Welcoming remarks by City Manager Christian Uhr,

City of Dortmund

 

Townhall discussion with Rep. Joe Cunningham,

(D-SC, 2019-2021)

 

and Rep. Tom Graves,

(R-GA, 2010-2020)

 

and Prof. Dr. Julia Faisst,

TU Dortmund

 

moderated by Viktoria Harbecke,

AmerikaHaus NRW

 

 

Congressman Joe Cunningham is a former U.S. Representative and political figure from South Carolina. His career in public service began when he was elected to represent South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District in Congress – the first Democrat to win that district in almost 40 years. During his time in the House of Representatives, from 2019 until 2021, he served on the Committees on Veterans’ Affairs and on Natural Resources. He was known for his advocacy on environmental issues, particularly offshore drilling, and his bipartisan approach to legislative work. Cunningham sought reelection in 2020 but was unsuccessful. He later ran for Governor of South Carolina in 2022 but was again defeated. Despite these setbacks, Cunningham remains an active voice in South Carolina’s political landscape. He practices law in Charleston. Before entering politics, Cunningham worked as an ocean engineer, lawyer, and business owner. He graduated from Lyon County High School in Eddyville, Kentucky, and later earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Florida Atlantic University. He went on to pursue a law degree, receiving his J.D. from Northern Kentucky University in 2014.

 

Congressman Tom Graves served in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than a decade, representing first Georgia’s 9th and later its 14th Congressional District. As a senior member of the Appropriations Committee in the House, overseeing more than a trillion dollars of annual spending, he has an excellent understanding of the complexities of government funding, operations and the agencies at the forefront of change. As Vice Chairman of the Special Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, he led the effort to modernize one of the nation’s oldest institutions. While representing one of the most Republican districts in the country, he was also respected for his bipartisanship. Before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, Graves was a Member of the Georgia House of Representatives, a real estate investor, and a small business owner. He currently serves as a Member of the Board for Nuclear Matters and of the Former Members of Congress (FMC) and was formerly an ABC News Contributor. As a north Georgia country boy, his life has been fueled by one slogan his father shared with him: Dream Big, Work Hard, and Achieve Much.

 

Julia Faisst is University Professor of American Studies and the Media at Technical University of Dortmund. She received her PhD from Harvard University and her venia legendi from the Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt, and held positions at the Universities of Regensburg, Notre Dame, and Wake Forest. She is the author of Cultures of Emancipation: Photography, Race, and Modern American Literature, the manuscript Precarious Belongings: The Unmaking of the American Home, 1980s-Now, and co-editor of Picturing America: Photography and the Sense of Place, I Did Not Interview the Dead, and a forthcoming special issue of the Review of International American Studies on “Blackness and the Knowledge of Intersectionality”. Her research and teaching draws on literature, (audio-) visual culture, and digital media and art to investigate the relationship of race and space, (child) migration, gender and intersectional inequalities, the climate crisis and Black environmentalism.

 

Viktoria Harbecke is the Director of the AmerikaHaus NRW. She previously worked for the leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder and for the transatlantic non-profit organization Atlantik-Brücke in Berlin. Her transatlantic experience furthermore includes stints with the German Atlantic Association and the German Embassy in Washington, DC. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in North American Studies and Political Science from the Free University Berlin, with an exchange year at the University of Pennsylvania, and holds a Master’s degree in International Relations. She is the inaugural Chair of the Association of German-American Centers.

 

The event will be held in English.

 

Tickets are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. We kindly ask you to only reserve the number of tickets that you will definitely use.

 

You do not need to print out your Eventbrite ticket. The name under which you reserved your tickets will suffice to enter.

 

This event is held in cooperation with Auslandsgesellschaft.de, Europe Direct Dortmund, the City of Dortmund, and the Association of Former Members of the U.S. Congress. It is kindly supported by the State Government of North Rhine-Westphalia.