Fulbright funding has supported my research and development as a scholar at key junctures. When I was awarded a grant from the Germanistic Society of America to conduct dissertation research in Frankfurt, Germany, during the 1986-87 academic year, I also received a Fulbright Travel Grant. This covered not only the flight to Germany, but the Fulbright orientation week in Bremen and attendance at a week-long Fulbright meeting in Berlin.
During that year, I was able to make great strides in my dissertation research, to experience the Historikerstreit firsthand, and to debate important points of Germany’s remembrance of its Nazi past with Fulbright scholars in Philosophy who were studying with Jürgen Habermas at that time.
In addition to Fulbright support for my dissertation research, I also have received two grants to participate in Fulbright German Studies Seminars: the first in 1996 (“Jewish Studies in Germany Today”) and the second in 2005 (“Current Tendencies in Contemporary German Literature”). These seminars afforded me the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues from across the U.S. as well as at German universities, to visit universities, research institutes, publishers, and cultural institutions in Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Heidelberg, and Leipzig, and to lay the groundwork for my current research project on the young German author Tobias Hülswitt.
The knowledge and insights I have gained from these experiences in Germany continue to inform my research and teaching. I am deeply indebted to the Fulbright Commission and welcome every opportunity to encourage students and colleagues to apply for grants from this wonderful organization.
