A cult of private fealty to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler grew in the years before World War II, reflecting public fawning by the Reich's city fathers. These love letters – some from prominent Americans – now read as a warning.

Jon Gottschall is a man you want at every academic dinner party. He seems to have read everything, takes interest in the work of others, and can converse for hours about anything.

Michael Shaughnessy reports the untold story of Frieda Thiersch—and the mysteries of her life, her motives and her books

I am signing off as a BB guest blogger. It has been a great deal of fun to post here occasionally and I was very happy to contribute to a… Read the rest of the article: Guestblogger signing off!

I invite you to make the journey deep into the heart of Bavaria. Only 90km from Munich lies Abensberg in the Hallertau, the world's largest hop growing region. Abensberg is… Read the rest of the article: Welcome to Bierwelt, Bavaria's theme park based on beer

I am in Munich teaching a three week travel-course with some of my German majors. In preparation for this course, I have been digging through a number of items to… Read the rest of the article: Art-mageddon: Artistic impulses in post-war Munich

I recently posted a collection of archetypal images from 1895 to the CAPL web site. These images were drawings by Ferdninand Wüst as 'figural compositions', or images that symbolically tell… Read the rest of the article: 1895 Viennese Archetype Images

As a language teacher, I am always making my own materials. Good language teachers do this habitually. We don't only rely on content provided to us; we constantly tinker with… Read the rest of the article: CAPL, an open multilingual photo dictionary

Photo: Wikimedia Commons I have been covertly testing airport security since early 2002. I file no reports and the only notes I take are mental. I am the person that… Read the rest of the article: Testing the TSA with Titanium Man

As a book freak (bibliophile is just too refined to describe my love for certain bound publications) I have been researching the case of a particular poetry volume for a… Read the rest of the article: How (not) to exterminate a book.

Anton Schutz in his studio When talking about immigration, it is either an often cited or often forgotten fact that most of us here in the USA are decendents of… Read the rest of the article: My Man Anton Schutz: An Immigrant's View of the New York

Pittsburgh's weird geography means that you never know quite what lies underfoot. Old maps and folk history reveal the forgotten graveyards hidden beneath asphalt and office blocks — or reclaimed by nature.

A selection of untinted vintage color photographs, dating to 1906, of locations in Europe. The set was marked: "Institute for Color Photography, Carl Weller, Berlin/Verlagsanstalt für Farbenfotographie, 1906."

Greetings from one of the best places in the world to learn foreign languages! DLI, CIA University? No, a small town in Vermont that hosts an annual summer language institute:… Read the rest of the article: Postcard from Language Camp

How we see the world impacts our use of language and our use of language impacts how we see the world. Cognitive scientists in the vein of Benjamin Whorf regularly… Read the rest of the article: Seeing Languages Differently

We may ask why the US sends troops abroad, but the fact is that we do send large numbers into a region about which they have little knowledge and almost… Read the rest of the article: How the military improved its language education

Chramer, gip die varwe mir (Shopkeeper, give me color!) is a line from a drinking song in the Carmina Burana, a medieval collection of songs and poems in Old Latin… Read the rest of the article: Chramer, gip die varwe mir! Germans and Colors

Photo: Hryck. / Todd Pennsylvania is sometimes referred to as "East Utah" in regards to its legendarily restrictive alcohol laws. Where else in the United States were you forced to… Read the rest of the article: Labeling the consumer: how mindless ID-scanning can hurt customers