German Studies

Academic Resources

Vassar College Libraries

German Studies Reading Room

Vassar librarian Ron Patkus maintains an online German Studies Reading Room, which provides quick access to an organized array of scholarly resources in German Studies as well as a wide variety of links of interest to students of German, including a convenient listing of German-language news sources on the web.

Special Collections

The Vassar College Library also has a rich collection of rare books and other materials in the Catherine Pelton Durrell ’25 Archives and Special Collections, including children’s books printed in Germany during the 19th and 20th centuries, first editions of German works, early editions of the Grimm Brothers’ fairytales, and several interesting late 19th and early 20th-century German periodicals. In addition, the collection contains pamphlets and other printed items dealing with the world wars, the rise of Nazism, and the image of Jews in Germany. Most recently, the Library received the Morris and Adele Bergreen Albert Einstein Collection, 1919–1988 with Einstein’s correspondence with his executor Otto Nathan as well as other materials documenting his social activism. These items are regularly used in German classes, which often meet for a session or two in special classrooms located in the Library’s Special Collections Department.

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center serves as an important resource for German Studies courses, which have often met in the Art Center’s classroom to view items from Vassar’s substantial collections. In addition to its own extensive permanent collections in painting, prints, drawings and sculptures, it frequently features visiting exhibitions representing the most important German artists of the past and present, including a special exhibition of Käthe Kollwitz drawings, Käthe Kollwitz: The Art of Compassion in 2003 and, more recently, Albrecht Dürer: Impressions of the Renaissance in 2009.

Selected Online Resources