Rachel (left) and Madison

For the month of February I was an intern along with Madison Alley at the Internationale Heiner-Müller-Gesellschaft, or the International Heiner Müller Society, of which our Academic Director, Dr. Janine Ludwig, is the Chair of the Board of Directors. The IHMG is a non-profit literary society that constantly works to preserve and further the works of Heiner Müller and the discussions surrounding his life and plays. The society focuses on a wide range of work related  to Müller  including the spreading of his work internationally, initiating translations, following the conversations about his work, initiating projects and documentations, as well as hosting colloquiums and workshops about Müller. Recently, the IHMG organized and hosted a conference in Berlin about Müller’s continued relevance in contemporary society which the full year Dickinson in Bremen students attended, (http://blogs.dickinson.edu/bremen/2014/10/06/berlin-excursion-and-transatlantic-conference/) including myself. Heiner Müller is considered one of the most important German playwrights of the second half of the 20^th century.

For the first three weeks of the internship Madison and I worked together on the composition of IHMG’s first newsletter of the year and then completed a multitude of translations including the newsletter, biographies of the members of IHMG and the descriptions of the past Müller Monday events, an event that IHMG hosts each month in cooperation with the Literaturforum at the Brechthaus. As we completed these translations we got a better idea of both the work that IHMG does and the members of the society. Finally, at the end of the month, we put this information to use when we traveled to Berlin for a week to work alongside the Chief Executive of the IHMG, Anja Quickert. For this week we worked on more translations, assisted with the preparation and running of February’s Müller Monday panel discussion, and discovered the city of Berlin as we handed out hundreds of flyers about IHMG’s events and the society in general.

This internship was great for me simply because it helped improve both my knowledge of German and even English through the work with translation. Working with IHMG was, however, most rewarding, because of the opportunity it gave me to work closely with the head of a non-profit organization. After Dickinson I hope to go into the non-profit sector and work to advance literacy around the world. So the short introduction I got in the inner workings of IHMG as well as receiving practice both networking for the society and thanking the donors are invaluable moments for me. I look forward to taking my experience at IHMG and applying it to my work post Dickinson. >Rachel Schilling<