Exhibit and Workshop with Caroline Jessen (Dubnow Institute Leipzig) and Markus Krah (Leo Baeck Institute New York), “From Berlin to New York: Schocken Books in Search of the Modern Jewish Reader”
    • April 11 – A Roundtable with Maya Bridgwaters, Allison Kaplan, and William Ledesma, Presentation of Senior Honors Theses in European Studies
    • April 17 –Trevor J. Thomas (Vanderbilt University), “Therapie unter Zwang: Resocialization and Criminal Therapy in the West German Prisons, 1945-1980”
    • September 25 – Simone Marchesi (Princeton University), Dante Lecture on "Visualizing Dante"
    • October 3 – New York's Kaleidoscope Russian Folk Dance Ensemble
    • October 16 – Julia Phillips Cohen (Vanderbilt University), “Madame Louna’s Mediterranean: An Ottoman Jewish Third Place in Belle Époque Paris”
    • November 6 – Kieran Coffey (Vanderbilt University), Territorial Reorganization of a Non-State: The Politics of Reichsreform in the District of Pyrmont, 1919-1923”
    • November 13 – Anja Wehler-Schöck (International Editor at Der Tagesspiegel), “Chancellor Merz's First 180 Days: Policy, Politics, and Public”
    • December 1 – Veronika Fuechtner (Dartmouth) and Tobias Boes (Notre Dame University), “Why reading Thomas Mann Matters?”
  • 2024
    • February 29 – Stella Ghervas (UCLA), “Europe, Empire, Peace: A Reappraisal”
    • March 1-3 – Co-sponsoring of the Italian film festival “Cinema Ritrovato”
    • March 20 – Nicholas Mulder (Cornell University), “Hegemony and Efficacy: Politics and Globalization in the History of Sanctions”
    • March 25 – Michael Link (Deutscher Bundestag), “German-U.S. Cooperation in a Multi-Polar World”
    • April 5 – Johann Gottfried Herder Symposium, “The Actuality of the Enlightenment: Contextualist Readings of J.G. Herder in the 21st Century” with Eva Piirimäe (Tartu University), Gregory Moore (Georgia State University), Nigel DeSouza (University of Ottawa), Robert Norton (University of Notre Dame), and Alexander Schmidt (Vanderbilt University)
    • Co-sponsoring of a project celebrating Study Abroad at Vanderbilt University as part of the university’s 150th birthday: https://legacystudyabroad.vanderbilt.edu/present/6462859a0e84bc00141417aa/timeline
    • September 19 – Benjamin Ziemann (University of Sheffield) “‘Then they came for me…’. Martin Niemöller, Protestant antisemitism and post-war Holocaust remembrance”
    • October 2 – Kristjan Prikk (Ambassador of Estonia to the United States), “Security, Prosperity and the Future of European Democracy”
    • October 17 – Paul Grimstad (Yale University), “interested in everything and nothing else: remarks on polymathy”
    • October 21 – Alison Cornish (New York University), Annual Dante Lecture “Dante’s Journey and the Point of the Soul”
    • October 31 – Olga Gershenson (University of Massachusetts Amherst), “Zombies, Ghosts, and Golems: Israeli Horror Films”
    • November 7 – Nicholas Goodell (Vanderbilt University), “Red Cats: Communist Women and the First Concentration Camps 1933-1935”
    • November 12 – Stefan Hoeppner (University of Münster), “Why Regional Literature? Notes from a Westphalian Museum” [cancelled)
    • December 9 – Helmut Walser Smith (Vanderbilt University), “Restitution, Mourning, and Memory: Buttenhausen in the Early Federal Republic of Germany”
  • 2023
    • August 31 – John Kornblum (Ambassador in Residence, Vanderbilt University), “Redefining the Atlantic”
    • September 8 – The Future of Opera: A Symposium (keynote by Anne Schreffler, James Edward Ditson Professor of Music, Harvard University), co-sponsored
    • October 10 – Klaus Vieweg (Professor of Philosophy, Jena University) “Hegel’s Adventures in Wonderland, or The Beginning of Philosophy”
    • October 16 – Celeste Ray (Director of Environmental Arts and Humanities and Chair of Anthropology), “Ethnoscience, Climate Change and Regenerative Practices at Ireland’s Holy Wells,” co-sponsored
    • October 23 – Fireside Chat with British Ambassador, Dame Karen Pierce and Morgan Ortagus
    • January 19 – Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ambassador of Ireland, “Ireland: The Global Island and A Gateway to Europe”
    • January 26 – Lucia Allais (Associate Professor of Architecture, Columbia University), “Sandbagged Monuments: An International History”
    • February 8 – Udi Greenberg (Associate Professor, Dartmouth College), “Christian Sex and Religious Pluralism in Twentieth Century Europe”
    • February 22 – Ben Ratskoff (Visiting Assistant Professor, Hebrew Union College), “Demonic Grounds of Comparison: Black Writers on Nazism in Real-Time”
    • March 29 – Marianne Hirsch (William Peterfield Trent Professor Emerita of English, Columbia University) and Leo Spitzer (Professor of History Emeritus, Dartmouth College), “Memory in Liquid Time: Photography as a Medium of Possibility and Repair”
    • April 6 – Alice Stašková (Professor of German, University of Jena), “Als ob: Der Fiktionalismus von Hans Vaihinger in Literatur und Theorie”
    • April 14 – Lauren Stokes (Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University), “Harlem in Germany: Race, Migration and the American Analogy in the Federal Republic”
  • 2022
    • September 14 – Caroline Jessen (Leibniz Institute for Jewish History & Culture) presented “Why Does It Matter Where Literary Texts Are Coming From? New Directions in Provenance Research in Literary Studies.”
    • October 7 – Jesse Spohnholz (professor of history, Washington State University) presented “A Reformation of Refugees: Dutch Protestant Escapees to the Holy Roman Empire, 1550–1600.”
    • November 8 – Amelia Glaser (professor and endowed chair in Judaic studies, UC San Diego) presented her translations of contemporary Ukrainian poetry.
    • November 9 – War in Ukraine, NATO, and the Future of Europe: A Conversation with Mikko Hautala, Ambassador of Finland to the United States, and Morgan Ortagus, former State Department spokesperson. Watch a recording of this event here.
    • November 10 – Jorge Pérez (Peter T. Flawn Centennial Professor at the University of Texas at Austin) presented “Insta-flix Celebrity and Fashion: A Brave New Convergent World?” as part of the ongoing Conversations in Film and Media lecture series.
    • February 24 – Kristin Romberg (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) presented “The Days of Soviet Propaganda” on Russian avant-garde art.
    • March 2 – Emily Levine (Stanford University), Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University (University of Chicago Press 2021). An interview with David Blackbourn.
    • April 4 – Katharina Pistor on inequality and the law. Co-sponspored by Vanderbilt Law School.
    • April 14 – Alexander Schmidt (DAAD Professor, Vanderbilt University), Friedrich Schiller’s Philosophical History.
    • June 8 – 9 – Ari Joskowicz, Kateřina Čapková, Martin Fotta, and Helena Sadílková facilitated and organized the workshop “Romani History – Methods, Sources, Ethics” presented by the Prague Forum for Romani Histories at the Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with Vanderbilt University, Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Seminar of Romani Studies at Charles University.