Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was a German goldsmith, inventor, printer, and publisher who introduced printing to Europe with his mechanical movable-type printing press. His work started the Printing Revolution in Europe and is regarded as a milestone of the second millennium, ushering in the modern period of human history; an overview of the wide acclaim of Gutenberg’s accomplishments is found in several sources. In 1999, the A&E Network ranked Gutenberg no. 1 on their "People of the Millennium" countdown. In 1997, Time–Life magazine picked Gutenberg's invention as the most important of the second millennium. Four prominent US journalists did the same in their 1998 resume, ranking his impact high in shaping the millennium. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes Gutenberg’s invention as having made a practically unparalleled cultural impact in the Christian era. It played a key role in the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, Age of Enlightenment, and Scientific Revolution, as well as laying the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study of international relations, but works with languages and artistic traditions, so as to understand cultures 'from the inside'". While most frequently practiced with works of different languages, comparative literature may also be performed on works of the same language if the works originate from different nations or cultures among which that language is spoken.
American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, history, society, and culture. It traditionally incorporates literary criticism, historiography and critical theory.
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fifty people, the first president of the association would be Lester Frank Ward. Today, most of its members work in academia, while around 20 percent of them work in government, business, or non-profit organizations.
The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany, named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. With approximately 32,000 students (2018) in about 100 schools and clinics, it is among the largest universities in Germany. Starting on 1 January 2005 the university was reorganized into 11 faculties of study.
Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa was an American scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory. She loosely based her best-known book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, on her life growing up on the Mexico–Texas border and incorporated her lifelong experiences of social and cultural marginalization into her work. She also developed theories about the marginal, in-between, and mixed cultures that develop along borders, including on the concepts of Nepantla, Coyoxaulqui imperative, new tribalism, and spiritual activism.
Walter Lee Harrison, a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an American scholar of American Literature and Culture, and is most recently president emeritus of the University of Hartford, in West Hartford, Connecticut. Currently Harrison sits on the board of trustees for Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
American studies as an academic discipline is taught at some British universities and incorporated in several school subjects, such as history, politics and literature. While the United States of America is the focus of most study, American Studies can also include the study of all the Americas, including South America and Canada. The methods of study are interdisciplinary, and students and researchers come from many fields, including anthropology, cultural studies, history, literature, film studies, gender studies and economics. Because of Britain's long association with the Americas, there is also a history of comment and analysis of the geography, culture and peoples of America, from Sir Walter Raleigh and Charles Dickens to Rudyard Kipling and Alistair Cooke.
Appalachian studies is the area studies field concerned with the Appalachian region of the United States.
The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz, Germany, is an independent, public research institute that carries out and promotes historical research on the foundations of Europe in the early and late Modern period. Though autonomous in nature, the IEG has close connections to the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. In 2012, it joined the Leibniz Association.
Winfried Fluck studied German, English and American literature at Freie Universität Berlin, Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. In 1972, he got his doctoral degree from Freie Universität Berlin with a dissertation on aesthetic premises in the literary criticism of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. For his Habilitation, the European qualification for a professorship, he wrote a study on American realism as a form of “staged reality” (Inszenierte Wirklichkeit). After visiting scholarships at Harvard and Yale University, he got his first appointment as a professor at the University of Constance in Germany before he became Professor and Chair of North American Culture at the John F. Kennedy-Institute for North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Winfried Fluck taught as a guest professor at Princeton University and the Universidad Autonoma Barcelona, and he was a research fellow at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina, the Advanced Studies Center of the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, and the Internationales Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum in Vienna. From 2005-2008, he was chair of the Research Reviewing Committee of the German Research Council on the humanities. He is a founding member of the Graduate School of North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, funded by the German Universities Excellence Initiative, and is directing it together with Ulla Haselstein. He is also co-director of the Futures of American Studies Institute at Dartmouth College established and directed by Donald E. Pease.
The Mainz University of Applied Sciences, is a 1971-founded university located in Mainz, Germany. The University of Applied Sciences Mainz consists of three faculties: School of Technology, School of Design and School of Business. The common feature of all fields of study is the practical orientation of the university, the short periods of study and the internationally orientated courses. In 2009 the School of Business, the School of Engineering with the departments Geoinformatics and Surveying and the administration of the university moved to the new location "Campus". All other departments will move as well in the near future to the new location "Campus".
The Austrian Studies Association or ASA continues traditions started in 1961, as the only North American association devoted to scholarship on all aspects of Austrian and Austrian-associated cultural life and history from the eighteenth century to the present.
Karlheinz Oswald is a German sculptor known for his portraits and cast iron sculptures, many of dancers, often displayed in public places. He studied at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz from 1981, and between 1983 and 1988 worked in Thomas Duttenhoefer's studio in Wiesbaden. Oswald began to produce his first sculptures of dancers in 1988, and the following year his first stained glass windows were displayed at the International Sculpture Symposium in Dreieich. He has operated his own workshop from 1989. In 1991 he won the Sports Toto prize including a trip to New York where he studied movements of dancers at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He collaborated from 1996 with dancers of the Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, who inspired his sculptures.
The American Studies Association (ASA) is a scholarly organization founded in 1951. It is the oldest scholarly organization devoted to the interdisciplinary study of U.S. culture and history. The ASA works to promote meaningful dialogue about the U.S., throughout the U.S. and across the globe. Its purpose is to support scholars and scholarship committed to original research, innovative and effective teaching, critical thinking, and public discussion and debate.
Udo J. Hebel is a German professor of American studies. He has been president of the University of Regensburg since 1 April 2013. He was selected as one of the ten best university rectors in Germany by the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers.
Vicki Lynn Ruiz is an American historian who has written or edited 14 books and published over 60 essays. Her work focuses on Mexican-American women in the twentieth century. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal.
Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of the Humanities and Professor of English at Stanford University.
Johannes Paulmann is a German historian.
Celu Amberstone, sometimes seen as Celu Amberston, is a Canadian writer of fantasy and science fiction.
