Today, May 4th, American Studies Leipzig has opened its ASL Shop at spreadshirt.de. The shop offers a great variety of shirts, sweaters, tops, cups and other paraphernalia. Check it out right now at
asl.spreadshirt.net!

The Simon Dubnow Institute and American Studies Leipzig cooperate to organize a lecture and workshop on Jewish American Literature with Julian A. Levinson of the University of Michigan.

Julian A. Levinson holds the Samuel Shetzer Chair in American Jewish Studies at the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and Department of English Language and Literature, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

American Studies Leipzig participated in a teacher training workshop organized by the State of Thueringia and by the U.S. Consulate in Leipzig and held in Eisenach on 27 April. Just over fifty teachers of English and Social Studies heard a presentation by Crister Garrett on “Integrating Language Learning and Landeskunde: The Case of Teaching American Society and Environmental Politics”.

The annual University Studies Information Day (Studieninformationstag—where prospective students (and many parents!) can speak directly to representatives of the different university degree programs—saw strong interest in American Studies. About fifty curious high school students, often with parents in tow, approached the ASL Display to look at the presentation of the program and to ask staff members a variety of questions about what one can study, and what one can do professionally with a degree in American Studies.

Today, April 23, American Studies Leipzig and the Deutsche Bank have opened a photo exhibition of a 2006 Study Tour to Houston. The Deutsche Bank's main branch in Leipzig (Martin-Luther-Ring) has generously agreed to host the photo exposition put together by American Studies Leipzig students. In a brief ceremony, Mike Röseler of the Deutsche Bank and Hartmut Keil formally inaugurated the exhibition at 5pm.

The independent student newspaper for the University of Leipzig, Student!, gave special praise to the American Studies Leipzig student advising. At a time when many students are complaining about confusion and lack of sufficient advising resources, Student! noted that an exception to this trend can be found at ASL. The newspaper also quotes the American (and English) Studies Student Council as praising the American Studies Institute for its commitment to high quality student advising.

The University of Leipzig’s official news monthly, the Uni-Journal, covered the inauguration of the new Picador Professorship for Literature at the American Studies Institute in its April 2007 edition. As the author of the story underscored, “the Picador Chair is meant to further establish American Studies at Leipzig as one of the leading programs of its kind n Germany and to substantially encourage the further internationalisation of the university landscape in Saxony.”

American Studies Leipzig and the elite Rice University are in the process of intensifying cooperation. The ties between Leipzig and Rice were initiated through two Study Tours organized by Professor Hartmut Keil to Houston (home of Rice University) in 2003 and 2006 to explore diversity and civil society.

The United States Consulate in Leipzig and American Studies Leipzig cooperated on 17 April to offer a teacher training seminar looking at "Aspects of Contemporary American Society". Some twenty teachers from throughout the region (Mitteldeutschland) participated in the professional training seminar. Faculty member Crister Garrett offered a two-hour session on "Teaching American Politics: The Case of the Presidential Election 2008". A special focus of the session was how to integrate the internet into classroom teaching to allow students to "learn by doing".

Deutsche Bank's main branch in Leipzig (Martin-Luther-Ring) has generously agreed to host a photo exposition put together by American Studies Leipzig students that emerges from their study tour to Houston during September 2006. The theme of the study tour and photo exhibit is "Volunteerism, Diversity, and Civic Engagement". It looks at the religious, ethnic, and myriad of other factors shaping America’s dynamic culture of civic volunteerism, or grass-roots community activism.