100 Years of DAAD Alumni: Laurence McFalls

Laurence McFalls at left with his partner in the Open Memory Box project (and DAAD alumnus!) Alberto Herskovits © Laurence McFalls / Alberto Herskovits

As part of marking DAAD’s 100th anniversary, we have invited our Canadian alumni to share the impact that their DAAD experience had on their lives. Today we hear from Laurence McFalls, Professor of Political Science, Université de Montréal, former Director of its Centre canadien d’études allemandes et européennes (CCÉAE) and co-creator of Open Memory Box, an online repository of home movies from the GDR.

Which DAAD program did you receive support through?

Over the course of my academic career, I was fortunate enough to receive three DAAD Research Stay grants, but DAAD was a founding sponsor of le Centre canadien d’études allemandes et européennes at the Université de Montréal through its program in support of Centres of German and European Studies. I was a faculty affiliate of that centre and its Director for a number of years

Laurence McFalls in 2019 at one of the DAAD supported summer schools for doctoral students in Germany© L. McFalls

When you think of your DAAD experience, are there any stories, memories, or reflections that come to mind?

While the Research Stay program for Faculty was essential for maintaining my research contacts in Germany, I would especially like to thank and congratulate the DAAD more generally, but also specifically, with regard to its funding of its network of German and European Studies Centres, for its generous liberalism.

In an age when funding agencies around the world are tying more and more strings to research funding while imposing or discouraging particular research topics, the DAAD has always proven not only open to, but also encouraging of, free, fundamental, and critical research in German and European Studies understood in the broadest sense. The DAAD can be sure that such intellectual liberalism has both established a community of scholars fiercely loyal to the DAAD and grateful to Germany as well as permitted a vitality of enquiry that would not be there if the DAAD had tried to orient research.

I know that my comment remains at the level of generality but I base it on 35 years of close collaboration with the DAAD, with over a dozen DAAD-Dozenten at Université de Montréal, and with other German Studies scholars across North America who all share my gratitude. May the DAAD continue on its liberal path for the coming century of darkness that encloses us.

What comes to mind when you think of your DAAD experience in Germany?

A pied-à-terre in the German academic scene. I feel that I know the scholarly community in Germany better than that in North America.

What impact did this experience have on your career? Your life?

My research and career would never have gravitated around German thinkers and German problematics without repeated support and encouragement from the DAAD. It’s funding of the CCEAE at Université de Montréal also guaranteed that new generations of students and colleagues have been drawn to Germany and German Studies.

Is there anything you wish you had known before you went to Germany?

Yes, just how important the DAAD is not only across the German academy but in the world. I hope these 100th anniversary celebrations bring more attention to the quiet, understated manner of the DAAD.

What advice would you give a young scholar thinking of applying to a DAAD program?

Go for it! You’ll regret nothing (except maybe the difficulty of using the DAAD application portal….)