Senior presents research learned during study abroad, internship, Richter travel

North Central College Scholar Louis Waldmeir ’13, majoring in German and minoring in history of ideas, presented research from his senior honors thesis at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio, on Oct. 27. The presentation, titled “National Tradition and Local Meaning: The Relevance of German Beer Culture,” was given to an audience of students and faculty as a part of Heidelberg University’s series of German Club-sponsored events.

Waldmeir returned to North Central this fall from a summer trip to Germany funded by a Richter Independent Study Fellowship and advised by Gregory Wolf, Dennis and Jean Bauman Professor in the Humanities and professor of German. He used the funding to research Germany’s complex and changing regional beer culture in the cities of Heidelberg, Bamberg, Munich and Freising.

In fall 2011, Waldmeir studied abroad in Germany at the Universitat Heidelberg and interned at Brauerei zum Klosterhof, an organic German brewery located in the courtyard of a monastery dating back to the 1200s.

“The internship sparked an interest for me in Germany’s beer culture,” says Waldmeir. “My honor’s thesis deals with the intertwining nature of German history, beer and greater German identity and culture.