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About the Center
The Center for German and European Studies at the University of Minnesota (CGES) is vitally concerned with enhancing knowledge about all aspects of Europe. We promote research, teaching, training, and community education on Germany and Europe in a trans-Atlantic context. In an era of fully developed globalization the most productive attempts to understanding Europe require a model that is dynamic and brings together Europeans and Americans from a wide variety of disciplines and perspectives. We also believe that the best assessments of future opportunities and developments in the relations between America and Europe are grounded in a thorough understanding of Europe's past.
The Center was first established in 1998 as a consortium of the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) and the University of Wisconsin (Madison) with major funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and matching funds from the two universities. In 2008, CGES became a stand-alone center. The DAAD and the University of Minnesota provide major annual funding. CGES is one of only six such centers in the United States.
Major CGES Programs
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Research Collaboratives
This annual program supports innovative research—on German and European economics, politics, history, and culture—among faculty and graduate students from multiple disciplines and institutions.
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European Symposia
This yearlong lecture and workshop series is a showcase for some of today’s most exciting scholarly work on Germany and Europe.
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Trans-Atlantic Summer Institutes (TASI)
This fellowship program, meeting alternately in Minneapolis and at major European universities, helps develop the next generation of experts on Germany and Europe through intensive summer seminars for 12 North American and 12 European graduate students.
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Undergraduate Curriculum
This program helps faculty develop exciting new interdisciplinary courses on Germany and Europe.
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Akademie DeutschlandStudien Wittenberg
Unique in the United States, this fellowship program each year sends ten K–12 teachers from the Midwest and other areas in the continental United States to historic Lutherstadt Wittenberg (Germany) and Berlin for an intensive professional development program, enabling them to integrate new knowledge of Germany and Europe into their language, history, and social science curricula.
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Community Engagement
CGES supports dynamic Twin Cities projects such as the Children's Theatre Company's Neighborhood Bridges initiative, the International Film Festival, and cultural exhibitions.
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Special Events
This program brings leading international experts on German and European politics, economics, history, and culture to the University and to venues in the greater community.